Under the sleeping mask, Jack squeezed his eyes shut until they hurt. He knew his little act wouldn’t accomplish much, but he couldn’t face Alice and Peter on their romantic trip. The idea made his stomach cramp. To avoid them completely was impossible, but Jack was determined to keep the interactions to a strict minimum. The break he’d so coveted had transformed into his worst nightmare. And a night tossing in bed dreading the next day had not helped him come to terms with the situation.
From his corner at the back of the plane, Jack listened as Peter let out his usual repertoire of “yo, oooh, my man” as he greeted everybody else. He listened as his captain introduced Alice to the players who didn’t know her yet. A bitter tang spread under his tongue. Even the right of introducing Alice to the team had been stolen from him. He should be the one at her side making introductions, not Peter. Still brooding, Jack eavesdropped as Peter maneuvered people around so that he could sit next to Alice. How sweet. He wanted to throw up.
Jack kept his eyes shut under the mask and tried not to tense his jaw and mouth. Torture; it was a slow torture to lie still in his seat pretending to be asleep. He was so on edge real sleep was out of the question, even after take-off when the plane quieted down. To be wide-awake, unable to move, and with nothing to do was mentally exhausting. He couldn’t check the time on his phone, so he tried to judge by what was happening around him.
The take-off happened on time, which he learned from the captain’s announcement. Six-thirty. After a while, there was the usual ping of the seatbelt sign being switched off. Seven? Only half an hour had passed, and to Jack, it seemed like an eternity. More time passed, and Jack found himself counting the seconds. When would it be safe to stop pretending he was asleep? After they served breakfast and cleared out? Yeah, that was probably his best bet.
Breakfast finally arrived. Jack heard Matt, who was sitting next to him, open a plastic bag. As Matt chewed on his snack, Jack marveled at how loud he sounded. So it was true that when deprived of one sense the others intensified. Eons later, when the flight attendants came back to take the trays away, Jack was itching to take his mask off. Yet, breakfast seemed to have stirred a lot of movement in the cabin. Many people were coming and going in the small aisle between the rows of seats. It was a mass pilgrimage to the restrooms.
At one point, Jack could’ve sworn he heard Alice’s voice somewhere to his right hiss, “Sleeping Beauty.” Or maybe he’d just spent too much time inside his own head. Wasn’t hearing voices the first sign of going mad?
When he couldn’t take it any longer, Jack removed his mask and opened his eyes. Phew, he was safe, no one was looking his way or moving around. All passengers seemed engaged with a movie, a book, or they were genuinely asleep. He peeked at the clock. Nine-thirty. Three hours gone, a gazillion more to go. But so far, his avoid-them-at-all-costs plan had been a success.
A short-lived one. Once the plane landed at LAX, where they had to catch a connecting flight, there was no way Jack could avoid talking to Alice. He waited for the plane to empty, postponing the inevitable as long as possible, before he walked out.
For an instant, Jack thought everybody was gone, and he’d be Alice-and-Peter free for a little longer.
Until a hand smacked his right shoulder. “Yo, my man. What’s up?” Peter asked. “Where have you been, Sullivan?”
“On the plane?” Jack shrugged.
“You’re funny.” Peter clearly hadn’t caught the sarcasm in Jack’s voice. “We’re going to grab a burger for lunch. You coming?”
Jack could say he wasn’t hungry, but everyone would notice he was acting weird. He’d better keep up at least a tiny bit of appearances. Ice already seemed suspicious. She was standing next to Peter, and from the way she was eyeing Jack, it was clear she wasn’t happy with him. “A burger sounds great,” he lied. He’d rather eat paper. “I skipped breakfast; I could eat an elephant.”
“Didn’t you eat on the plane?” Peter asked.
“Nah, I was sleeping when they served breakfast.”
Alice scoffed.
Jack ignored her.
“A lady keep you up until the small hours?” Peter asked.
Jack shrugged, neither denying nor admitting to anything. But he accompanied the shrug with a wicked smile that let everyone assume Peter had nailed him.
“Oooh,” Peter hollered. “Good for you, man.”
Alice didn’t comment, scoffing or otherwise.
***
Their motel in Honolulu had a two-story horseshoe layout with a rectangular pool in the middle. Jack’s room was on the second floor on the right side of the U; he was sharing with Matt. After an early dinner, Coach Morrison had sent them to bed to rest before their first game the next day. Jack was ready to follow the instructions and hoped Peter would too.
Matt came into the room and collapsed onto his queen bed. “I’m toasted, man,” Matt said. “Do you mind if I turn off the lights?”
“No, go ahead. I’m taking a breath of fresh air.”
Jack opened the French doors and walked out onto the small patio outside. It was night, but the temperature was still well above seventy degrees. Compared to frigid Boston, this was heaven. Jack stared across the pool. Half the rooms on the other side were dark. Of the illuminated ones, many had their curtains closed. Not Alice’s room.
It felt a bit stalkerish to spy on her as she sat chatting on the bed with Haley. But Jack couldn’t stop staring. He was so relieved she wasn’t with Peter, he could hula dance.
His joy didn’t last long. Haley and Alice both turned their heads toward the door at the same time. They giggled, hugged, and Haley jumped off the bed. Two seconds later, Peter appeared inside the room. He pulled Alice up from the bed and started kissing her.
Acid rose in Jack’s throat. He continued to watch, unable to avert his eyes as Alice pulled Peter back on the bed, where he landed on top of her, never breaking the kiss. Jack felt numb; his body refused to work. The only parts still functioning were his eyes, which were inexorably trained on the gruesome scene before him.
When Peter got to his feet to close the curtains and turn off the lights, Jack gripped the metal rail so hard his knuckles turned white. Jack had no air in his lungs. His skin was on fire. His entire body seemed to burn. This tropical paradise was his personal hell. Jack wanted to scream. He wanted to drag Peter off the bed and beat him into a pulp. But most of all, Jack wanted to be the one on top of Alice. Instead, all he could do was swallow bile.
A loud crash brought him back from his haze. Two windows down from Alice’s room, the curtains of another room were shaking, and loud shouts mixed with banging noises were audible even from outside. Someone was fighting.
Jack wasn’t the only one who’d heard the noise. In a matter of seconds, Alice’s lights switched on and Peter opened the French doors and hopped out on the patio, struggling to get back into his jeans. His head shook left and right as he tried to determine what was going on. A surge of pure joy ran through Jack’s veins at the perfectly timed interruption.
“What’s going on?” Matt appeared on the patio next to him, his hair tousled and his face still sleepy. “I heard a crash.”
Jack pointed at the room with the shaking curtains. “I think it came from there.”
“Damn right,” Matt said.
At that moment, the curtains collapsed and Matt and Jack had a clear view of what was happening inside. Two guys were wrestling on the floor while a terrified Haley was begging them to stop.
“Who’s that?” Jack asked.
Matt squinted his eyes. “Looks like the Williams brothers are at it again.”
A wolf whistle came from the other side of the motel. It was Peter. Matt and Jack turned to look at him.
“Guys,” Peter shout-whispered. “Can you see what’s happening?”
“David and Scott Williams, Captain,” Matt shout-whispered back. “Two doors down from yours.”
More lights were popping on in other rooms. If they wanted to avoid trouble, they had to pacify the two Williamses before the rumor of a fight reached Coach Morrison.
“I’ll go check.” Peter gestured toward the room. “Can you guys back me up?”
“We’re on it,” Matt said.
From their respective patios, Matt, Jack, and Peter all rushed in and out their rooms to go stop the Williamses. Jack knew he shouldn’t be happy two of his teammates were fighting. But as he ran down the motel hall, he couldn’t help but feel grateful the Williams brothers hated each other.