CHAPTER TWO
The Next Morning
A live chicken pecks at an already soiled piece of furniture, mining for a stray worm to no avail. He gets bored and walks around the suite. Passing by burned curtains, mustard covered walls, many empty beer bottles, a lacey violet bra, ninja stars, a duffle bag chock full of money, as well as lots of other junk which the narrator doesn't feel like mentioning at the moment. Iggy is the first one to awaken from his deep slumber on the floor. He used an insubstantial amount of newspapers as a blanket which had slipped off as he slept, revealing the word "JACKASS" written across his bare rib cage in Sharpie. Since his eyelids are heavy and his vision is slightly blurred, he doesn't really see last night's uncooked poultry make its way towards him. It stops at a half full bottle of stale beer and pecks it off the coffee table Iggy slept next to. The beer splashes him on the face, snapping him out of his dazed state.
"OWW WHAT THE HELL!" Iggy shouts at the top of his lungs, frantically trying to find something to rub the alcohol out of his seal shut eyes. Nick rockets awake on the couch right next to Iggy at the sound of his scream and looks at Iggy perplexed when he starts to rub his face against his blanket.
"What in the fuck are you doing man?" Nick massages his aching head, hating how Iggy's scream was still ringing in his ears. "You better have a good ass reason for waking me up."
Iggy doesn't seem to hear him. Instead, attempting to blindly run to the nearest sink since the blanket only rubbed the alcohol further into his retinas. He trips over Ari's (fortunately) passed out body and falls into the warm, soft embrace of a used, padded bra. Nick can't help but feel bad for the guy, so he begrudgingly leaves the couch with a crick in his side that only just then began to become apparent. He walks in an odd way that doesn't utilize that side and hoists Iggy up by the arms.
"Thanks." He mutters, shakingly standing on his feet. Nick calmly guides him to the kitchen sink where Iggy finally is able to give his eyeballs some much needed relief.
The duo debate on whether or not they should wake Ari up, but there's no need seeing as he naturally arises a few minutes later. He's disoriented, and understandably also really groggy.
"My head is killing me."
"Yeah, that typically happens after a night of drinking." Iggy snarks, wiping his eyes on a hand towel with questionable stains. "Join the club."
"Ugh! Can you just like, shut up forever!" Ari groans, rubbing both of his hands against his temples.
"Real mature." Iggy rolls his eyes as Nick just kind of sighs.
Too tired to look at the sheer insanity that's become of their way too expensive suite or to really fight about anything, the gang sluggishly gets ready for the day. Looking like hell, they go out to the elevators and wait for one to hit their floor. Once an elevator finally approaches them, there's a young yuppie couple already on it that backs away from the guys with their fingers pinching their noses. The guy uses his other hand to repeatedly press the "close doors" button on the wall of the elevator until the door finally shuts.
"We'll…we'll get the next one." Nick says, as an empty elevator opens up to the left of them. The ride is rather quiet as the guys already feel too worn out to speak.
When they arrive at the dining hall buffet, what would usually look like a glorious spread of food now looked like a potential vomiting hazard.
"This might be the worst hangover anyone has ever had, ever." Ari rasps, and they all nod their heads, agreeing.
"Hey guys…are we missing something?" Nick asks a few seconds later, suddenly getting the feeling that they forgot something extremely important. The guys slowly look around. Mindlessly getting into the long-ass line for the buffet.
"Hmmm….." Iggy rubs his scruffy peach fuzz covered chin. "Now that I think about it, I did leave my lucky lighter in the hotel room."
"I dunno, it feels like something much bigger than tha-"
Ari's face then lights up, as if a literal lightbulb was turned on in his noggin.
"DYLAN!" Ari shouts in his best outside voice, promptly attracting unwanted attention to the three of them. "GUY'S, WHERE'S DYLAN!"
The other two have rather delayed reactions to this revelation, mostly focused on scolding Dylan for yelling right in their still somewhat ringing ears. Afterwards, this information eventually seems to set in as the gang look from side to side for the fourth member of their entourage.
"Yeah, he's not here." Nick sighs, raking a hand through his inky bedhead mullet.
"We probably left him in the room on accident," Iggy pulls out his phone and starts dialing. "I'll just call him."
A phone then rings in Ari's pocket and he picks up.
"Yo, Ari speaking." Iggy rolls his eyes.
"It's me, meathead." At the sound of his voice, Ari makes a surprised Pikachu face wondering how he could be talking to Iggy when Iggy was supposed to be calling Dylan. Until it finally clicks.
"This is Dylan's phone, isn't it?" He asks the others, already knowing the answer.
"Yep."
"Ding, ding, ding."
Iggy hangs up the phone and dials another number.
"You calling the room?" Nick asks, nonchalantly. Iggy nods, groaning out a curt "uh-huh" before hanging up once again.
"No answer." Iggy lightly shrugs it off, making Ari's lips crease into a deep frown.
"Ummm…shouldn't we look for him? Check out is in, like, ten minutes."Ari looks at Nick to back him up on this.
"Yeah, and we told Maya that we'd have Dylan back in LA by five."
Iggy just kinda stares at them.
"Why? We're about to eat."
"How can you even think about food at a time like this???" Ari looks at him like he's crazy. " Plus, we're more than likely gonna puke it all up the moment it enters our stomachs, anyway."
"Well sue me, for having a returning appetite." Iggy side eyes Ari as he goes to get a tray.
"What an asshole! Nick, check the pool and the casino, I'll check the room and the gym. Maybe he's working out or something…" Ari sighs a little. "And Iggy, make yourself useful and keep an eye out on the buffet."
"Don't tell me what to do." Iggy mumbles as he grabs a plate and some cutlery.
Ari wanders the hotel half awake, still seeing no sign of Dylan.
"Dylan…? Dylan…? Wake up man." Ari enters the bedroom Dylan claimed as his own the night before and to his shock, where his bed had once been, there were four indentations instead. Exposing the carpet underneath.
His bed was missing!
"That's weird…"
Nick patrols the pool area, squinting his coal tinted orbs through the painfully bright sun. He inspects everyone laying around the pool at the disapproval of many half-baked women laying around the pool. They all sit up and mean mug him.
"I'm a taken man, I swear." Nick harmlessly holds up his hands but the ladies by the pool only get more annoyed. "Wait, that came out wrong."
Ari stumbles into the gym and begins to fanboy over all of the high tech equipment, he goes over to a weight rack and caresses the cold hard metal with his hands and cheeks. He gets a bunch of weird looks but doesn't care and snuggles up closer to the device.
"Move it." Some teen gymbro wannabe grabs a fifty off the rack near Ari's face. Ari, who usually would've went off on a prick like this, just kinda ignored him. Still in awe of the collection.
"Okay, just one for the road." He gets up and pulls two 100 pound weights off the rack with ease. He pumps them both up, holds it for a few seconds, and then neatly puts them back.
Nick walks into the Casino, feeling a bunch of weird stares burn into his back like lasers. A sleazy old guy wearing a dusty Hawaiian shirt and khakis approaches him with a scrutinizing gaze, cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth.
"Come back for more, eh?" He rasps out, cigarette magically not falling out. Nick raises an eyebrow.
"...Huh?"
"Don't play stupid, I want another rematch." The old man stubs out his cigarette on the nearest trash can as he dramatically starts cracking every single bone in his body. "This time I won't go easy on ya."
Nick silently scans through the Casino and once again, Dylan is still nowhere in sight. He lets out probably his fifty millionth sigh that day and quickly turns on his heels back towards the entrance.
"Sorry. Got to go." The old man loudly shouts 'intimidating' derogatory obscenities and words of protests, but Nick just ignores him.
The trio gather together at the receptionist desk and grill Norman on Dylan's odd disappearance.
"There is no record of Dylan Gunther-Hagen at any of the area hospitals, morgues, or police stations." The guys frown at this information, growing a little worried.
"Maybe he went for a jog?" Ari replied, hopeful.
"Dude, it's like 120 degrees out." Iggy shoots him down not even a second later.
"Or shopping?" The others flash him the "you're an idiot" look. "Great. So we've lost Dylan. And his wedding is in, what, 22 hours?"
"Relax, it's Dylan. He probably knocked out on somebody's couch right now." Iggy absentmindedly picks at his nails. "All we have to do is retrace our steps from last night, and we'll find him."
"Okay, so last night…" Ari says as they all rub at their temples, eyes closed. They were trying to remember all that happened last night, but just the very mechanism of 'thinking' caused them hefty amounts of pain.
"Well we started on the roof..." Iggy says, taking a swig of coffee.
"Right, that was like, 6ish…?" Ari surprisingly remembers, despite already being visibly hammered by that point in the night.
"Then I think…we had steaks at the Palm?"
"Yeah, and then we hung around the Hard Rock…maybe?" Nick thinks back to the old man from earlier.
"That sounds rig-"
"Honestly, I don't even remember going to dinner." Iggy throws up his arms, ready to give up.
"I vaguely recall doing body shots…at some point?" Nick shivers at the very thought of Max's reaction if she ever found out.
"I'm pretty much blank after the Hard Rock."
"So that was about, what,...10ish?"
"Give or take."
"Was Dylan still with us?"
"Yes. Yes. Dylan was with us." Ari says with absolutely certainty. "I tackled him…for some reason."
"Okay, so we only have a 13 hour window where we could've lost him." Nick says, but judging from the state their suite was in earlier (god bless the Mandalay Bay cleaning staff) a lot must've happened in those 13 hours. Iggy mindlessly rummages in his pockets, bored, and then feels something in the lower half of his right one.
"I have a…matchbook from the Flamingo," He says, tiredly squinting at it. "If that helps anything?"
The gang sit in silence for a bit, until they collectively come to an almost telepathic decision to check every inch of their pockets. What came out were more matchbooks, receipts, room keys, valet tickets, condoms…
"i have an ATM receipt from the Rio at 10:37, for…600 Dollars!?"
"The valet ticket we returned here says we came back at 4:57 AM."
"Jesus, we were out driving last night?" The guys all wince at Nick's observation.
"Here's a receipt from Sbarro. The meal was comped for some reason-"
"Hate to interrupt," Nick clears his throat. "but I think we should let Maya know that we may be running late."
"Absolutely not."
"Yeah, absolutely not. Nick, she'll kill us."
"You never know, he might've called her sometime last night." The others don't follow, so Nick spells the rest of it out for them slowly. "So, if…he…called…her…last…night, she probably…would…know…where…he…was."
"Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean. But c'mon, who calls their bride to be at a bachelor party? You're supposed to be forgetting about that stuff."
"Okay, okay. Good point, I guess."