The Friend Zone

Chapter Two: Some Things Never Change

"You can stay here, but you need to be quiet, Whitney's sleeping," I said quietly as I unlocked my dorm room door, "But if you puke in my bed, I'll kick your ass, again."

Back in my sophomore year, we'd gone out after their league championship victory and he'd forgotten how to function like a normal human being and walk without my assistance again so I dragged him up to my room and let him stay with me yet again. I was up for a rude awakening at about seven in the morning when he threw up all over the foot of my bed and my comforter. I had never sworn so much in a matter of ten minutes before in my life as I did at him that morning as I cleaned up his puke from my comforter. My dad had thankfully already left for work that day so my sister was the only one home, she helped me get the blanket into the washer and dried before Dad came home from work and find Taylor a clean shirt. I called him every name in the book that morning and he didn't remember a damn thing from it when he woke back up at noon.

"Mkay," he sighed, rubbing his eyes and plopping down on my bed.

Thankfully, he had already had his "hyper" stage of drunkenness and was now in the "black-out and sleep for a day" stage that made him much easier to put up with him than when he was hyper and starving and wanted me to take me to Taco Bell and spend all my money because he ate like an absolute pig.

"Move over," I said after kicking off my sweatpants and changing back into the shorts I had been sleeping in before he called, "You know I sleep on the right side of the bed."

"Sorry," he said, rolling over.

"Thanks," I smirked as I pulled the covers over my body and fell asleep.

###

The next morning, I woke up to my alarm going off at eleven thirty. I typically had a class at nine, but it was a game day so I had an excuse not to be there if I didn't want to be there. I was glad for that after being woken up in the middle of the night by Taylor, I didn't want to be groggy for gameday, especially for the first home game of my career.

"Nice to see you're finally up," Whitney said as she brushed her hair.

"You too," I said, rubbing my eyes, "Someone called me at three thirty last night."

"And you picked him up anyway?" she asked.

"I can't let him walk home," I sighed, "Or drive, he'll kill someone, or himself."

"You let him slide too much," she said.

"Whatever Whit," I said, rolling my eyes, laying back down on my back and scrolling through my Twitter feed to find that Kayla was Tweeting at Taylor wondering where he was and why he wasn't answering his texts, calls and Snapchats.

"Taylor, Taylor," I said, shoving him.

"It's too early," he groaned.

"It's eleven thirty and Kayla's looking for you!" I exclaimed.

"She can wait," he groaned, pulling the blanket over his face.

"She's going to lose her shit if she finds out you're with me!" I exclaimed.

"Chillax Tess," he said, repeating what seemed to be his favorite phrase when talking to my dramatic self.

"I need to be at the team lunch in half an hour," I said, "So you and your sorry ass should probably leave soon."

"Where's lunch?" he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"The dining hall," I replied.

"I'll come with," he said.

"By the way, Kayla thinks you left with Tess last night," Whitney piped up.

"Fantastic," I groaned.

"Whatever," he said, "She'll get over it."

"And until then, I'll just be the bitch that took her boyfriend home, sounds great," I mumbled as I walked out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.

Twenty-five minutes later we were getting ready to walk over to the dining hall for lunch. I would've been ready to leave ten minutes earlier, but somebody wouldn't get out of bed.

"Got any deodorant?" he asked, sniffing his pits.

"Really?" I asked, giving him a disapproving look.

"I know you use men's deodorant," he smirked.

"Damn you," I groaned, grabbing my deodorant and handing it to him.

"Thank you," he grinned, whipping off his shirt and putting on the deodorant.

"I see you still don't like ab workouts," I said with a straight face.

"Hey it just wouldn't be fair to the rest of the guys in the world if I was this hot, this great at hockey, and had killer abs," he said with a smirk.

"Some things never change," I said, trying not to laugh and encourage his dumb ass as we walked out of my dorm.

###

***