“People will hear.” I motion my head towards the door. “I’m supposed to be spewing right now.”
“Nobody’s out there.”
To prove my point, I make the loudest vomiting sound I can muster. “Huueeggghhhhh!”I cough twice.“Huuuuuwwwwweegghhhh!”
Eggo stares at me, half shocked into silence and half on the brink of laughter. He’s ready to say, “See? No one’s there,” but Abs’s voice sounds from just beyond the panelling.
“Fucking hell, mate, are you okay?”
I make the noise again.
“Yeah, he’s not good, pard,” Eggo calls out, stifling his mirth. He turns the tap on, scoops up water and dumps it on my head and face.
“What the fuck?” I say under my breath.
“You’re a sweaty bastard.”
“Hey, dickhead, let me in,” Abs yells, banging on the door now. The handle jiggles, my heart flips inside out, but the lock holds firm. “Let me help.”
“Look more sick,” Eggo mouths. He flushes the toilet and then opens the door.
As best as I can, I pretend I’m just righting myself from being hunched over the bowl.
Abs steps into the bathroom, making the space uncomfortably crowded. “Are you done barfing? Is it all out?”
I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and nod, and behind Abs, Eggo smirks. I’m so thankful Abs is anosmic, meaning he has no sense of smell and therefore no way to disprove the chunder story.
“You want me to get you back to the hotel?” Abs asks.
Eggo cuts in, looping his arm over my shoulder. “I’ll get him back safely. We’re sharing a room anyway.”
“Okay, but I’m coming with you.”
I make eyes at Eggo, but there’s no getting around it. If we tell Abs no, he’ll grow suspicious. The only thing I can do is pretend to be so drunk that the only solution for me is to go straight to the hotel and claw myself into bed.
“My jacket,” I yell, then fake stumble and point towards the rest of the boys.
Eggo nips back over to the bar to pick up our belongings, and the three of us trundle downstairs. Abs flags down a taxi the old-fashioned way, and we climb in, Abs in the front and Eggo and me in the back seat. I lean my head against the leather headrest and feign drunken dozing.
“You still never told me what Gadget did that you two were gossiping about,” Abs says.
I murmur, and the seat bounces with Eggo’s silent laughter. In the rear-view mirror, I see the taxi driver look over at Abs.
“Do you remember last month when the disabled toilet at the training grounds got blocked so badly they had to dig up the car park and replace all the pipes?”
“Yeah?” Abs says, drawing out the word.
“Yeah, well, that was because Gadget took a shit so solid and colossal that it flooded the entire bathroom and the original plumber they called out couldn’t clear it, even with this like spinning snake drill thing.” Eggo’s fingers brush mine, and I fight laughter. He’d already confessed to that crime as the jackhammers were opening the asphalt.
“Fucking hell!” Abs says, but he’s obviously satisfied by the story as he turns forward to face the road.
“Come on, pard. Wakey wakey.” Eggo gently slaps my cheeks as the taxi slows to a stop.
I grumble and open my eyes, feign a yawn, and “fall” out of the car. It’s freezing outside and my breath fogs in front of me. Abs drapes my jacket over my shoulders, and I let the pair of them prop me up and walk me in. I don’t know if either of them has paid the driver, and part of me is celebrating how inadvertently cunning my plan of pretending to be drunk has been, and part is worried we’re fare-dodging and the driver’s going to be pissed at us now.
“What room are you in?” Eggo asks Abs as they guide me towards the lifts.
“Three oh two oh,” Abs answers, and I feel Eggo sag in relief. We’re not direct neighbours.
