tired yet? ||cashby||

Chapter 5

"So, how are things in this little cave you've got here?" he joked, looking around my secluded room. I shrugged.

"Lonely," I muttered, then immediately wished I had never said it. His smile dropped, and he nudged his foot against mine, sending tingles throughout me.

"Awe." He frowned. "Hey, I've got a brilliant idea." He looked up, a little dark lock of hair falling across his forehead.

"What?" I perked up a little more, and he flicked it away from his face.

"Let's have another adventure," he suggested, silently slipping one of his bare feet beneath mine and another on top, in what should have been comforting, but practically sent my heart into an overload. There was something about his touch that just... did things to me. I felt like I couldn't breathe!

"Uh, l-like before?" I tried to calm down, and not stare at our intertwined limbs. My whole entire lower half was on fire. Bubbly, good feeling fire. His head dipped in a nod.

"Yeah, like last time. But this time, you can pick the place. Make it a surprise."

The way he spoke was so exciting that I found myself nodding in agreement, already unable to wait for tonight. Once again, he'd made everything so much better.

"Okay," I smiled, "let's do that." His smile almost made my heart melt.

"I'm so glad you said yes, because I'm not sure if I could handle an entire night of that." He jerked his thumb towards the door, and I wondered if he even liked his friends.

"Do you like them?" I asked aloud. He looked a little surprised.

"Well, y-yeah, I mean, they're not too bad." He shrugged, sounding quite honest, actually. "I'd just..." He stopped, his eyes flicking up at me, "I'd just prefer to be with you," he said. I felt dumbstruck. I even disliked being with myself; how could someone else pick me over another group of much cooler people?

"Really?" I asked incredulously. Austin chuckled in a strangely relieved way and nodded.

"Yeah, really. We are, like, friends, right?" he asked. I nodded quickly.

"You're sort of my only friend," I muttered, sounding like a total loser. He wasn't a bad friend to be stuck with, indeed.

"We should have bracelets." He chuckled, watching me from under those dark lashes. It got a little quiet, and for a moment, I just listened to the sounds of the people next door, sounding so excited and happy. And I wondered if Austin was as content as I was, just sitting in his company. Or if Michael and his friends were as content as I was. If anyone in the world was as content as I was just then.

Austin looked at my laptop, which sat by my pillow, and the mess of mixed tapes scattered about it in a pile. He deliberately picked them up and rifled through, his eyes grazing over my scrawled handwriting on the backs of the cases, indicating which tracks had which songs. His smile grew.

"You didn't strike me as a pop punk kind of guy," he murmured, eyes trained on my music. I shrugged a shoulder.

"I like everything," I answered. That wasn't true. I didn't listen to country, or jazz, or pop. "Well, almost everything," I amended. He nodded slowly, still reading.

"I've never heard of a lot of these," he said quietly, looking back at me from the cases. "They look good."

"You want some?" I offered. "I've made like a million, but Michael and Sophie never want them." I shrugged, thinking back to the times when I'd tried to make a nice gesture and share with them. They just waved me away, which I then promptly decided that I would never try again. He nodded.