Falling

Chapter 5: The "Tour"

Axel looked like a deer caught in headlights. He froze completely as the mic was passed to him, and I could tell Olive terrified him. Of course, neither of them noticed, and carried on with their little fight.

"THE POINT IS," yelled Olive, upset her point didn't get across, "You both tuned us all out, which is very rude considering we were just standing there for the past 5 minutes."

"Oh Olivia," Austin replied, casually putting his hands on her shoulders, slowly moving them up and down in a mock form of comforting, "No one asked you to stay." Behind me, I could hear Hunter mutter "burn", and we both turned to Olive, waiting to see what volcano Austin just released. I was expecting her face to be red with pure rage, but the red on her face seemed like it was there for a different reason.

As she continued to grow redder and redder, her eyes kept flicking to Austin's hands, which hadn't stopped rubbing her since he had made the comment. 2 minutes before. Not to mention Austin's teasing smirk slowly transformed to a real smile.

After another minute of redness and rubbing, Austin seemed to realize the 6 eyes on him. He quickly coughed, removing his hands, and Olive's stare broke right after the loss of contact. 

"SOOOOO!" Olive said, her hands touching her hot cheeks in an obvious attempt to cool them, "How's about that kitchen?"

"Oh! Right, the kitchen," said Axel, jumping out of his mannequin challenge worthy stance. He opened the white door, stepping aside to let us through. All of our eyebrows, including Axel's, raised at what we saw when we stepped inside.

"Um Axel," I said.

"Yes, Autumn?"

"Where's the kitchen?"

"Um," Axel looked at the garage, rubbing his neck and biting his lips in confusion. His pink, amazing lips that I always want to touch just to see what it would feel like to pull them between my fbzdrigfhbn difg UGH! FOCUS AUTUMN FOCUS! He shrugged his shoulders, and let his hands fall onto his legs making a clap-like sound. "I actually don't know. I might be a bit confused. I'm still unpacking, 'cause, you know, I just moved in. This is relatively where my kitchen was in my old house, but here..."

As Axel continued to stare at the empty garage, clearly wondering what happened to his kitchen, my nose perked up at the sudden smell of food. I simply motioned for everyone to follow me, and one by one everyone did. Axel soon noticed our absence and came running to find us.

"GUYS!" He called, "WHERE ARE YOU!" 

"IN YOUR KITCHEN!" yelled Hunter back to him.

"Um, where exactly is that?" He questioned in response. I could just imagine him spinning in circles near his front door, trying to figure out where our voices were coming from. I turned to exit the kitchen to go find him, justifying that he would take forever to find the kitchen, though looking back, it may have been for some much more selfish reasons. 

I found him where I thought he would be, next to his front door but instead of spinning he was looking under a chair.

"If you think that Hunter, Olive, Austin, me and  your kitchen can fit under there," I said, my voice carefully laced with sarcasm, "then I think you need to work on your perception skills. What's your IQ again? If it's less than 100 then you can't hang out with me. It would taint my reputation as a nerd."

Axel visually paled at that, which the cocoons in my stomach that appeared when he smiled turn into a fleet of butterflies at the thought that he was worried I might not want to be his friend. As if. 

A butterfly rose from my stomach, a loner in the fleet wanting to see some sun. As it traveled, it transformed into a bubble that continued up my throat and finally spilled over into a burst of laughter.