Sam and Colby: The Asylum

79

"Ness?" he called.

"Out here!" I yelled. He made his way over to me, wearing nothing but a towel with wet hair. Something about that was wildly attractive.

"Well hello, there," I said. He laughed and then looked at the TV.

"Wow," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"You're a 21 year old woman in the fanciest suite at this insanely expensive hotel and you're watching SpongeBob," Colby said. I crossed my arms.

"Hey, if they have it, I can watch it," I said. Colby laughed again.

"You're wonderful," he said.

"I know. I'm going to go shower now. SpongeBob better be on when I get back, mister," I said, poking his bare chest before making my way to the bathroom. I opened several different cabinets and drawers and found some towels and a disposable razor, as well as a cheap toothbrush and floss.

I turned on the shower and brushed my teeth while I waited for the water to heat up. I took a relatively quick shower, but still shaved everywhere.

I stepped out and pulled on my underwear, then darted out into the room and pulled on Colby's hoodie and my knee socks. His hoodie fell midway down my thighs, so he probably wouldn't even know if I didn't put on pants, so I didn't. I decided to let my hair dry naturally and walked out to see Colby asleep on the couch, SpongeBob still on the TV. I laughed at the sight for a second before turning off the TV. I closed the curtains in the room and turned off all the lights, then kissed Colby on the cheek before walking back to the bedroom. I didn't want to wake him up but wasn't going to pass up on the opportunity to sleep in the giant bed the guys had paid for.

I laid down and closed my eyes, the clock reading 6:37. I heard a noise ten minutes later. I sat up to see Colby pulling on his sweatpants that I'd been wearing.

"Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up," he said.

"You didn't, I wasn't asleep," I said.

"Oh, good," he said. He closed the room's curtains, shut the doors, and turned off the bathroom lights before getting in bed next to me.

"I knew you didn't want to sleep in jeans," I said.

"Hey, they're my sweatpants," he pointed out. "Wait a minute."

I realized that my shorts were denim. They were jean shorts and I had made it abundantly clear that jeans were not for me to sleep in, so I obviously wasn't wearing them. Oops. He had totally just figured that out.

"You're not—," he started, then stopped like he was scared to say it.

"I didn't want to wear pants! Your hoodie is long and I'm wearing my tall socks," I whined. He laughed for a minute and then reached out to pull me against him, my back against his front.

"I think we both know that I have no issue with you not wearing any pants," Colby said.

"Yeah, okay," I agreed. He kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer to him.

"Goodnight, baby," he said. I smiled when he said that, even though he couldn't see me.

"Goodnight," I whispered back.

I woke up a couple hours later at 10. The adrenaline of the last 18 hours had made it difficult for me to sleep. Colby was asleep and facing away from me, so I easily slid out of bed without disturbing him. I pulled on my shorts and took off my socks and slipped on my Vans to at least try and look mildly presentable in a nice place like this. I found Jake's phone on the nightstand by Colby and picked it up to see if Sam had texted. He hadn't, but I didn't want to just leave them without letting them know where I was going.

I decided to text Sam, but realized I had no idea what Jake's passcode was. Shit. I only had three or four tries until the thing would lock me out, and I didn't know if Jake had his phone set to erase all of his data if someone tried too many times. I knew I had three tries until it would lock me out for a minute, but I wasn't going to try any more than three times. I thought for a second about Jake. Trying to understand his mind seemed like a difficult task.

It was a six digit passcode. I tried 123456 first, which didn't work. I realized that a date would be a good passcode for six digits. When had he started dating Tara? I noticed his lock screen for the first time. It was a picture of SpongeBob with Shrek ears. What a weird fucking dude.

Birthdays and personal anniversaries were common password dates used, but I had no idea when any of those things were for Jake. All I had to go with here was Shrek and SpongeBob. I had no idea when Shrek came out except for that it was the year 2001 and didn't know when SpongeBob came out. I tried 546635, which spelled out Lionel. That didn't work either. I decided my last attempt should be based off of the lock screen. I thought for a long time. Jake probably didn't know when SpongeBob came out, and I only knew that it was in 1999. Jake's password would probably be more of a recent date. What was recent with Shrek and SpongeBob? It suddenly hit me: Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob, had died in 2018. But when did he die?

I left the bedroom and paced around one of the living rooms. It had been around Thanksgiving, I knew that. My younger cousins had been talking about it on their Thanksgiving break when we all had dinner at my parents' house in Oklahoma. But what day was that? I tried to think of the weird daily holidays in November. I loved fun facts and I loved weird holidays. I decided to start on the 20th and think of all the holidays.

The 20th was Transgender day of remembrance, 21st was blackout Wednesday, which my family used as an excuse to get completely wasted, 22nd was Thanksgiving Day in 2018. The 23rd was black Friday, 24th was national sardine day, 25th was international day for the elimination of violence against women, and the 26th... what was the 26th? It was cyber Monday, but there was something else... oh! It was cake day!

I remembered that I'd bought a cake for my little cousins that day because of Stephen Hillenburg! Did I buy the cake on his exact death date though, or had I done it after? I was out of ideas, so I decided to go with 112618.

"I swear to fucking god, Jake Webber. If this works...," I muttered to myself.

Of course it fucking worked.