𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 • 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐤

twenty

I woke up from a lot of noise, so I shot up quickly. This house was haunted as could be so better safe than sorry. However, I quickly realized they were no ghosts. Kat had shot up as well, it seemed. I looked at my phone, it was 7 in the morning.

"Bro, it's good to see you!" I heard Sam's voice say from the hallway.

Kat stood up quickly and basically ran towards the front door. "Sam!" she yelled out. "You're alive!"

As soon as I slipped out of my sleepy trance and realized what was going on, I quickly stood up as well and made my way through the kitchen, into the hallway.

Sam and Kat were hugging each other and Colby was laughing about something with Jake. He looked really tired. I was already past the staircase when he noticed me. A big smile appeared on his face and he walked over to me with his arms wide open, quickly engulfing me in an embrace. "Oh my God!" he exclaimed. "I did not expect you to be here!"

"I didn't expect me here either but suddenly you were locked up across the country and I thought you could use the mental support," I said and he chuckled, stepping back as he let go of me.

"Oh, everything just got much better. I missed you!"

I laughed. "Colby, I've been gone for a literal week and a half, it's not that long."

"Seemed longer to me," he replied, looking me in the eyes as he smiled tiredly.

"You guys hungry?" Jake asked Sam and Colby.

Colby turned to him and nodded his head vigorously. "I haven't eaten in hours."

"We should get pancakes or something," Kat said.

Sam agreed. "IHOP it is."

We piled into Colby's car, me behind the steering wheel because we didn't want Colby to fall asleep and swerve off the road. Colby sat next to me and Jake, Sam and Kat were piled in the back. It took us only five minutes to get there and seeing it was still pretty early, we were seated and fed pretty quickly.

"God, those blueberry pancakes are so good," Jake said.

"The omelette was really good as well," Kat nodded.

Colby put his head on the table. "All I really want to do is nap."

"Let's get you home then," I chuckled and stood up, the others quickly doing so as well. As we walked back to the car, Colby had his arm around my shoulders.

"You're wearing my hoodie," he chuckled silently as we walked behind the others.

"Told you I'd get it back to you," I smiled. "Are you okay, Colbs?"

He nodded. "I just need some sleep. I was so on edge the entire time in that jail cell, I didn't sleep in the slightest."

"For how long were you in there?" I asked, putting my arm around his waist.

"24 hours. It sucked," he replied.

"My poor baby," I chuckled, hugging him from the side. I knew he was really tired because he didn't comment, and I knew he would've made a witty remark on it. He hugged me back though, so that was something.

We hopped into the car and I drove back to the house. I made sure to put Colby's car keys on the rack where they were supposed to be and watched as Colby immediately strolled upstairs. I went into the kitchen to grab him a water bottle and brought it up the stairs, then into his room.

"Sorry to bother you but I brought you water because you need to get properly hydrated," I spoke up as he was plugging his phone into the charger.

"Oh thank you," he smiled and took it from me, sipping at it.