So Jack drank until three in the morning, when he threw up all over the pillow beside him.
When he woke, the vomit was gone, along with the whisky bottle. Only the muffin and candy bar remained, undigested and whole, mocking him from the bedside table.
Three days passed.Jack oscillated between panic and despair. He called work and got fired again. He asked Boris what day it was and cried at the response. For two hours each night, he sat in the shower under scalding hot water, then climbed up ontothe roof and stared at the stars until his shivering became uncontrollable.
He inventoried his clothes. Everything he’d lost when the suitcase burst open had reappeared, whole and clean, as if nothing had ever fallen into the gutter or blown away.
One night, he bought liquor instead of a gas station hot dog, drank it from a paper bag on his way back to the hotel. He found Boris at the front desk, flipping through a new magazine. Blond girls in bikinis grinned at him, their calves coated in sand, hair fluttering in the breeze. Pages and pages of bikini babes in increasingly naughty poses, some of them pulling at the straps of their swimsuits, a teasing grin on their symmetrical faces.
“Why not just buy a porno?” he asked and Boris shrugged.
“Can’t read it in the lobby.”
That was as good a reason as any, Jack supposed. “You want a drink?” He offered the paper bag.
Boris peered inside and stifled a laugh. “Shit, youarehaving a bad day! Yeah, gimme some of that.”
They drank under the humming neon sign. Cars drove past. Their headlights illuminated the lobby through the windows and reflected off wet sidewalks. Under other circumstances, Jack might have appreciated the moment. But Boris was no friend, and this was a strange, dirty hotel with suspiciously few guests.
But a drink was a drink.
“You, uh, wanna blow off some steam?” asked Boris after a few minutes of silently trading the bottle back and forth.
Jack blinked at him blearily. “What?”
Boris inclined his head, blue eyes blazing. Jack’s heart leapt. “I could meet you in the supply closet in ten. You know… If you want to.” His voice was low and smooth—Jack wanted to lap it up like ice cream.
An answer climbed onto the tip of his tongue. He gripped his knees until his knuckles went white.
If Jack was living the same day over and over again, was Boris?
Probably.
Was Boris aware of it?
Didn’t seem like it.
If they slept together, he wouldn’t remember anything. Though Jack was tempted by those blue eyes and full lips, something about the situation didn’t sit right with him. Could Boris consent if he didn’t know he was living the same day over and over? If Jack had sex with him, was that taking advantage?
Did itmatterif Boris wouldn’t remember tomorrow?
An eyebrow raised. Boris leaned back in his chair, licked his lips, stared down at his hands. “Listen, if I misread anything?—”
“You didn’t,” Jack assured him, tapping his fingers anxiously against the countertop. “I just—I gotta be up early. Not a great idea. Sorry.”
“Right,” said Boris, looking anywhere but Jack’s face. “Yeah, got it. Have a good night.”
“Yeah,” said Jack, reaching for the brown paper bag. “You, too.”
He took the stairs two at a time, trying to outrun Boris’ disappointment and his own guilt.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fuck Boris. That he wasn’t tempted. But that would complicate things—at least for Jack.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
He wokethe next morning with a raging headache. An hour in the shower didn’t fix it. Nor did a good bout of sobbing, vomiting out the window, or choking down the muffin.
