✔ | PAINTED IN CRIMSON | T. SHARPE

SEVENTEEN | ROOM 23

"Fine." I smiled and wrapped my arms around him.

"Thank you so much for everything, Sam."

"Anytime," I smiled and let go. I crossed the door, closing it behind me after sharing another smile with the boy. Once outside, I found Nicholas leaning against the wall, rubbing his hands together to get warm. We began to walk, determined to get a cab, yet we didn't find any, so we had to walk.

I began to compare the city environment where the station was with this part of town. The city environment was swiftly transmuted to a more suburban environment, ending up at the small café on Fulton Street. The small shops, welcoming new clients, a lonely car driving slowly past the shops, some people talking and laughing; the slow life in a small town, I thought.

We had walked in silence for a couple of minutes, both of us walking past the people on the streets, the snow had stopped falling by then, leaving a soft and thin layer of white on the cobbled roads. My fingers nervously toyed with a hair pin I had found in the pocket of my jacket as my eyes followed patterns and cracks in the pavement, briefly looking up only to meet another pair of curious eyes staring at us, some of them would stop and murmur something to their companion's ear. Nicholas straightened the strap of his backpack and he tried to keep his eyes glued to the ground. He cleared his throat and blinked.

"They keep staring," he said. He was tense and couldn't hide it.

"Just keep walking," I muttered. It had been like this for about fifteen minutes, where every single person that walked past us would look at us. The muttering grew louder, but I tried to ignore it.

"It's him," a woman said, pointing at Nicholas. By this time, people had gathered a few steps back from us, following us, commenting and glaring at me when I turned to see them. Eventually, we left them behind and we continued our way to the hotel, once there we approached to the reception.

"I'm afraid we only have one room available, and it's got one bed only," the woman said to us. I stood there biting my lip a little bit too hard, basically we didn't have a place to spend the night. I turned to Nicholas - who was thinking and as I turned he reached into his back pocket.

"We'll take it," he said, pulling out the money, "we'll manage, don't worry." The woman looked at me, raising an eyebrow and I nodded.

"Last night's blizzard affected the power and the phone service," she said as she left the reception counter, "we've been working on it the entire day, power's back but unfortunately the phone is dead," we followed her upstairs.

"What if we need the room service, what if we get hungry?" I asked.

"In the winter, we serve dinner at six, since most of the kitchen staff reside not less than two or three miles from here and the roads get very dangerous. So, dinner time has passed." I heard her mutter under her breath when she stopped at the room 32, "There's a mini-market across the street, I'm sure you can get something there," she said and I looked at Nicholas, rising my eyebrows. Apparently, her only way to communicate with others was through mutters, eye-rolling and scoffing.

"What about the room service?" I asked.

"Honey, this isn't the big London with five star hotels. You should be thankful there's hot water," I blinked, "there you go, enjoy your stay." She basically threw the keys at me and then left, before checking out and winking at Nicholas.

"Isn't she lovely?" I said and inserted the key in the lock. When Sam said 'small hotel' I imagined something smaller, like everything in this town, certainly this wasn't a five star hotel, yet it was pretty decent - despite that woman's attitude - the rooms weren't too small. They had a large bathroom, the bedroom - with a couch that looked like a comfortable place to sleep - and a mini fridge, the necessary. It wasn't much but at least we'd spend the night in a warm place.