Obsession

Ch 4 - Hooker

Before I could even respond, Traci hopped up off the bed, plugged in her flat iron, and was frantically throwing clothes around, looking for something to change into.

"What? How do you know they're here?" I questioned, but still took her lead and started going through my suitcase as well.

"One of those update accounts just posted a picture of a girl with Ashton at a donut shop downtown. They said she just now met them. So they're still here! Oh shit, what can I wear?"

We ended up wearing the clothes we'd just bought, since we hadn't had the chance to wear them yet. We both ran the flat iron over our hair, touched up our makeup, got an Uber, and were out the door in 10 minutes. We're fast, but that was a record for us.

About 5 minutes into what seemed like the longest Uber ride in history, Michael posted a video on Instagram. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, except we saw enough of the room to verify that they were still at the same hotel that we tried to stay at two nights before. Thank you, Google.

We tried our luck once again, and were able to book a room online for the night. We didn't really expect it to pan out after what had happened before. But if it did, we'd have to go back to the other hotel at some point to gather our belongings before our flight the next morning. But we were desperate, so whatever.

When we walked into the hotel, Andrea was at the desk again and recognized us right away, even though we looked a hundred times classier.

"Hello, Miss Johnson! I saw your name pop up on the list, and I was pleased to see you'd decided to stay with us again! I'm going to hook you girls up. How'd you like a suite tonight for no extra charge?" she asked with a wink.

"Oh, okay. That sounds great," I tried to answer casually as though we always stayed in such fancy places. But when Andrea asked if we had any bags with us that they could help us with, I didn't feel classy at all. Actually, I felt like a hooker there to meet up with a customer. I couldn't think of any other reason why a couple of girls wearing slightly revealing (but I maintain the classy statement) outfits would be reserving a room at a hotel with no luggage whatsoever. I didn't even have a purse. But something about the way Andrea looked at us told me that she knew exactly why we were there.

The suite was unlike any hotel room I'd been in before. I'd lived in apartments that would fit inside it.

We looked around and oohed and ahhed, peed, and brushed our teeth with the complimentary toothpaste and toothbrushes. You know, we had to have fresh breath in case our crazy plan worked and we actually ran into one of the guys.

Traci sat down on the bed, but I was too nervous to be still. I was pacing in front of her and asked, "So, now what? We're in the hotel, but how do we find them?"

Traci laughed. "I have no idea! Can you fucking believe this? We're crazy. Certified bat shit crazy. What the fuck are we even doing?"

"I don't have a damn clue. But we're not going to find them by sitting here. All I know to do is look in the restaurant, and if they're not there, hang out in the lobby and hope they walk by." I was already questioning why we thought it was so important to have a room at their hotel. Was it really going to help us meet them?

Traci thought we should try the restaurant first. But as our luck goes, we saw no sign of the boys or their crew.

Traci then suggested, "Want to go for a walk? I mean, we can stay near the hotel so we can see if they happen to come out."

So that's what we did.

Walking around got old really quickly, because those stupid heels hurt my feet. I couldn't tell you the last time I'd worn anything other than flat, comfortable shoes. And I felt ridiculous in high heels. I was really self-conscious. My clothing wasn't that revealing actually, mostly because I had nothing to reveal, but it was still not as conservative as I was used to. But if that's what I had to do to get the attention I wanted, then so be it.

At that point, Michael was still my favorite, hands down. But I'd grown to adore each one of them, and loved them equally for different reasons. I'd have accepted attention from any of the four and been ecstatic about it. But don't get me wrong, I wasn't thinking unrealistically about the situation. When I say I wanted to get their attention, I wasn't expecting any more than maybe a quick conversation. I wasn't crazy. Any of them would take one look at me and think, "Yeah, no thanks." All I wanted was a little eye contact and a hug, if they were willing. Traci and I had already discussed that if we did meet any of them, we weren't going to ask for a picture. We thought they may appreciate a "Hello, how are you?" more than us shoving a camera in their faces.

Without any other ideas on how to waste time waiting for the guys to leave their rooms (if they were even there), we took a seat in the hotel lobby around 9:30 p.m., where we'd be able to see them come and go. We were the only people inside that area, while four other girls were standing outside.

I know we didn't look inconspicuous at all. But we couldn't care less. Fate had given us one more chance at meeting them. And we were desperate and had paid a shit ton of money. We had to run into them, even if we had to sit there all night.

But it turned out that we didn't have to sit around very long at all. Only about five more minutes.