Say This Sooner -A7X One Shot

I wanted her to be happy, no matter if that meant being with Matt. I was willing to let her go, to disregard my feelings and the love I had for her, just to make her happy. She was my best friend, and I was just glad to have her with me, to be able to talk to her, to see her every day. She could always bring a smile to my face by just her presence alone.I was in love, but the painful part of it all was that I knew she could never be mine, and the realization of that had finally set in. I could literally feel my heart starting to ache inside my chest.

We finally arrived at a hotel for the night after dinner. It will be nice to sleep in an actual bed again, not the crowded, single-person bunks we all had to sleep in.

Matt and Brian came back from the front desk to check us all into our rooms. “Alright, here’s the deal,” Matt began.

We all groaned and sighed, knowing there was some bad news by the way he said it. It’s been a long night and all we really want to do is sleep right now.

Johnny grunted and threw his bags down. “Ugh, what’s wrong now? Last time they didn’t have enough empty rooms and I had to end up sharing with Brian. Let me tell you something,” He said, turning to Antonia. “I have never, in my life, met someone who farts that much in their sleep. It was awful.”

They both cringed and made a disgusted face. I laughed with Zack and Matt as Brian threw him a glare. “Shut up short-shit and quit complaining. It’s not as bad as having to wake up covered in your puke! You were so hammered that night you vomited everywhere! Now that was fucking awful.”

Johnny shook his head. “Hey, I didn’t puke because of all the alcohol I drank. It was because of how badly the room smelled after you farted so much!”

After that, I was practically rolling on the floor from laughing so hard. Zack tried to come over and help me up but he too was laughing and couldn’t even stand up straight, and that got Antonia cracking up.

Matt tried to hold it in and chuckled at us all. “Alright, enough you guys. As I was saying, they only have three vacant rooms. Two of them have two separate beds, and the other has only one queen size bed, so someone’s going to have to share.”

Johnny quickly shook his head. “Hell no, I am not even going to be in the same room as Brian. Fuck that!”

“Shut it shit-head and let me finish.” Matt cut him off. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” He said, pulling out a handful of toothpicks, breaking one of them and hid it in somewhere within the others. “I took these from the restaurant ‘cause I knew something like this was gonna to happen. We’ll each take one and then whoever draws the shorter stick has to share the single bed with Antonia.”

She happily jumped up and down. “Yay, I get the bigger bed!”

Matt chuckled. “Yeah, but that means you have to share with somebody.”

“Yeah, I just really hope it won’t be Brian.” She mumbled.

He scoffed and she couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought you loved being with me Antonia.” He pouted, pretending to be hurt.

She smiled. “Awe, of course I do, but not while you’re sleeping.” Her smile turned into a smirk. He scoffed again and she just shrugged. “It’s true, sorry.”

“Okay, okay, let’s just hurry up and do this. I can’t wait to get to sleep.” Zack grumbled.

Johnny snickered. “You won’t get much sleep if you have to share a room with Brian.”

That comment earned him a punch in the shoulder from Brian. “If you don’t drop it right now, I swear I'm gonna push you into the fucking pool outside.”

Antonia’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, yeah, let’s all go swimming!” I smiled at her excitement.

“We can do that just as soon as we get settled into our rooms.” Matt told her. He extended his arm and held the toothpicks in his closed hand. “Everybody but Antonia take one.”

Zack and Johnny quickly raced to grab one, both wanting the shorter stick to avoid rooming with Brian, but instead they both ended up with two of the longer ones. They both sighed in frustration.

“Hey Zack, wanna be roommates?” Johnny quickly asked before Brian could laugh at them.

“Yeah, sure!” Zack responded happily.

“Hey!” Matt and I both shouted. Neither one of us wanted to end up with Brian, but I wasn’t sure if Matt was also hoping to have the same room as Antonia, like I did.

Johnny shrugged, holding out his hand and gleamed up at Matt. “Room key, please.”

Matt slightly glared and reluctantly handed it over. Brian gave Matt and I a sly smile. “Well, congratulations, it looks like one of you is going to be rooming with me.” Antonia tried to hold back a laugh as she saw the look I gave him.

Matt glanced down at his hand and then back up at me. “Well, it looks like it’s your turn Jimbo.”

I grunted before carefully studying the toothpicks, taking my time to grab one and hoped I didn’t get the longer one. If I did, then that meant two bad things for me. First things first, I absolutely did not want to share a room with the stank-monster who calls himself Brian, and second, I wouldn’t get to be with Antonia.

Even though I knew I could never call her mine, it would mean I wouldn’t get to spend the only chance I had to be alone with her before she most likely ended up with Matt. I’ve made up mind to tell her my feelings for her tonight that is if I got to room with her. I wanted it to be a very private conversation, and there was no way I would get her alone if we didn’t end up sharing the same room.

“Jimmy?” Matt tried to get back my attention.

I snapped my head up and looked at him. “Yeah?”

He chuckled. “Are you going to just stand there or what?”

I shook my head. “I guess not,” I said, slowly reaching out to take one. I quickly snatched one up and sighed at the toothpick in my hand.

Notes