Sugar Babe [Completed]

Chapter Nine: Treading Mills

I kept trying to wrap my head around the familiarity of that hat. Did Minerva know the Bum? Did they rummage through the same dumpsters or something?  What the hell had she been doing in Paris?

My mind felt like it had run a marathon by the time we finally landed in London. Thankful, I was able to actually walk out of the jet with my dignity intact; I got into one of the many cabs that would be taking us to the hotel.

You could imagine how I jumped with joy when Johnny ended up sitting next to me.

I halfheartedly faked trying to get out from the opposite side, just so he could know how much I didn't want to ride with him.

"Go ahead, actually, can you wait until it's actually moving?" He told me sweetly.

"Wish I could, but I'll be too busy pushing you out of the car instead" I told him in a similar tone of voice.

The cab driver's chuckle was the only thing that could be heard, while Johnny and I turned in the opposite direction with a huff.

Good. Now I didn't have to see his annoying face for the damn ride. Why couldn't Amanda be the one to pick this cab?

Thankfully, the ride only lasted half an hour. We pulled up into a fancy hotel named 'The Dorchester'.

From the moment that we walked in, floral patterns and pastel colors attacked me. Talk about overkill. I understood that most hotels tended to adorn with flowery couches and shit, but this place had lace curtains and a chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

"When's tea time?" I muttered.

"Oh! You've heard about their award winning tea too?" Gola gushed from somewhere up front.

I was conscious during the check in, compared to the last hotel, for which I had been drunk off my ass. After being on a plane for so long, even if it was a jet, I was very sleepy.

I had tucked in my key card and the started to press the elevator button when I remembered Joshua.

Oh, right.

I had to get little Joshy to bed early.

I scanned the room and panicked, thinking that he had already pulled another disappearance stunt. He couldn't get out of my sight this fast right?

Johnny noticed my panicked state and told my wryly, "Chicken flew the coop?"

At that, I really started to panic. Twitching back and forth and scanning the room, I started to bite my nails.

Could he have gotten really far?

Jesus, it wasn't even five minutes since we got here!

"Don't worry he's probably in the weight room. He likes to check them out every time we go to a new hotel. You would have known this since the last place we stayed, but well...you weren't exactly sober..." Amanda trailed off awkwardly.

With a nod of thanks, I sprinted towards my room, lugging my huge bag with me.

I burst into the room once I found it. I kept telling myself to go down to the weight room quickly. Sure, I knew he was there at that moment. No doubt that he would disappear in a millisecond, though.

The weight room turned out to be an industrial looking place. No tea time in here. It was two in the morning; I had caught sight of the alarm clock when I was speeding out. Someone needed to get to bed soon, even if I wasn't totally sure why.

The room was pretty small and Joshua turned out to be the only person in it. He was lifting some weights and hadn't noticed that I had entered the room.