Constellations, Coffee & Chandler | q.h

fourteen

chapter 14
no one tells Ellen

| Quinn |

I think I might actually be living a dream. Okay yeah, I'm quite literally living out my childhood dream, but more than that, I feel like these past 2 days have felt like living in a dream. From waking up to Elias cuddled into my side, which was not at my request, to waking up with the guys with a shot, once again, not at my request. Today felt like a weird hypnotic dream, or maybe that was just the alcohol in me talking. Chandler beating Jake in shotgunning a beer, Elias pushing me in the lake when I wanted his spot on the dock. It was almost intoxicating how wonderful today was, to the point I didn't want it to end.

Chandler fell asleep on the couch beside me a couple of hours ago, the boys had moved on to playing NHL again, and I was perfectly content sitting here with my hand in Chandler's hair, thankfully no one had caught on to that yet.

"I'm coming down, we need to watch a movie" Jake slumps against the couch on the floor in front of me, watching the rest of the boys as they nod their heads in agreement. "What movies you got Breuns?" Brock moves to open the cabinet Carson had said was movies when Jake and Carson yell for him to stop. "We should just watch Netflix,'' Carson slowly puts his hand in front of Brock's on the handle.

"Are these baby videos?" Brock's voice turns a little cocky as he swiftly opens the cabinet door. "Oh hell yeah they are" he nearly squeals with excitement as we all lean forward to look at the video selection. "I think we should watch something on Netflix. Or, my parents also have Disney+ and Prime?" Carson's voice is desperate as he tries to release Brock's grip from the door.

"We should watch Mama Mia, it's on the bottom shelf" Chandler mumbles from beside me, quickly gaining everyone's attention as Carson moves to close the door. "You want us to watch Mama Mia?" I laugh as she looks up at me, her eyes a deep, almost black-green colour as she nods her head a little before squishing her face back in the cushion. "I think we should watch Carson's first Halloween, I believe I saw that one" Brock laughs as he tries to move Carson out of the way. Chandler immediately sits up, my hand getting caught a little in her hair, but I try to play it off as though I was just trying to stabilize her. "We also have Netflix" her voice is raspy despite her lack of snoring.

"Chan c'mon, we should definitely watch a baby video right, maybe not a baby video, I'll also accept I believe it was preschool graduation" Brock's smirk is strong as he turns his attention to the 4 of us on the couch. "I think I'm going to be sick" Chandler mumbles before nearly sprinting out of the room, Carson letting out a loud but annoyed groan.

Carson turns the TV to the Netflix home screen, not moving from his spot in front of the cabinet as Brock holds his ground in front of him.

A couple minutes pass, the home screen changing over to the library screen as Brock and Carson hold their staring competition. Neither of them move until the back door slams shut, followed by heavy footsteps on the back patio. Carson lets out a shaky breath as he moves his eyes to us on the couch.

"Maybe we should just go to bed," Carson mumbles before turning the tv off, signalling for us to follow him as he makes his way upstairs. We mumble our goodnights as we separate into our separate rooms, Elias leading us over to ours.

We didn't say anything initially, instead taking our turns in the bathroom, changing into our sleep clothes before awkwardly laying beside each other in bed. "I googled them" Elias blurts out, almost like he didn't want me to know. "I told Chandler she has the nicest eyes" I feel like that's the best I have in rebuttal.

"You what?" Elias turns to face me, he sounds like he wants to laugh as he holds back the smile on his face. I nod my head, rubbing my hands over my face as if it'll knock some sense into me. "Not even that they were beautiful, or that I thought they were the nicest eyes I've ever seen, just that they were nice" I word-vomit into my hands as Elias finally lets out his laughter. "You think they're nice and beautiful?" He finally calms down enough to watch my face flush red.