Pylar closed his eyes and held his breath. He turned away from the falls, his luggage left behind him. When he opened his eyes, it wasn't blond hair and a smooth jaw, it was dark brown hair and black-rimmed glasses. It wasn't Gage, it was Maddox and for a moment Pylar hated himself for being disappointed that it was only Maddox waiting for him, staring at him with his head tilted a little to the side.

"Dude, are you okay?"

"Hm?" Pylar shook his head, hoping whatever had distorted Maddox's voice would be gone.

"You tired? You seem kind of out of it." Maddox put his arm on Pylar's shoulder and give it a squeeze.

Pylar scratched the back of his head. "I guess. Between the weird shit at the liquor store and the drive, I guess it took a lot more out of me then I thought." Pylar returned to his luggage and walked into the hotel. The lobby was unlike any hotel lobby he'd ever been in, though the raised ceiling and crystal chandelier in the entryway reminded him much more of Heaven than he wanted. The floor was a mixture of white marble with black blots running through it. The chairs spread throughout the lobby were smooth leather, brightened with dye and glass top tables. Across from the sign-in desk was a restaurant in the lobby. While Maddox parted from Pylar to check-in at the desk, Pylar moved closer to the restaurant. A large arch made of twisted marble imitated water in stone. Through the big archway, a large picture window was visible on the other side of the room and the window overlooked the falls and the river right across the street.

With check-in finished, Pylar and Maddox headed to their room on the eighth floor. They stepped into the elevator. Maddox handed Pylar one of the card keys from the little slip the receptionist had given him. Pylar stared at the card. "Thanks, man." Pylar hooked his arm around Maddox and tugged him into a hug. "You didn't have to go through all this trouble, but... wow. The view, the hotel, the food."

Maddox released his bags to return Pylar's hug. First, it was loose, then he squeezed Pylar a little harder and Pylar squeezed him back. "You deserve it. You deserve a lot more than you know."

Pylar smiled but kept his face turned away to hide just how much he was smiling. The guilt of Maddox spending so much on this trip, but the pleasure of being here with this room he was excited to see and the falls that he'd never seen despite living just a few hours from them all of his life — then the returning guilt that he was so excited to be there and that he was happy. "Sucks Cindy and Jonsey couldn't come tonight, but I guess that just means more cake and alcohol for us."

"Yeah, but they said they'd make it up to you, so I guess... what's so bad about two, maybe three parties?" Maddox slipped the card into the lock and pushed the door open. The lights were already on and the curtains still drawn, going out into the darkness just over the falls with some of the park lights keeping the area from turning into a frame of darkness. There were two queen-size beds with plush, white sheets, a fairly large television, and a bathroom with a huge bathtub and standing shower.

Pylar dragged his bag to the furthest bed and left it there. Then he laid the canvas grocery bag down on the small table and pushed his luggage against the wall. From the bag, he took out a large, square cake with white frosting and set it out, then grabbed the paper plates and a package of disposable forks and laid them out beside it. "I got the biggest one they had prepped at the store. Hope you're ready for sheet cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Buttercream of course."

Maddox came over and looked down at the cake. Small monster figurines battled on top the cake also decorated with splatters of blood and green bites of icing meant to be some kind of acid attack. "Go big or go home, right?" he said. Maddox emptied the plastic bag from the liquor store out on the table, transferring the drinks then to the mini-fridge tucked beneath the room's microwave and coffee set.

"Wanna crack open the cake and vodka and see what kind of shitty romcoms we can find on cable tonight?"

"Is there any other way to spend opening night?" Maddox grabbed his bag and took it to the bed. After tossing it on top the spread, he dug through it until he found the pair of gray sweatpants and a black tank top that he normally wore to bed. "I think I wanna order some Chinese too... You in?"

"Hell, yeah. You know what I like," Pylar said.

"Yeah, I do..." Maddox muttered and turned away.

Pylar grabbed the box of cake and a pair of forks from the table and brought them to Maddox's bed. He sat down and put the food at the edge of the bed. He grabbed pillows from his bed and adjusted them against the headboard on Maddox's bed while Maddox grabbed a takeout menu from the table in the room. Maddox disappeared into the bathroom with a handful of clothing and the door shut as he said, "Hello! I'd like to order delivery, please?"

Pylar worked off the plastic cover of the cake and laid it aside. He took a fork and dug it right into the pile of cake. Cutting the thing up would be a waste of time; plates were possibly even a waste of time at this point. He put a forkful of cake into his mouth and reached for the remote. There wasn't a lot on TV — in fact, there was a lot less than Pylar would've guessed even with premium channels like HBO and Cinaflix. Action movie about a US spy in Italy turning on the American government then also turning on the Italian government, infomercial — even though it seemed a little early for infomercials — about a toilet bowl light that changes colors and detects motion, an animal planet documentary that showed a lion chasing some kind of desert deer thing and then faded into a shot where the king of the jungle was humping his queen.

Pylar took another forkful of cake and leaned back, letting the fork hang from his mouth. He settled into the mountain of pillows against the bed's backboard as he flipped through the channels, looking for anything to catch his eye, but everything sort of faded into the background of noise and pictures that might as well have been blurs of color. The voices and music became muffles and he wasn't even aware when Maddox came back. The bed shifted under his weight and the other boy laughed. Pylar felt a smile and knew he said something, but he wasn't sure of what he said. Maddox laughed and took some cake and the channels still went by in a blur until finally boxes of Chinese food were laid out over the mattress beside the brightly colored birthday cake that was now missing one corner. The open bottle of s'mores vodka sat in an ice bucket on the table beside Pylar and both boys drank from small plastic cups they'd stolen from the bathroom. Who needed a cup to rinse their mouths with anyway? Pylar put the remote down, settling on a romantic comedy where a cruise ship is stuck out at sea and a homeless golden retriever sneaks board and teaches the couple how to work together and captain a ship in order to avoid crashing into an island or being stranded at sea. Halfway through the movie, Pylar groped the bed looking for the remote. His hand slid along the comforter gingerly avoiding boxes of spaced out orange chicken, General Tso's chicken, beef and broccoli, dumplings, and rice... More than a corner of cake was missing now, but the two of them eating it barely made a dent when compared to the rest of the cake. Thunder rumbled outside, a quick flash of lightning lit the room, and rain suddenly pelted the window hard.

"Okay..." Pylar laughed and leaned back against the headboard, his cheeks flushed, the remote nowhere to be found between the food. "This is dumb. Gimme the remote. It's my turn." He put his hand out, knowing for sure if he couldn't find the remote, Maddox would find it and give it to him. Maddox was always reliable like that; even when they were kids. Any time Pylar needed something, Maddox was there with it; a pencil during a test, an extra dollar for the vending machine, a little free time so they could go on an adventure at the park because it was his fourteenth birthday and his mom worked and he couldn't stop thinking about how much he wished his dad was there. How much, despite how often he told Maddox he didn't care who his dad was, his family was good enough without him — and his family didn't need someone to be there who didn't want to be there — but there were days when it was harder than others to look at Maddox's family, his mom and dad and his three sisters all there around him and Pylar just had... his mom — and it wasn't that she wasn't good enough, but sometimes... there was this pain in his chest and breathe; sometimes he laid in bed, staring at the ceiling for hours because he couldn't sleep, because he wondered what his dad was like; what did his dad look like? Where was his dad at that moment? Why did his dad come in and just... disappear?

He imagined what life could've been like if he'd had a dad like Maddox. God, it was embarrassing. He pressed his hand to his eyes and leaned forward. If he'd had a dad, maybe he would have learned how to play baseball or football or some other kind of sport and then maybe he would have made more friends in school instead of meeting Maddox as he hid under the jungle gym during recess in third grade. He had a skinned knee and his thick, black glasses were bent, cracked around the right lens. Someone had stepped on them. Tony had taken them off and stepped on them. Tony, the guy who now quarterbacked the school football team, whose aggressiveness had always been seen as an asset, something that would help propel the school football team into notoriety and the teachers weren't wrong. Pylar had never been interested in sports and he wondered if having a dad would have made him more like Tony. That's not a life Pylar would have wanted, but Maddox had a dad and still wasn't interested in sports. So... the difference knowing his dad would make was something Pylar often thought about at night, but he didn't know how it would have changed his life, but if it stopped him from knowing Maddox like he did now, having a dad wouldn't have been worth it; having answers about who he was and where he came from.... almost seemed unreasonable if it meant losing Maddox.

Maddox grabbed the remote from the bedside table, almost knocking over his plastic cup of vodka. He smacked the thing into Pylar's hand, his face a bit flushed. He took off his glasses and cleaned them in his shirt. His eyes squinted in a hopeless attempt to bring clarity to the TV screen.

Pylar's heart skipped a beat as their fingers brushed, their skin touched, he felt a jolt of heat and energy and an unfamiliar hunger. He pulled away quickly and refocused on the television. He settles on something unfamiliar: a night vision camera, a couple people wandering through a dark room with furniture covered in white sheets. In the corner of the room, there's something that looks like a man covered in a white sheet standing against the wall. The camera shifts away from the night vision, first-person shot to a more cinematic shot with bad lighting like it was coming from a couple of flashlights and a single light bulb in the ceiling.

"Do you really think this place is haunted?" Some guy with dark hair and bangs over his right eye said. He was tall, thick with muscles, and wearing a dark green t-shirt that outlined his fit physique underneath.

"I don't know, but I'm getting a weird vibe," said a woman with blonde hair curled at her shoulders. Her lips were big and bright red. She walked with a waddle, wearing six-inch heels and a purple mini-skirt dress.

Pylar dropped the remote onto the bed. It bounced and it the floor with a soft thud.

"They said this ghost was a ladykiller. I bet the bastard is stalking us right now!" the man punched the wall as his voice fluctuated in a way that made him sound more confused than angry. "But he probably won't come out until we split up. Charlotte, why don't you go that way and check out the guy's old club room?" He gestured with his hand while the other held a camera steady.

"You mean... ago alone?" said the woman. She waddled to the door and lean in. Her breasts pressed against the frame and her short skirt revealed a shot of her black lace panties.

A shadow moved on the other side of the door, then there was a clunk and muttered, "Fuck!" like someone had stubbed their tow.

"If I go in there, I hope I don't get attacked," said the woman.

The man with the swooping black hair put a hand on Charlotte's shoulder. "But if you go in there, we might finally get evidence that ghosts exist and then I will be closer to knowing whether my father died from extraterrestrial — I mean — supernatural intervention or if he skipped town on my poor mom — but that wouldn't make any sense! My mom is super hot — you know? Fucking smokin'. Any guy would be lucky to have her and if I wasn't her son, I'd think of hitting her up myself. Still have jerked off to her in a couple of fantasies though. Nothing wrong with that—"

"This the kind of acting you like in your TV shows?" Maddox covered his crooked smile and glanced away from the screen.

Pylar stifled a laugh. "Man... The acting is so bad..." He took another bite of chicken.

Charlotte only needed a little more convincing to go in the room. The convincing was a hand on her back shoving her in and the guy with the swooping hair shut the door behind her and held it closed. She banged on the door and begged to be let out in a gasping, breathy voice rather than anything that actually sounded like panic. The camera clumsily jumped to inside the room. The uneven lighting on the screen gave a feeling that it was lit by a few house lamps positioned off-camera. A man in a black bodysuit ran by the screen and popped the buttons of the woman's dress one by one. The buttons ran from her collarbone down to her belly button and as each button came undone, her breasts became more exposed along with no bra. The woman screamed, but instead of covering her chest, she turned toward the door and backed away from it. "Oh my god! Who is there?!"

Maddox's face tinted a soft red. "No wonder the acting is so bad... They're not actors..."

Pylar straightened. On TV, a man wearing a pinstripe suit and a matching hat, cosplaying a bad mobster came onto the screen. His face was made paler by a layer of makeup that had a clear line ending halfway down his neck. He said, "Boo, toots" just before taking hold of Charlotte's arms and taking her to the bed. He bent her over and pressed his hips against her ass.

"Oh — OH, god." Pylar frantically glanced around for the remote, patting the bed blindly as the music shifted to something made mostly of a beat-line recorded in someone's garage. Heavy breathing filtered out of the screen and drew his eyes up. "I didn't know— I—" A lump formed in his throat as the mobster man pulled the woman up from the bed and pinned her to the wall.