Alan's Biggest Case

Chapter 3

They both get in the car and Alan asks "Where do you live? It's getting late, you should be getting home."

As Sam buckles himself in, he says "Just drop me off on Liberty and Johnson."

"What? No, I'm going to drive you home. It's pitch black outside and frankly, it's not safe for a kid to be out this late."

"No, it's okay, just drop me off."

"Sam, do you not have a place to stay?"

Sam doesn't respond and just looks out the window as Alan drives through downtown, and he looks up at the tall buildings with the sky lighting up as a storm comes in.

"Sam?" Alan asks, "Do y-"

"No, okay? I don't have a place to stay. I've been staying under the overpass where all the homeless people sleep." He yells as he begins to cry.

"Sam if you don't have a place to sleep, you're staying with me. I will have room service bring a cot up to my room so you have a bed. It's supposed to storm all night." He begins to turn the car around and head back towards the hotel he stays at. Sam doesn't say anything because he knows he won't get his way.

They walk down the hall and Sam sees a twin size bed frame with a small mattress. When they reach Alan's room, he unlocks the door and grabs the cot and follows Sam in. "I'm sorry for the mess, I wasn't expecting anyone to be here."

"You should've seen my room. This is nothing." Sam says as he sits down in a chair and flips through a book on the coffee table. Alan laughed as he prepared the small bed in a corner of the room. "I'm sure I, myself, have had worse, and I'm 44. An adult should not allow themselves to let their homes be this messy." He walks over to the closet to grab a blanket and pillow sheet so he can give Sam one of his pillows. "Alright, here you go." Alan places a neatly folded blanket and a pillow down.

Sam is still sitting in the chair flipping through the pages of books when Alan goes to prepare himself for bed. There's no wall between Alan's bed and the place Sam is going to sleep, so Alan had to go to the bathroom to change, which was different for him. He walked back out in his pajamas and realized Sam had nothing to sleep in, so he rummaged through his dresser to find something, and managed to find some sweatpants with a drawstring and a t-shirt. Both of them won't fit Sam since he's much skinnier than Alan, and shorter. Alan hands the clothes to Sam and points to the bathroom so he can go change.

Sam looks down at the old ratty clothes and laughs then gets up to go change. When he put the sweatpants on, the legs were way too long and they kept falling. He walked out of the bathroom in the oversized clothes, holding the pants to keep them from falling down. Alan laughed and walked over and pulled tightly on the drawstrings, and tied it so they wouldn't fall down.

Alan made sure Sam was comfortable before he went to bed, and when he laid his head down on the pillow, he heard Sam quietly say, "Goodnight Mr. Shore, thank you."