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'A Force of Nature: Part II'
Chapter Eleven
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"Geez Daniel, what's with all of this luggage? You're only going to be gone a few days. What do you need all of this for?"
"Derek, once we leave this house we'll be gone five days. I need to have enough clothes with me to last that long, plus anything else I might need."
Morgan laughed. "You have enough bags here for at least two weeks' worth of clothes."
"I know, Derek. I'm not sure what outfits I want to wear in every situation, so I just brought more than I need."
"Daniel, you have more luggage here than Reid and I put together."
"It is true he'll be appearing on television, but we will not. I suppose that means he needs more clothes than we do," Reid added.
"Right. However, in Spencer's case he will be acquiring more clothes, so he should bring extra bags to pack the new stuff in unless we buy one while we're out shopping this afternoon."
Reid made a face. "I'm not looking forward to this shopping thing," he complained.
"Quit whining, Spencer. Most people I know think shopping with me is fun."
"I'm not most people," Reid grumbled.
"Obviously," Morgan laughed.
"Shut up, Morgan."
"What stores are we going to hit?" Morgan asked.
"I have it all planned out. Once we check into the hotel we hit the stores and then we'll have dinner at a nice restaurant I'll tell you about later. It will probably be too late to do any more shopping after dinner, so we should try to finish it all this afternoon." He put one last carryon sized bag on top of his stack of luggage before continuing. "Since my coach cancelled practice this morning we're getting started earlier than we figured. So we should have plenty of time. I thought we could start with The Original Levis Store, and then there's this shop right across the street that sells leather goods at discount prices where we could look for a jacket…"
"Wait," Morgan interrupted. "We're shopping at a Levis store? I thought you were going for designer clothes and a 'GQ' look?"
"First off, I wear jeans also, and they're not always designer jeans. Second, I have orders from Karyn and Penelope. They both say Spencer needs snug jeans that fit right and that Levis are the best at that. I don't disagree with them, so I've decided that's where we're going to start."
"I know no one cares what I think, even though we are shopping for me," Reid complained.
"You're right, kid. No one cares what you think," Morgan grinned. "Okay, let's get this show on the road. We can discuss where to shop on the way." He shook his head as he looked at Daniel's luggage again, and then picked up his own bags. "I'll come back and help you with yours, Daniel." Reid picked up his bags, and grabbed one of Daniel's before heading to the car. Daniel opened the back of his car and the three men started loading their bags inside. They were driving Daniel's car into New York City, and then parking it in long term parking at JFK once they were headed for Los Angeles. They would then fly back into JFK and drive Daniel's car back into the DC area. Their other choice would have been to drive back to DC from New York and fly out to Los Angeles from one of the local airports. They decided they liked the flying out of New York option better. It took three trips from them to get all of their bags to the car; the last two trips consisting entirely of Daniel's bags.
"I'm surprised all that actually fit in the car," Reid commented, as he placed the last two bags on the driver's side of the back seat.
"Okay," Daniel said as he unlocked the car doors. "Who is riding shotgun, and who is sitting in the back seat?"
"We've both driven with you, so you have managed to scare the hell out of both of us with your driving."
"Gee, thanks Spencer!" Daniel said sarcastically. "So, does that mean neither one of you wants to ride in the front seat with me?"
"No, that means we're going to flip a coin."
"Why bother?" Morgan asked. "You know you always lose coin flips, Reid."
"Ha, ha!"
Daniel pulled a quarter out of his pocket and said, "Okay, who wants to call it?"
"Go ahead, Reid."
"I call heads."
Daniel tossed the coin in the air, caught it and flipped it over onto his wrist. "You lose, Spencer. It's tails."
"Naturally," Reid frowned. "You better keep at least one hand on the wheel at all times, Daniel, preferably both hands." He climbed into the passenger seat. "And keep your eyes on the damn road!"
Morgan laughed as he climbed into the back seat and Daniel climbed into the driver's seat and inserted the key into the ignition. "I should be insulted," he said. "However, since my own mother says the same thing as you Spencer, I guess I really shouldn't be." He started the car and pulled away from the curb. "How about we stop for lunch somewhere along the way?"
"Sounds good to me," Morgan said.
Reid laughed and then turned to look at Morgan. "I just realized we would be passing within a few miles of Daniel's parents' house. Alex and Caroline haven't met you yet Morgan. We ought to drop by there for lunch!"
Morgan shook his head as Daniel laughed. "We'd never get to New York if we did. Besides, my mom is at work today, and my dad does volunteer work on Monday mornings. But we should seriously stop by on our way back from New York on Saturday. Both of them would love it if we did."
"How long do you think it will take us to get to New York?"
"Come on, Reid! You mean you don't know that already?" Morgan joked.
"The distance from Daniel's house to our hotel is approximately 230 miles. Under ideal driving conditions we could expect the trip to take around four and a half hours. However, conditions may not be ideal the entire distance. We could run into road construction, detours, collisions…"
"Sorry I asked," Morgan said under his breath.
"Shall we sing the 'One Hundred Bottles of Beer' song?" Daniel joked.
"Must we?" Reid asked. He groaned as Morgan and Daniel began singing. "Aargh!" he complained loudly to no avail, as the two men continued singing.
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"I am embarrassed to be seen with either one of you let along both," Reid commented as Daniel pulled his car in front of their hotel on Central Park West and Columbus Circle in New York City.
Morgan laughed. "What did we do?"
"What didn't you do? You started off by singing that ridiculous beer song, and then you sang every other dumb road song you could come up with. You couldn't sing a good road song like 'Roll Me Away' or 'Born to Run'; you had to think of every bad one ever written and sing it instead. Then I had to listen to every unfunny joke you've ever told and I've already heard. Then any time you saw a good looking female in another vehicle you decided you needed to…"
"Never mind kid," Morgan interrupted as they opened their doors and climbed out of the car. "Anyway, look who's talking about unfunny jokes." Daniel handed his keys to a valet for parking and was given a ticket to retrieve them later. A bellman began unloading their luggage and stacking it on a cart for transfer to their room. A few minutes later they were walking inside the hotel lobby. "This is some class," Morgan remarked as he looked around the lobby and up at the ceiling. "Check out that chandelier!"
"It's a five-star hotel," Reid told him.
Since they had a reservation and their room was paid for it didn't take long for them to be checked in and in the elevator on the way to their room. "We usually stay in decent hotels, but they're not quite like this," Morgan remarked as the three men rode the elevator to their two-bedroom suite on the forty-fifth floor of the Trump International Hotel and Towers.
"Well, 'The View' is paying for it tonight and tomorrow night, so let's just enjoy it," Daniel said. "I sure couldn't afford a place like this on a regular basis."
Once they arrived at their floor the bellman unloaded their luggage in the suite, and departed with the empty cart after being tipped by Daniel. "We have two bathrooms," Morgan said. "I suggest we figure out who goes in what bedroom and then freshen up before we go out shopping."
"It looks like this bedroom has a king size bed, and the other one over there has two twins. Therefore I think we can safely assume this one is Daniel's and the other one is ours," Reid said.
"Yeah. I guess Daniel's the reason we're here so we ought to let him have the king size bed," Morgan said with a grin. "Besides with all the luggage he has there wouldn't be any space for another person in his room."
"Thanks, Derek," Daniel commented as Reid laughed.
"We also have a kitchen," Reid commented as he wandered around the suite.
"A kitchen I have no intention of using," Daniel said. "We're in a hotel with its own five-star restaurant in a city known for great dining. I'm not cooking anything while I'm here. We are having dinner this evening at the Mesa Grill."
"Bobby Flay's restaurant?" Reid asked.
"You got it. My agent was able to get us a reservation for 9 pm. That's the nice restaurant I said I would tell you about later."
"No kidding?" Morgan remarked. "Do we have to dress up?"
"I have no idea. Maybe we should call them and ask?"
"It's probably casual and not too fancy," Reid said.
"So no tuxedo, but also no tee shirts and shorts," Morgan joked.
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Continued in Chapter Twelve (which will be posted shortly) since this one was getting too long…
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A/N: I looked all over the Internet to try and find out what hotel 'The View' puts its guests up in. I couldn't find out, and I haven't been able to watch the show lately to find out. They usually tell you at the end of these shows where their guests stay, but I am fairly certain it's not going to be quite as snazzy as the Trump International. According to their website (.com/Hotel_Overview/hotel_ ), the hotel's two-bedroom suites are either on floors three through seventeen with a view of Central Park, or floors sixteen through fifty-nine with a view of Columbus Circle; so I just randomly decided to pick out forty-five as our boys' floor number.
.com/newyorkcity/
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