Miles from Home - Max and Harvey Mills FanFiction

Miles from Home - CH 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Sitting on the padded cushion of a beige seat, I stare at the abstract print hanging in front of me on the white wall of the hotel room. The colors are reminiscent of a snow-capped Mt. Fuji, but the scene also looks like the shoreline of a tropical beach. Atop the light tan wood of the desk before me, I finish reviewing—and memorizing—Max's schedule for the week before typing some notes on my laptop. On the bottom bar of my screen, it's 6 p.m. on the 25th of September—the night after the Shoreline performance.

I glance across the black and brown hardwood floor toward the black glass of the pocket door to the bathroom just as a metallic thud hits the floor behind the door—probably just Dalton dropping his belt or his phone after finishing his shower. Somewhat exhausted, I glance to my right at my bed—one of two beds in the room that I share with Dalton so that the company could cut costs on travel expenses—both are topped with white linen bedding, a golden-yellow accent pillow and a matching decorative blanket folded lengthwise to run across only the bottom quarter of the mattress. At the side of each bed there are bedside tables resembling white cubes, one of which has a fresh pair of Dalton's gray boxerbriefs—as usual, he forgot to take something with him when he went to the shower.

A minute or so later, the pocket door slides open and Dalton steps out wearing a white towel around his waist and another white towel over his head as he rubs it into his hair with both hands. His smooth pale skin glistens with slight moisture underneath the warm glow of the recessed ceiling light above him. He saunters over to rummage through his luggage that's sitting atop the chair of his own desk at the far corner behind me, and adjacent to the window overlooking the pool and hot tub two stories below, in the open-air, central courtyard.

"We're finally off work, and yet, you're still working," he says, returning towards the bathroom with a pair of black boxerbriefs in his hand.

"You left your gray ones on your nightstand." I say, smirking as I return to type notes on my screen.

"Oh, for—thanks." His voice trails off as he disappears into the bathroom. He pops his head back out to ask, "aren't you tired?"

"Not really."

He shakes his head in obvious disapproval of me continuing to work, before closing the bathroom door. The gentle whoosh of the sliding pocket door closes, reminding me of opening the sliding glass door to my landscaped backyard garden in the home I grew up in—now only a few dozen miles away. I finish typing the last of my notes and switch over to review Harvey's schedule—making sure there aren't any possible conflicts, before moving onto a quick check of the tour-specific notes. I close my laptop and take a seat on my bed, sinking down into the plush mattress a few inches. It's surreal to return to the area that I still feel is my home, but not have a home to go back to—and that's not to mention how surreal it is that I'm only here on business because of Max and Harvey, who are in their own suites down the hall. Even after a month, I still feel as if this is all just some illusion—especially, seeing Max almost every day. There is a whoosh of the door as it opens again, Dalton reveals himself in a white shirt and light gray shorts.

"Finally, off your laptop, then?" Dalton asks as he takes a seat on his bed across from me. "Do you know what you want to do for dinner?"

"Honestly, I haven't really given it much thought," I say as I lay back onto the bed and close my eyes.

"I'm sure those two are probably too tired to do anything else tonight. Did you want to go do something—" His pleasant, low voice stops mid-sentence as the low rumble of a vibrating phone starts somewhere in the room near Dalton's direction, followed by the shuffling of his feet across the hardwood floor. "Sorry, scratch that—Harv wants to go out."