The Vacation

Chapter Seventeen

I woke to the sound of something like a waterfall to my left. Lifting my head groggily, I sat up. But not before I banged my forehead on a shiny silver thing sticking out of the wall. "Ow! Fuck!" I screamed.

I heard a spray of water or something and sounds of feet turning around in a tight circle on the floor. A voice beside me yelled something. Sounded like "Shit, Jess! What the hell, man! Why are you in the bathtub? Warn me next time! Holy hell!"

I turned my face towards the voice. And what I saw shocked me beyond words. I heard myself scream. I saw Marco standing there, in front of the toilet, pants unzipped. Well now I know what that waterfall sound was.

Trying to keep my eyes above his, er...hips, I said, rather brusquely, "Oh my fucking god, Marco! What the fuck?" Then, realizing my head was throbbing, I turned my volume down. "God, all this yelling has made my head hurt like a bitch. What are you doing in my flat, Marco? This early in the morning, especially?"

He looked at me. There were a lot of emotions flicking across his features but my head was killing me so bad that I didn't care or take the time to notice what they were. "Um....it's like 1:30? In the afternoon? And we're in a hotel room? How much did you drink last night, anyways?"

His statement made me wonder what exactly had went down last night.

I started to remember.

I remember looking around. There were only the two of us, another couple, and a handful of very drunk middle aged men in the bar.

Or maybe they were women? I didn't know; my vision was swimming.

I didn't know what time it was. Five? Six? Seven?

"Come on now. Can't have you here all night alone can I? You'll drink all my spirits without me! Now, let me call you a cabbie." The man had walked out of the bar and I heard a whistle. Next I knew he was gently pushing us towards the yellow car and telling the driver we needed to get to a hotel for the night.

When we got to the giant hotel, Marco gestured to the man at the front desk. I think he knew we needed a room, because we were hanging on each other to stay on our feet and swaying back and forth. I vaguely remember Marco humming a song or something.

He led us up to a room that was all white, making me blind. My eyes didn't like white walls and bright lights when I was drunk. Marco immediately chugged the water bottles and took a whole bunch of ibuprofen. I forgot he brought them until just now. I started to protest where was mine but my head started throbbing and he started snoring so I stopped.

I must have needed to go to the bathroom and then just fell asleep in the tub somewhere during the night. It didn't matter. My head hurt so bad and it was painful to open my eyes more than a squint. I gestured for Marco. Or in the vicinity of him, at least.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Here it is." He handed me my phone. "I've already responded to the little girl that is Alessio. And by the way, you look dead. Why didn't you take any ibuprofen before you fell asleep? I brought the whole bottle. Somehow I knew we were both gonna get more than a little sloshed. I already took more this morning, so I have a bit of a headache but I'm pretty much back to normal and ready to do it again tonight. Oh, and I ordered breakfast, by the way." He added the last part as an afterthought as he walked out of the bathroom. Sorry. "Loo." Then he poked his head in and threw me the bottle of aspirin. I must have been more hungover than I thought, because I didn't even react until the bottle bounced off my shoulder.

I grabbed the bottle, slid out three tablets, and popped them in my mouth once I finally got myself out of the large tub. I found a mini fridge in the room, which I opened to find full of cold waters. I grabbed four of them and chugged them down in one gulp.

I made it almost all the way to the small table and sitting area before spotting the large tray of food. There were yogurts, eggs, waffles, fruits, champagne glasses of orange juice, muffins, and a whole bunch of other shit that I just ignored. I had my sights set on a bowl of blueberry mango yogurt and a bite of a banana muffin. Which I practically inhaled, by the way.

Then I remembered something Marco had said. "Hey, Marco," I turned towards the bed, where he was laying, "what did Alessio want?"

He lifted his head from the pillow to look at me. "Oh. He was just worried sick about us and "where were we" And "didn't we know better to sneak off" and "how dare we miss the pancake competition". Oh, and he couldn't wait for us because he had to go to work so he left extra pancakes on the counter for us." Once he finished speaking, he flopped his head back on the pillow and proceeded to stare at the ceiling.

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Hey readers!

Sorry that was a sucky place to end the chapter but that's all I've got and I wanted to update tonight.

Don't forget to vote/comment/share if you liked it!

Hugs,
Hannah