Trouble. (niall horan au)

chapter 28 - shady motels

"I'm assuming you want a room with a queen bed to share with the girl here," the man behind the front counter said, raising his eyebrows and casting me a sly glance. I stood beside Niall with the hem of his shirt bunched up in my fist, pressed tightly against his side as I looked around the lobby of the motel in awe.

"This is the absoloutley shittiest motel I've ever seen," I remarked, "Like, the shittiest." I raised my hand for a highfive with Niall. "Awesome." He just sighed.

"Abbey, sweetheart, I'm going to have to ask you to shush for a moment," Niall said, before directing his attention back to the man, who was busy hurriedly wiping orange Cheetos dust from his chubby fingers. "Right, well- actually, this probably looks bad. But, you see, she's my girlfriend and we just really need a room to stay in. It's a long story-"

"He got me drunk," I shouted enthusiastically, "And now I don't remember why right and left are relevant."

Niall grabbed an ancient looking lollipop from the bowl on the desk, tore off the wrapper, and stuck it into my mouth. I was confused on what to do with the sudden candy. I gnawed expiremently.

"Whatever you say, pal," the man said, "We have customer confidentiality here. We get people like you a lot." He laughed and tossed Niall a room key. Niall stared at the man as the keys bounced off his chest and landed on the floor.

"Shiny," I remarked, bending down to get them. "Niall, you're horrible at catching." I threw them at him again. They sailed past him and stabbed a near passerby in the eye.

Niall layed the cash on the counter. He straightened his shoulders, and I could tell he was getting his tough guy face on, as he usually does when he's intimidated (or hungry) (or whenever, actually) "Well, I was wondering if you could tell me where the-"

"Condom machine is? Through that door."

Niall looked horrified. "I was going to say the vending machine."

"I don't think I could eat a condom," I intelligently remarked.

"Oh," the man awkwardly cleared his throat, "Ah, yes, we have those too. Down the hall. To the right."

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I didn't have much experience in the practice of being extremely drunk. So, in fact, I probably wouldn't of even realized it if Niall didn't keep laughing at me about it every five seconds. All I knew was that it was late and I was somewhere I wasn't suppossed to be, with someone I wasn't suppossed to be with, and the air felt charged with all the secrets we had together. I couldn't go home, he couldn't go home, so what better a solution then to text my mom that I was sleeping at a friends house and rent a room for a night.

Niall was not as enthusiastic about the motel as I was. It made him tense, I could see it in rigid way he carried himself and how his eyes were in a constantly shifting cycle from me to the surroundings and back again. This place was apparently a "hot spot for perverts and ex-inmates".

I couldn't see it as a hotspot for anything. It seemed to be caught in a paradox several centuries before its time, everything old and coated with a fine layer of dust that was occasionally stirred by lazy ceiling fans overhead. It certainly did not help that while we were at the vending machine arguing over what candy to get, a man slid silently out from behind the machine and asked if we wanted to accompany him for a platonic threesome. I had never seen Niall abandon candy so fast.

"I really do not feel comfortable with you staying here," Niall said upon entering our room, "I swear, one day I'm going be able to get you everything you absoloutley deserve, kitten."

Whoever designed these rooms seemed to have a strong liking for the color beige, because that was basically the entire palate of the decorating, just in varying shades. From the two single beds (Niall ended up getting them out of spite) to the shag carpet and peeling wallpaper.