“Don’t I know it.” Mom sighs in the background.
Monica holds up a stretchy white dress.
“No, that’s totally see through.” I gasp.
Mom snatches it off her and throws it over her arm.
“What kind of guy are you trying to attract?” Monica asks. She picks up a lace underwear set. “Oh, this is hot.”
Mom throws it over her arm.
“I’m not looking for a man.”
“Will you stop being such a prude?” Mom snaps.
“Regi isn’t coming back, Haze.”
“I know that,” I snap.
“So why are you waiting for him?”
“I’m not,” I splutter. “I just haven’t met anyone I like, that’s all.”
“Okay, so you’re telling me that if Regi walked back through those doors tonight and asked you to marry him, you would say no?” Monica picks up a teeny red dress and holds it up.
“Of course I would say no.” I snatch it off her and put it back where it came from.
Regi was my boyfriend of five years, my high school sweetheart. He went to college and never came back.
“So what kind of guy?” Mom prompts me.
“Hmm.” I think for a moment. “Blond. Capable. Hardworking. Animal lover.” I keep looking over the racks. “A virgin would be nice.”
“Virgin?” Mom gasps, horrified. “You want someone who knows what he’s doing at least!”
“What I want is a loyal man who loves me with all of his heart.”
“A virgin isn’t going to do that,” Monica huffs. “He’ll practice on you and then wonder what else is out there.”
“Sloppy seconds aren’t my style,” I reply casually. “And besides, you two can stop planning. I’ve got this. I will know him when I see him.”
“Oh . . . because a blond, animal-loving virgin is going to run right into you in Spain?” Mom rolls her eyes.
“I know.” I smile broadly. “I can feel it in my waters.”
CHRISTOPHER
“Can I help you?” A voice sounds from behind the counter.
“Umm . . .” I look around, wondering if I should run now while I can. “I have a booking.”
“Hi,” the guy says. “I’m Nelson.”
“Hi, Nelson. Christo.” The boys decided that I shouldn’t use my real name in case someone recognizes it. No idea how they came up with Christo, though. I sound like a count or something.
“Let me look.” He logs in to his computer and reads the screen. “Ah yes, here you are. You are booked for ten days?”
I nod as I peer back in at the frat party going on in the bar.
“You have paid in advance?” he asks.
I nod again. No idea why I did that.
“I’ll show you your room.” He walks out from behind the counter. “Come this way.”
I follow him.
“You’re in the fossil room.”
“Fossil room?”
“It’s where we put the oldies.”
“I’m hardly old,” I splutter.
“Anyone over twenty-five is considered old here.”
“Oh . . .” I look around some more. That makes perfect sense: nobody over twenty-five is stupid enough to come to this shithole.
“Ta-da.” He opens the door, and the blood drains out of my face.
Bunk beds, three sets of bunk beds. All in the one room.
“There must be some mistake. I ordered a single room.”
“Yeah, they are all gone. You only get one if they are available.”
I narrow my eyes at this fucker. “So . . . what’s the point of booking in advance, then?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs as he walks into the room. “This is your bed, here.” He taps a bed on the bottom.
“You expect me to sleep underneath someone?”
“Yeah.”
“What if the bed breaks and they fall right through and kill me.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs happily.
“You don’t know much, do you?”
“I just work here, man.” He walks back out of the room. “Here is your locker.” He taps the PIN pad. “You set your own code to get into it. Put your backpack down, and we will come back to put it in. Lock everything up at all times.”
I drop my backpack onto the floor, and I look at the lock. I hope he shows me, because fuck knows how I do that. I keep following him as I try to concentrate on what he is telling me.
“This is the laundry.” He opens the lid of a washing machine. “Tip, don’t leave anything here. It will be stolen.”
“Right.”
He leads me out to a large outdoor courtyard. “The kitchen is at that end. We supply three meals a day here, but you eat whatever is cooked. There are no choices.”
“Right.” I look around at my surroundings. Every wall is a different bright color. I feel like I’m in a kindergarten or something.
Kindergarten of hell.
“At the other end is a bar. It’s cheap and nasty, but it does the trick. It closes at twelve every night, so it’s not an all-night thing.”
I peer down at the bar end to see the frat party. Beer bong is in full swing as feral people drink like it’s their first time away from their parents.
“Got it.”
“Come and I’ll show you the bathroom,” he says as he’s already walking down the hall. He opens a door in the main corridor. “This is it.”
I inhale deeply at the horror before me. “Charming.”
Stall after stall, shower after shower.
“No sex,” he says casually. “Condoms in the bin if you do.”
I frown, disgusted. “Why would you need to tell me that?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Gross.
“So there you have it.” He puts his hands on his hips as if proud. “That’s it.”
“Thanks.”
“Call me if you need anything.” He saunters off.
I stare after him. You’re just going to leave me here all alone?
“Drink it down, down, down.” The voices echo from the bar area. Laughter and screams can be heard.
I look around, unsure what to do.
I walk back up the corridor and put my backpack away. I go into my room . . . only it isn’t my room, and I realize that I’ve never felt so uncomfortable in my entire life.
I go to sit down but then realize that I can’t even sit on the bed; I have to lie down.
Fuck this—I’ll go for a walk.
With a sense of dread, I set out into the streets of Barcelona . . . now . . . what the hell do you do in a city with no money?
Three hours later I walk back into the hostel. I couldn’t stomach the thought of dinner at the hostel. I had dinner in a restaurant.
I now have $1,800 left. I’m quite sure that $100 steak wasn’t on my budget.
Tomorrow I’ll budget better.
As I walk up the corridor toward the bar, a girl grabs my arm. “Oh, hi, you’re the new guy in our room?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Bernadette.”
“Hi, I’m Christo . . .” I cut myself off before I say Christopher.