“We might as well go home tonight,” James said as he and Bradley staggered into the hotel room an hour later. “We’re both on at nine tomorrow, right? Sorry again for taking your night off, I’ll move things around and get you a day later in the week.”

“Don’t bother,” Bradley said, sitting down on the end of his bed. “I don’t have anything planned. But I want to shower before we leave, I feel like that apartment is clinging to me.”

“Yeah, go for it,” James said as he kicked off his shoes and laid down fully dressed on top of the blankets of his own bed. “I’ll go after you, then we’ll figure it out.”

He closed his eyes, then heard Bradley walk across the carpet and the bathroom door close. James stayed where he was for a long moment, trying not to think about anything at all. But of course this plan failed almost immediately as thoughts slammed their way into his head from all directions. 

The idea of driving home was getting less and less appealing the longer James lay on his bed and tried to avoid thinking about it. It was rush hour, they were going to hit traffic. And then he and Bradley were going to get in a fight and he’d have no choice but to push Bradley out of the car while they were driving through the swamps in the Littleton area. And then he’d have to go back and find him and that was going to become a whole thing. 

No, wait. Worse, Bradley’s car was in a garage somewhere in downtown Boston. And the only polite thing to do was actually drop him off there like he’d promised, wasn’t it?

The bathroom door opened a few minutes later and Bradley came out in his clothes from yesterday. “You don’t have to bring me to my car,” he said, as though he’d somehow read James’s mind. “I can just get a ride.”

He looked about as excited as James at the prospect of doing anything right now. “Nah, I’ll drive you,” James said, not bothering to sit up. “Want to see if that gift certificate is any good first? We can wait out rush hour here and watch a movie or something.”

He expected Bradley to immediately decline, but he glanced out the window, where cars were bumper to bumper on the highway below them. “I’ll call it in,” he said. 

***

James woke up groggily to a dark, silent room. He’d fallen asleep at some point watching the movie. Next to him he could smell buffalo chicken from the takeout he’d been half-eating while they watched, too tired to make more than a minimal effort. He really should have known this was going to happen.

He glanced at his phone and his heart dropped as one AM blinked up at him. And now it was way too late to get Bradley’s car and go home. 

He sat up and looked over at Bradley’s bed. It was empty and James couldn’t see any of the shopping bags from the other night anywhere in the room. He must have left while James was sleeping. Probably got a Lyft to the parking garage and went home rather than dealing with James or waiting for him to wake up. James would pay him back the cost, after all, he had offered the ride.

James rolled over and pulled the sheets up over himself, the idea of going back to sleep winning out over leaving now and getting himself home for a few hours before his shift. But before he closed his eyes, he noticed that the small screen door to the balcony was open. He could smell the woody scent of weed as he sat up and looked out the window under the half-pulled shade. Bradley was out there in the small plastic chair James had used last night. He saw the flash of a lighter as he lit a joint James couldn’t see, then slowly let the smoke out a moment later.

Well, shit. James got out of bed and stepped out onto the balcony, blinking in the tiny, mostly useless flood light shining in the upper corner of the wall. “I thought you left,” he said.

He expected Bradley to try to hide the joint he was smoking, but all he did was light it up and take another drag. “Nah,” he said through a cloud of smoke a second later. 

“Where’d you get that?”

“None of your fucking business. Want some?”

Bradley held the joint and lighter out to James, but he shook his head. “I’m all set,” he said. “I’m going back to bed in a minute. Thanks though.”

“Sure.”

“Was it all the bong talk earlier?”

Bradley shrugged and James decided not to push his luck.

It was cold out here. “Are you really going to resign?” Bradley asked.

“None of your fucking business.”

Bradley laughed and James looked out at the radio towers blinking across the now-empty highway. “No,” he admitted. “I know I said I would if things ended up being exactly what they were. And maybe I should, because working within a terrible system isn’t ever going to actually fix it. But no, I’m staying. I don’t know what else I’d do.”

Bradley looked out over the still highway. “You’re not Robin,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“I said you aren’t him.”

He stretched languidly and looked down at the half-burned joint in his hand. “I can get a ride to my car in the morning,” he said. “You’re on after me, you don’t have to get up.”

“By half an hour,” James said. “We changed the schedule up.”

“Then fuck it.”

He laughed again, and James was tempted to stay out here for a bit longer. Maybe take Bradley up on his offer and sit in a silence that was more comfortable than the ones back home tended to be. But they had to be back and ready to work in about eight hours and he wasn’t betting on another silent day when they arrived. “I’m heading back in,” he said. “Get some sleep tonight, okay?”

He was being pushy again. But rather than call him on it, Bradley just raised the hand with the joint in it. “Yeah,” he said. “Good night.”

James slid the door most of the way closed and climbed back into his bed. Back at it tomorrow. Maybe he’d get to see a unicorn too.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 21