After dinner, Brig and James were silent as they made their way back to their hotel room. Having spent every minute of the last twenty hours together, it was safe to say that they were getting on each other’s nerves. They walked the halls and rode the elevator in an undeclared rule of shutting the fuck up.
Brig unlocked the room’s door and entered. James followed, dropped his baggage, and collapsed in a heap on to one of the rooms queen-sized beds. Earlier they had decided to share a room since they would only be staying at the hotel for a few hours, but now they regretted the decision. Both men would have paid handsomely for a little privacy. It was too late now. All either wanted to do was sleep.
Brig laid his backpacks down next to his bed and opened the large one that carried his clothes in search of two clean undershirts. He stripped off the clothing he had been wearing all day and put one of the undershirts on to sleep in. He pulled the cover and sheets midway down the bed and slipped the other undershirt on over one of the pillows.
James, who had been quietly watching asked, “Bro? What the hell are you doing?”
“Bro,” Brig mocked. “This place is gross. Look at these pillowcases. They’re yellow. How many people do you think have drooled on, spooned with, gotten sick on, or done worse on these pillows?”
“You spent a month in a Chinese prison, and you’re skeeved about sleeping on an old pillow?”
Brig paused. “You make a good point. But they didn’t give me a pillow in prison. My pillow was the cement floor or a rolled-up shirt.”
James laughed and rolled over on to his other side, away from Brig, “Oh you’re gonna love the next place we stay. Goodnight Bro. See you in the morning.”
“You’re not going to brush your teeth? Get more comfortable?”
“Too knackered. I’ll be out in two seconds.”
Although Brig had recently been forced to go weeks without brushing his teeth, he couldn’t imagine, if given the opportunity, not doing so. When he emerged from the bathroom, James was snoring loudly. Brig realized it would be a long night.
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