Through the Void
DCON
Author's Note: This is my first attempt at writing a story. I didn't have an editor, so this has been edited by me (which is very bad, trust me). So if you're interested in editing this story, just email me and we'll talk. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I love feedback, so email me your opinions.
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It was the day before the National Science Fair. I was doing some last minute changes to our project, and then we'd be set. I'm Chris and I'm fifteen. For the last year, Tyler and I had been partners for Chemistry. One of the requirements of the class was to create a project for the Regional Science Fair. We'd ended up winning first place there, advancing us to the state competition. It was a very close competition with another documentary at the state fair, but we ended up winning there as well, which brings me to this point.
Tyler had never really hung out with me. I wasn't one of the popular kids; I wouldn't say I was a nerd or geek though—about 5'10", brown hair, brown eyes, I was just... plain. Tyler, on the other hand, was a complete jock—6'1, curly brown hair, hazel eyes, 16 years old – completely gorgeous. He just befriended me on the first day on the semester, and I never really understood it. To be truthful, I still don't. That didn't stop me from having a major crush on him, though.
Anyway, I was working on the project when my phone rang. I let it ring twice, and then picked it up.
"Hello?" I said into the phone.
"Hey, how's it goin'," Tyler replied.
"Hey, uhh, not bad, just working on the project. You ready for tomorrow?" I asked him.
"I'm kinda nervous, but other than that, yeah I'm ready. Hey, you wanna hang out later tonight?"
"Um, I'm not really sure if I can, but I'll see."
"Alright, call me back later and let me know."
"K, I'll talk to you later."
"Bye."
Another one of those awkward `you wanna hang out?' situations. I was becoming really frustrated that I couldn't figure out why he liked hanging out with me. Oh well, I'll ponder on it more later.
...
That night at dinner, Dad asked me if the project was "equipped" to handle a flight to Washington DC all the way from Georgia. I figured, actually I hoped, it was, so I told him so. After dinner, I was feeling really drained, so I went upstairs, took a shower, and then went to bed.
The next morning I woke up at around 5 AM, because the bus that left to the airport left at 6. I hopped in the shower and then put on my clothes. Dad came up around 5:30 to tell me to load the project into the truck and to get ready to leave.
We ended up arriving at the bus depot around 5:50, where Mr. Crown, the chemistry teacher, Tyler, and the second place team, also from our school, were waiting.
"Hey, why didn't you call me back last night?" Tyler asked me as I walked inside.
"Oops, I forgot," I said with a little blush on my cheeks.
"Haha, it's fine." He laughed.
"You ready to go?" Mr. Crown said to me.
"Yes sir, I'm ready."
I turned around and gave my dad a hug.
"I'm gonna miss you and mum. I love you. Give mom a hug for me."
"We'll miss you too, son. Have fun and be safe."
We all loaded our things and the projects into the storage compartment under the bus, and then got on to the bus. It didn't surprise me that Tyler sat by me.
"Okay guys, I haven't been to the national competition in almost 3 years now, and I'm excited that I had two teams to win at state this year. When we get to the airport, in about an hour, we'll get our bags checked, go through security, and that should leave us with about 2 hours before our flight leaves. I suggest that you go eat and then you can walk around, but our flight boards at 10:14, so I want everyone to meet at the terminal by 10." Mr. Crown told us.
I was still sleepy. I wanted to go back to bed, but there wasn't anywhere to get comfortable sitting by the window. And as much as I wouldn't mind lying on Tyler, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate that. For that matter, I doubt any of the other guys would like to be rooming with a gay guy. I kept that part of my life hidden, though.
I guess I ended up falling asleep with my head against the window because the next thing I knew, we were at the airport. I grabbed my bag from under the bus and walked into the airport. Mr. Crown told us that someone else would be making sure the projects made it onto the plane.
"To the right, Chris," Mr. Crown called from behind me. I turned to the right and began walking to the bag checking area.
Once everyone's bags were checked, and we began to walk towards security. I hated going through security—it was such a hassle. By the time everyone had been checked it was almost 8, and we were all already exhausted.
Our terminal ended up being at the far end of the airport, which made me even more tired due to all the walking. All I wanted to do was go to sleep, but Mr. Crown pretty much forced me to go with Tyler, Kyle, and Charles to get some food; Kyle and Charles were the two boys who won second place at state.
We ate at a Subway, and since I was a slower eater, I was the last to finish my sandwich. As soon as I was finished though, the other three boys wanted to go tour the shops. I just wanted to sleep, but somehow, I didn't see them letting me go back to the terminal.
Tyler kept picking up shirts and saying "This one is HOT! You should get it!" but I wasn't really interested. We had toured three different stores when I looked down at my watch and realized what time it was – 9:57. CRAP! We had to be at the terminal by 10.
"HEY! We gotta go! It's like three minutes till 10." I practically yelled at the others.
We all took off running towards the terminal. It was all the way on the other end of the building. I doubted we'd make it in time, but hey, I doubted the plane would leave without us if we were a minute or two late. 9:58 and we were only about a quarter of the way there. Charles was beginning to slow down, but I yelled back for him to keep going. 9:59, we were almost there, about three quarters of the way there. I was beginning to feel a pain in my side, and stopped, breathing hard. Tyler tapped me on the shoulder, and told me to keep running; we were almost there. 10:00, about 3 more gates and then we'd be there. 10:00.23, we made it there. All of us were out of breath, and collapsed into the chairs beside Mr. Crown.
"Wow, why and where'd you boys run from?"
"The tourist shop," – breath – "on the other, " – breath – "end. Didn't," – breath – "want to be late."
"Oh, I see," he chuckled. "I wouldn't have minded if you were a minute or two late. Geez, you kids treat me like I'm some strict old man."
We tried to laugh, but it wasn't working. Right about then, they began loading the plane, starting with zone 1. According to my ticket, I was in zone 4.
"Hey, what zone are we in?" Kyle asked Mr. Crown.
"On my ticket, it says zone 5. It's in the top right corner, in that box." He pointed to his ticket.
"Oh, I'm in zone 5 too." Kyle said.
"Me too." Charles said.
"I'm in zone 4," I said.
"I am too," Tyler said.
Great. Now I'd be alone with Tyler for a few minutes. I looked back down at my ticket—I was in seat 33A.
"Hey Tyler, what seat are you in?" I asked him.
"Umm, 33B. What about you?" He told me.
"Oh, alright; I'm in 33A."
"Cool!"
Around that time, they called for zone 4 to load. Mr. Crown told us to go ahead, and that he'd see us in just a few. As I walked onto the plane, I started to get a bit nervous. This was my first time flying; I guess it was natural. When I sat down, I put my carry on under the seat, and took out my MP3 player.
It was about five minutes before I saw Mr. Crown, Kyle, and Charles walk onto the plane, and into their seats. I turned off my MP3 player because, according to the screen, electronic devices weren't allowed to be on during some of the flight.
I ended up falling asleep again, because when I lifted my head, we were in Washington DC and the flight was unloading.
...
"Okay boys, you don't compete until tomorrow, so what are we gonna do today?" Mr. Crown asked us as we left the airport and went towards the bus that was taking us to our hotel.
"Hmm, what about touring the memorials?" I suggested.
"I second that one." Kyle said; he was a real into politics and history.
"The memorials it is. Once we get to the hotel, get a fresh change of clothes, or whatever, and get ready, then we'll head out."
We ended up staying at a really nice hotel for the tight budget we had for this trip. Mr. Crown roomed the team partners together, so they could work on their project and such the night before the competition.
I went into the bathroom to change into a pair of shorts and flip flops, while Tyler changed in the bedroom.
Ten minutes later, we met Mr. Crown, Kyle, and Charles in the hallway. We called a cab, and by the time we were at the Lincoln Memorial, the fare was about 15 dollars. We split that into 3 dollars between the five of us, and then began to walk up the steps to the memorial.
When we finally made it to the top, Mr. Crown took a picture of the four of us standing by the memorial, and then we went into the gift shop for Kyle. He ended up coming out with a biography of Abraham Lincoln's life. Can you say boring?
We walked along the edge of the Reflecting Pool to get to the other memorials. I wondered why they called it the Reflecting Pool. It was dirty, green, and smelled super bad. There was also duck shit all around it. The place was seriously disgusting.
...
By the time we'd finished touring all the memorials I just wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep. But Mr. Crown insisted that we all go out to eat. I just looked at him like he was crazy. We'd been walking all day and we all needed showers before we went anywhere.
"Uh, Mr. Crown? Can we go take showers first?" I asked him.
He took a second to smell himself. I laughed at that.
"Umm, yeah, we need to go take showers."
We called another cab to come get us. I could tell he smelled us by the way his nose wrinkled when we got into the car. The fare ended up being about the same as before, so we split it into 3 dollars again.
Thank goodness there were two showers in our room. I jumped in and start scrubbing myself. Somehow, images of Tyler made their way into my head. Within seconds, I was hard as a rock.
...
As my cum swirled down the drain, I remembered that we were supposed to be leaving to go eat, so I soaped myself up again, and rinsed off. I dried off and put on a pair of jeans and a collared shirt.
"Wow, someone's looking spiffy, huh?" Tyler said when I walked out of the bathroom.
I blushed profusely. Anything that a normal person would just take as joking around had me blushing, when it came from him. He just started laughing.
"Looking pretty spiffy yourself, Tyler."
I laughed hard as he started blushing too.
...
We decided to eat at a steakhouse called Austin's. I thought it was really good. I had a very well done steak with a baked potato. I felt bloated when I finished eating.
It was about 8:15 p.m. when we got back to the hotel. Mr. Crown told us that we had the rest of the night to ourselves, but curfew was at 12. We decided that we'd go to the store across the street from our hotel and stock up on food, drinks, and whatever else.
Charles looked to be about 21 years old, even if he was only 17. Apparently, his looks were enough to convince the cashier that he was old enough to be drinking, and we walked out with 3 cases of Smirnoff, 4 bottled waters, and a pack of 99 cent chips.
Even though I liked to drink sometimes, I was also pretty responsible, so I just sat around and watched as the other three started to get drunk. It really irked me that they knew we were competing tomorrow, and they were getting their asses drunk.
"Heeeeeeey `ris, wann drink?" Tyler managed to slur.
"Haha, yeah, right." I replied sarcastically.
I was probably being too uptight, but I didn't really care. I was pretty frustrated as I got up and left Kyle and Charles' room and headed off to my own to sleep.
...
I guess it was about 3 a.m. when I heard the door to the room open. I shot up as quick as I could, forgetting what happened earlier for a second. Then it all came back. It was probably just Tyler. I went to lay back down, but he started shaking me really hard.
"Shit! Stop! What do you want?" I said, the frustration in my voice obvious.
"Whass wrong wif you?" He slurred; he was so drunk.
"You are! Fuck, you're so drunk you can barely stand up. You knew we had this damn competition tomorrow, and then you went and got drunk. How the hell are you gonna get up at 8 in the morning, and go talk about Radioactive Isotopes to a panel of judges? You're gonna be so hung over, you won't know what to do! That's what's wrong with me." I practically yelled.
His head dropped and he looked sad. Wow, did I feel bad! This was not me. I don't know what had come over me. I would've never yelled at Tyler. But I was pissed.
"I'm sorry." He told me.
I just turned the light off, and went back to sleep.
...
The next morning I woke up at 7 to start getting ready and going over the presentation I'd be giving. I took a shower and put on a button-up shirt and some jeans. Tyler was still sleeping, and I wouldn't be waking him up.
I went to Mr. Crown's room.
Knock knock knock.
"Who is it?"
"Hey Mr. Crown, it's Chris. Tyler isn't feeling too well this morning; he said his head and stomach are hurting."
I might've been pretty pissed at him, but I wasn't going to rat on him. Hmm, I wondered what Kyle and Charles were gonna do about this. He opened the door and ushered me in.
"Uh oh. What are you gonna do about the presentation?" He asked worriedly.
"Well, I know most of the stuff he had to know to present, and the stuff I don't know is right here." I said as I flashed the paper to him. "I guess I'll just learn as much of it as I can, and present it myself."
"You know Chris, you're a good guy. Smart as a whip too! I'm very proud of you." He started complimenting.
"Uh, thanks sir."
"Ok, go wake up the other two and you all get ready."
"Yes sir."
I knocked on Kyle and Charles' door to wake them up.
"Yeah?" Charles called from the room.
"Hey, Crown sent me to wake you guys up and tell you to get ready to go."
"K, thanks. How's Tyler holdin up?"
"He's still asleep. I told Crown he was sick."
"Ahh, ok."
"Well hey, get ready, we're leaving in 30 minutes."
I went to my room and woke Tyler up.
"Umph. Hey, I'll be ready to go in just a second." He said.
"Go back to bed, you aren't going. I told Crown you were sick."
"Whaa? Why'd you do that?" He mumbled.
"Because, I didn't need you making us look like idiots up there. I can handle this. I just have to learn a little of what you were supposed to know, and I'll be good to go. Go back to sleep."
"Hey Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"Mmm.."
I sat on the bed and started studying what he was supposed to know. What made isotopes radioactive, what harm they could cause, their uses, etc. At 7:50, Mr. Crown knocked on my door and told me it was time to go.
...
"Team 74," the intercom called.
That was me. I was getting more nervous by the second.
When I walked on to the stage, one of the judges gave me a strange look.
"Where is your partner? This was entered as a team presentation," the judge said.
"He's back at the hotel. He came up with a virus yesterday, and he was too sick to come today."
"I see. You may proceed."
I started the documentary we'd made explaining the radioactive isotopes, and gave brief descriptions of each frame as it progressed. At the end, the judges decided that they wanted to ask a question.
"Why did you and your partner decide to do radioactive isotopes? It's such a random topic."
"That was our intent. We wanted to do something that little or no other people would have."
"You and your partner were able to think together and come up with something original—impressive. Thank you for the presentation. You may go."
Whew! Thank goodness that was over with. I went back outside to find Mr. Crown waiting anxiously in the seat.
"Hey! How was it?"
"I was so nervous, but it ended up coming out great. They only asked why we decided to do radioactive isotopes, and then I left."
"Good, good. Maybe Georgia will be bringing something home this year." He said hopefully.
Right about then, Kyle and Charles came out of the judging room with smiles on their faces.
"I think we did really well," Kyle told Mr. Crown.
"I'm proud of you boys—Tyler too, of course." He said through a laugh.
The awards ceremony wasn't until the day after tomorrow, so we had a day to kill tomorrow, and the rest of the day today. It was only 10:30, so the day was pretty much just starting.
...
We decided as a group to have a lazy day and stay at the hotel. I wanted to go swimming so I went into the room to change into my trunks. Tyler was up by then, and in a pair of shorts.
"What are you about to do? How'd the competition go?"
"The competition went great. We did really good. I'm about to go swimming, we're not doing anything else today, just staying around the hotel."
"Oh, ok. Want some
company?"
"Uh, sure."
I was pretty much over my frustration from last night. It was really stupid of him, but I just couldn't stay mad at him.
He went into the bathroom and changed into his trunks and then we went to the pool. There weren't many people there so I was pretty thankful for that. I didn't really like large crowds.
I pulled off my shirt and jumped into the deep end of the pool. Tyler was right behind me. I started swimming towards the other end of the pool. That was just one of the things I did. At home, we had an 8 foot pool in the backyard, and when I just wanted to think, I swam from one end to the other.
I thought about Tyler. I liked him SO much, but it was obvious that he was as straight as an arrow, and besides, I would be too chicken shit to make a move on him if by some freak occurrence he did happen to be gay. I thought about why we were friends. I was just reading the objectives for the semester on the first day when Tyler asked me to be his Chemistry partner. I guessed it was because I made good grades in school, and he wanted to be nice to me. Yeah, that had to be it. He didn't want to feel bad about talking to me during Chemistry then ditching me all other times. It was okay though. At least he talked to me.
I finally came up out of the water to find Tyler sitting on the edge watching me. I took a second to catch a breath and then went to him, where I grabbed his foot, and pulled him into the pool. We both came up laughing then he swam over and dunked me.
After we got out of the pool at around 1, we went to the room to lay around and watch TV. Around 3 or 4, we stopped watching TV, went and got Kyle and Charles, and went to the store again. They ended up buying drinks again, only because I suggested it though. Now that the competition was over, I really didn't care about all the drinking. I mean, after all, we were only teenagers.
We all decided to hang out in Kyle and Charles' room to drink and play cards. By 7, I'd had about 4 beers and a whole Smirnoff by myself; I guess you could say I was drunk as hell. I was laughing at everything everyone said; it was all just too funny. I remember looking back at the clock and seeing 9:01 before I decided it was time to head off to bed. Tyler apparently thought the same as he said goodbye to the guys and followed me to the room. I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next morning I woke up to a splitting headache and someone knocking on the door. I got up and opened the door—it was Mr. Crown. He just wanted to tell us that we'd be leaving in an hour and touring all of the "hot spots" in DC, as he called it. When he left, I looked back at Tyler. I thought about waking him up, but I decided to take my shower first.
...
By the time I had showered and dressed, it was already 8:30, and we were leaving at 9. I might as well have jumped on Tyler because I was shaking him so hard, I'm sure it felt like I'd jumped on him.
"We're leaving in 30 minutes. Hurry, get up, take a shower." I told him.
My head still hurt. I went to my bag and took an aspirin as Tyler went into the bathroom and took a shower. About 20 minutes later, he came out wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. He had sexy legs. I guess I must've zoned out, because the next thing I knew, he was waving his hands in front of my face.
"Earth to Chris! You ready?" He asked me.
"Huh, oh yeah. Sorry. Let's go."
I grabbed my room key and my wallet and walked out and down the hall to Mr. Crown's room. Kyle and Charles were already there.
"Okay, guys we're gonna go to all the popular places here—the White House, Congress, the Capitol building, the Post Office, places like that. Now you guys need to listen to this. The Gays are having a pride festival in an area we're going to have to walk through, so you'll see a lot of them together. Don't stop and stare and definitely don't say anything rude."
I was in awe. I was going to get to see other people who were just like me. I glanced over at Tyler. His expression about the gay festival was kind of neutral. I'd have expected him to be completely grossed out by the gays.
We headed out and got on to the bus that took us to the Capitol. We'd be walking the rest of the way, it seemed.
It took us about 15 minutes to get there. We weren't even allowed to go inside. So instead, we all stood outside while Mr. Crown took pictures of us. We left after that. It seemed that the White House really wasn't all that close to the Capitol. The gates to the White House weren't open, so we stood outside at the gate and gawked at it for about 10 minutes. Mr. Crown decided it was time to go then.
The Post Office, which wasn't really a post office, was on the other side of town. Mr. Crown told us we were about to have to walk through the festival and after that we had about a 30 minute walk. I looked down at my watch. It was 10:15 AM, meaning we'd be getting to the Post Office around 11:15.
"So dude, what do you wanna do when we get back to the hotel?" Tyler asked me as we began walking.
"Uh, we aren't going to be back at the hotel for quite a while," I replied.
He started grinning.
"So? We're gonna go to the store when we get back and then go swimming." He told me.
"Ha, okay." I laughed.
At around 10:30, we began walking through the pride festival. There were gay people everywhere. I saw rainbows all over the place. Mr. Crown gave us one of those you-better-remember-what-I-said looks.
After we made it out of the main part of the festival, I saw a subway, and practically begged Mr. Crown to let us take it instead of walking. It took him about five minutes to agree.
It ended up being about 10:50 when we made it to the Post Office. We found a small shopping center as soon as we got inside. Kyle and I went to an electronics store, while Tyler and Charles ended up going to a sports store. Some Japanese guy who worked in the store tried to con us into buying a lot of stuff for half price, but we didn't buy into it. We left the store as soon as we got done telling the guy that we didn't want anything.
Tyler and Charles met us about five minutes later, and we all went to get an ice cream from a parlor across the street. When we made it back to the Post Office, Mr. Crown told us it was time to go see the Smithsonian and then after that, whoever wanted to could go to a baseball game with him.
The Smithsonian was a huge museum full of some of the neatest stuff. We split up into groups when we got there; I ended up being with Tyler. We walked around and looked at the space part of the museum—I was into space and that kind of stuff.
We stayed at the Smithsonian until about 1:15 and then we all met up outside.
"Okay, so who's going to the baseball game with me?" Mr. Crown asked us.
None of us spoke up. I would've thought Tyler wanted to go with him.
"Hmm, alright, I'll go by myself then. I'll be home around 7 so you have until then to do whatever. Stay together and don't go off with anyone you don't know." He warned us.
I was surprised that Mr. Crown was going to let us wonder around the city for almost five hours, but I was excited about it, nonetheless.
Mr. Crown started going toward the bus stop that would take him to Maryland; that's where the baseball game was.
"So what do y'all wanna do?" I asked.
"I'm pretty hungry, let's go eat somewhere." Kyle spoke up.
"Yeah, I'm pretty hungry too," Charles said.
"K, so we'll go eat. Where do y'all wanna go?"
"There was a Hard Rock Cafe on the way here. How about there?" Tyler suggested.
"That sounds good to me, you guys good with Hard Rock?" I asked.
"Good by me." Kyle said.
"Fine with me," Charles said.
We started walking in the direction of the Hard Rock Cafe. It took us about 15 minutes to get there, but to my surprise, we were seated almost immediately. I decided to order a half-order of ribs and a large drink. It took about 20 minutes for us to get our food.
After we finished eating, we decided to go to the Pentagon City mall, which was a huge, three-story mall, and just hang out. We got on to the subway that took us to the mall, which was about a 10 minute ride. When we got there, I walked off by myself toward Aeropostale, which was my favorite store. I wasn't sure where the others went. About 5 minutes after I walked into the store, my cell phone rang. I looked down and saw Tyler's name on the caller ID.
"Hey," I said into the phone.
"Hey, where are you?" Tyler asked.
"I'm in the middle of Aeropostale shopping. When do you guys want me to meet yall?" I said.
"Hey guys, what time do we need to meet up?" Tyler said to the other two boys.
I heard Kyle say about 5:30. I could probably use all of the three hours to go through these stores.
"About 5:30," Tyler said back into the phone. "You want some company?"
"Uh, sure, if you want to." I told him.
...
3 hours later, I was walking back onto the subway with 4 bags – 2 from Aeropostale, 1 from American Eagle, and 1 from Barnes and Noble. This time, instead of getting off where we got on, we kept going until we got back to the station we got on at earlier that day, close to the festival. I'd prefer to walk from there, than walk from the Post Office.
When we got off of the subway, it seemed that the pride festival was over, so we walked through there back to the Capitol, where a bus came every half hour to take people back to their bus stops. After the 15 minute ride back to the bus stop across the street from our hotel, it was about 6:30, so we walked into the hotel. I decided I wanted to go swimming, while the other boys wanted to go to the store again, so I went and changed, while they all started walking to the store.
I just swam laps around the pool until Tyler came to tell me we were having a "party." I couldn't see us having a party with anyone but ourselves; we didn't know anyone here. Nevertheless, I got out of the pool and went to our room to change. I grabbed some dry clothes and dropped them on the counter in the bathroom as I hopped into the shower.
I was wondering about this party. The hotel rooms weren't all that big, and when he said that we were having a party, I assumed he meant we as in Kyle, Charles, Tyler, and myself. When I got out of the shower, I put on my clothes and walked into the room. I didn't see Tyler anywhere, so I walked down the hall to Kyle and Charles' room. When I knocked, some guy I'd never seen opened the door. There were about 15 people, but I had absolutely no idea who they were. I saw Tyler over talking to some guy in a corner, but I interrupted their conversation.
"Who are these people?" I whispered to him.
"Kyle and Charles said they met a bunch of people at the mall, and they invited some of the people over for a party. Go get yourself a drink and you can hang with me." He told me.
I was feeling pretty uptight—I didn't do well around new people—so I went and got the drink and came back over to Tyler. He was talking to the same guy again, so I didn't interrupt and went off to find Kyle or Charles.
Right as I walked into Charles, I heard Kyle yell, "Okay everybody, we need to keep it down. Please remember we're in a hotel room," and then everyone went back to their conversations, but they seemed to be quieter, I noticed.
"Sup dude?" Charles said as he started talking to me.
"Uh, nothing, how'd y'all meet all these people?" I asked him, uncertainly.
"We were just walking around the mall, and we saw a group of kids so we started talking to them. Then we decided that we'd have this party tonight, it being our last night here and all."
"Oh, I see." I said back to him.
I realized around then that I'd finished my first drink, so I went and got another one. I talked to Kyle for a while, and then Tyler, and then some girl that smelled so bad I thought I'd vomit.
Before I knew it, the time on my watch was 11:24pm. I thought I'd better get to bed, seeing as the Awards' Ceremony was at 10 in the morning. I told Tyler, Kyle, and Charles that I thought they'd better go to bed. Surprisingly, they all agreed, and the people started to clear out of the hotel room. Tyler and I went to our room, where I sat down on the bed to start taking off my clothes.
I didn't hear the door close when I came in, so I got up to go close it. When I went and sat back down, Tyler was sitting on my bed beside me just chattering away. I looked up when he called my name, to find him leaning in, and then he kissed me.