CLANDESTINE : Spencer Reid

51

            The hotel has a shuttle that Cletus' family paid for since enough of the wedding guests are staying in the same place. Reid and I cram inside it, filing into a back corner. Too many people squeeze in so my knee is pressed into his and I'm sure he's rather uncomfortable pinned between me and the window. We had to abandon the rental car back at the wedding venue, but so long as we pick it up early in the morning, no one will care. Stéphane will drive me to pick it up, I'm sure.

People are still having fun on the bus. As much as I rag on Cletus, his family knows how to have a good time. Guests are singing, kissing, and laughing, and people are drunk but no one is throwing up. It doesn't take more than ten minutes to get to the hotel, but I don't mind the moment.

Soon enough, we load off and into the parking lot. Men stumble on the concrete, laughing and pushing one another. Women take off the heels of their shoes and whine about their aching toes. I marvel at the sight. My brothers are there too, Bastien holding Stéphane in a headlock while flirting with a bridesmaid. Decidedly she's not his date, nor the secret boyfriend I suspect he's hiding somewhere, but he's twenty-two and allowed to not have his shit together. I don't either.

Reid's arm grazes against mine. I look up at him.

"I'm not sure how they still have energy," I gesture over to my brother's bigger and broader than me, swinging at each other wildly.

He looks at them all, "high intensity exercise can make it more difficult to fall asleep. They all seem intoxicated though, so I doubt they will continue to make a ruckus much longer."

"I'm not waiting up for them," I feel myself yawn.

Reid shows me the way into the hotel. He got the room number from someone else, but we have to grab our stuff from the initial room still. Reid and I make it out there before Cletus' parents come. I wait in front of the door.

"You look tired," he says. "Or drunk."

When I press the back of my hand against my cheeks, my cheeks feel so hot. That, or my hand is frigid. I close my eyes before I blink and open them.

"Not drunk, at least," I tell him.

He nods. Reid leans against the hallway wall next to me. Even though he must be tired as well, he does not slouch. For once, I don't mind the height distance. It doesn't feel weird, having him above me.

"I had a good time," he tells me.

Then, I smile.

The elevator doors ding and Cletus' mother comes out. Her husband leaves the elevator as well, dragging three suitcases off. Cletus' mother barely makes eye contact with me, hurrying to the door beside us and opening it. We hurry in to grab our stuff.

"Here," she passes Reid a keycard. "You should have just kept one of the keycards, so you didn't have to wait for us."

Reid thanks her and we head out with our few bags in tow. I can't wait to sleep on a bed. Really, at this rate I'm getting close to being able to sleep standing up. We only have to go up two floors, the journey feels so quick given how high my office and my apartment are in the buildings I live in. And then, we are navigating to the hotel room.

"Sorry you're stuck out here," I tell him. "I know how much you hate hotel rooms, being on the road so much."

Reid shrugs, "I'll live. It's one night."

He unlocks the door and we step inside. Reid flicks the light on and stops in the doorway, I squeeze past him, stepping into the bathroom where I drop the bag over my shoulders. I begin to unpin my hair, letting the braids come loose and the hair that has since become frizzy fall around my shoulders. As I do, I kick off the heels on my feet, and step out of the bathroom.