"Turn off your damn alarm. It's been ringing for the past five minutes," Kate yelled from her side of the room. I groaned into my pillow. "It's not my alarm, you dumb shit."
"Oh." The alarm stopped ringing. "Yeah. Oh."
"Well, rise and shine, sunshine. You're going to have to get up sooner or later." I hate how much of a morning person she is.
I flipped Kate off, without lifting my head. Approximately 10 minutes later, right as I was about to fall asleep again, I felt her presence beside my bed. "Wake up! It's like 9am. Don't you have class?"
"Not until later, hence the reason I hadn't set an alarm," I grumbled, as I glanced at her, not surprised to see that she was already dressed, before I grabbed my second pillow, and covered my head.
"Perfect. I have half an hour before I have to go learn about graphs and statistics, so we can go and get coffee!"
"I don't want coffee. I want to sleep," I groaned.
"I'll pay," she offered, in a sing song voice. I took the second pillow off my head, and glanced at her. "Promise?"
"Pinky promise."
"Give me 5 minutes," I muttered. "You're so predictable," Kate laughed, as she walked back to her side of the room.
I rolled my eyes, before grudgingly getting out of bed, and making my way to the bathroom. While I was in the middle of brushing my teeth, Kate called out to me.
"Hazel! Your phones going off!"
"Who is it?" I yelled back, through a mouth full of toothpaste.
"You don't have their number saved. It's a string of messages saying-" her voice trailed, as she, I assumed, was reading the texts.
"Why is Alex Carter texting you." She stormed into the bathroom, my phone in her hand.
"You're meant to knock," I grumbled incoherently, my toothbrush still in my mouth.
"Not when Alex Carter is texting you. Explain." She turned the phone to me, and I was surprised to see multiple texts from the same unknown number.
I took my phone from her, and read through the messages, which consisted of a bunch of 'heys' and 'hi's', an 'it's alex. alex carter' text, and a string of texts asking me if I was ignoring him, where he'd gone through the effort of sending me each word as a separate text, all within the span of a minute.
"Just ignore it. I'll text him back later," I brushed it off, as I turned to spit out my toothpaste, and wash my mouth.
"I'm not going to ignore it. Since when are you and Alex a thing?" Kate questioned, shaking her head in bewilderment.
"Alex Carter and I are not a thing, if that's what you want to call it. He's getting the two of us front row tickets to the football game this Friday," I smiled, as I watched Kate's expression transform from confusion to ecstasy.
"You're joking!" She squealed, her eyes growing wide. "No way. How did you manage that?" She bounced on the spot. I chuckled at her enthusiasm. "Oh, nothing much, really. I just made a deal with him."
"What? What kind of deal? Like a 'friends with benefits' type of deal, or an 'oh, i'll help you study' type of deal, where you inevitably fall for each other? Why have I only just heard of this deal?"
"Neither." I glared at her. "And I only made it last night. He wanted to be let into the library after hours, so I said I'd let him in, if he promised to get me two front row tickets."
"You're the best! You're the best! You're the best!" Kate pulled me into a bear hug. I hugged her back, pleased with her reaction.
"Now hurry up, or we won't have time to get coffee," she said, as she pulled away. "Well, if you left the bathroom, maybe I would," I retorted.
She raised her hands in defence, and backed away, leaving my phone on the bathroom platform. I hurriedly changed into jeans and a top, before brushing my hair. I contemplated curling it, but decided against it, and instead tied it into a loose ponytail.
"Okay, let's go," I said, as I picked up my phone and walked out of the bathroom. "You plan on leaving with just socks on?"
"Shut up," I muttered, as I slipped on my shoes, before we finally made our way off campus.
"So, what did he want?"
"Who?"
"How many he's do you have in your life?"
"My dad, my dog, my grandpa, my cousins, my-" "Jesus Christ. What did Alex want?" Kate glared at me.
"I don't know. He probably just wanted to send the tickets." "You haven't replied to him yet?" "No? I need coffee," I rolled my eyes.
"Playing hard to get, huh?"
"I'm not interested in him. I'm not interested in anyone. I've literally never spoken to him before. He's just getting us tickets," I scowled.
"Okay, okay. I'll wait till you've got your morning coffee."
"Very funny."
Ten minutes later, we were seated at a table in the coffee shop, me with my espresso, and Kate with her frappuccino.
"Okay, now that you've got your coffee, can I get the full story?" Kate asked me with pleading eyes.
"There literally isn't a full story. I already told you what happened. He wanted to get into the library after hours, 11pm, if you must know, and I said no, and them he offered me tickets to the front row for his football game, and I bargained for two, and that's literally it. Oh, and I managed to coerce him into getting me coffee," I finished, proudly. "Hold on! A coffee? You guys went on a coffee date? " Kate gasped, eyes wide.
"No, you idiot. He didn't have a library card, so I let him use mine in exchange for a coffee. He went and got it himself."
"You're so boring," Kate groaned. "Why couldn't you have gone with him? You two could have sat together on a romantic table, where he would ask to take a sip form your coffee, but not the other way around, since the only thing you drink is espresso, and you'd say yes, and then your lips collide, and you'd have woken up in his bed today."
"And I'm the journalism major. Jeez, Kate, you should really reconsider taking up creative writing," I glared at her. She, however, wouldn't have noticed it anyway, seeing as she was thoroughly amused by herself, and had burst into peals of laughter.
"Maybe it's time you get to class," I frowned, once she had finally calmed down. "I'm sorry. It's just crazy that my best friend is friends with a practical celebrity."
"He's barely a celebrity. Popular, maybe. Celebrity, not quite And as for us being friends- I wouldn't be surprised if he hates me after the way I treated him last night."
"Yada yada yada. Drink up. You weren't wrong when you said it's time I get to class." Kate hurried me up.
By the time we went our different ways, and I was back in our dorm, it was 10:45. I had 15 minutes till I had to get to English Literature.
I lay down on the couch, and unlocked my phone. I opened the iMessage app, and stared at the texts I had received from Alex.
He'd stopped bombarding me around the same time we left for coffee, and his last text was him asking me to please respond.
I chuckled softly as I read through everything he'd sent, before finally replying through the Apple pay button.
I transferred the money I owed him for my coffee from last night, before following that up with a request for confirmation that he'd received it.
I swiped off our conversation, before realising he still had books that were borrowed under my name. I groaned, as I reopened our conversation.
Surprisingly, the typing icon was already there. I waited for his text to come through. He was a slow typer.
'sleeping beauty awakes'. I stared at his text, and wrinkled my nose in disgust at the nickname he'd used. Another text followed it. 'whats the money for?'
'i've been awake. replying to you isn't my first priority.' Before I could even send my next text, explaining what the money was for, he had already replied.
'you wound me.'
'the money's for the coffee you bought. thanks again. anyways, are you done with the books you borrowed? i'd like them back, if you are.' I typed, waiting impatiently for him to reply.
'you don't have to pay me for a cup of coffee that's for $3... but yeah i'm done how should i give them back to you.. also i need to give you the tickets.' I cringed at the lack of punctuations in his sentence, and sighed, realising I would have to meet him somewhere to make our exchange.
I glanced at the time on my phone, and decided that if I went to meet him right now, I'd be late for class, so instead I replied asking him to meet me at noon at the same coffee shop. Lucky for me, he agreed.
•••
'where are you'. I glanced at the notification I had just received, as I was leisurely walking towards the coffee shop. It was from Alex, and if I'm being completely honest, I hadn't expected him to be on time, so to have gotten that text from him at precisely 12pm took me by surprise.
I replied back, saying I'd be there in 5 minutes, and increased my pace, cursing myself for not having carried my car keys with me.
True to my word, I was there at 12:05. I made my way inside the cafe and scanned the room in search of Alex. I finally spotted him peeking out from a booth in the corner.
I made my way to him, and slid into the seat opposite of his. "Hey, you made it," he said, glancing up from his phone. "Hey," I nodded.
"Right, well, I went ahead and ordered an espresso for you," He spoke, after a short awkward silence.
"Oh, um thanks." I grabbed my purse, and rummaged around, before finally retrieving 3 dollars. I held it out, waiting for him to take it, and rolled my eyes when I watched him simply stare at it.
"Hello. Take the money." I waved the notes in front of his face impatiently. "I don't want it. It's three dollars, for Christ's sake."
"Exactly. It's only three dollars. So take it," I said, placing the money on the table, and pushing it towards him.
"I don't want it," He replied, pushing it back towards me.
"Take it," I glared at him, pushing it back.
"No."
We went back and forth for a couple more moments, until we were interrupted by a server coming to our table with our drinks in his hand.
"One espresso, and a hot chocolate," he announced, placing the tray on the table.
We thanked him in sync, and once he left, I turned to Alex. "Hot chocolate? What are you, twelve?"
"Hot chocolate doesn't have an age limit to it. Besides, I'm not much of a coffee drinker. I prefer the other stuff, if you know what I mean." I shook my head. Typical football player.
"Hot chocolate comes under 'the other stuff?'" is what I said. "I don't see why not," he shrugged.
I sighed, before passing the $3 to him, once again. "Look. You can either take it right now, or I'll use Apple Pay and pay you back later," I told him sternly.
"Oh shoot. I meant to return your money that you sent over for the first drink," Alex frowned.
"I don't care. Keep it and take this." I groaned.
"Look at it this way. We both have 3 dollars now," he shot me a cheeky grin, which I returned with an incredulous look.
"You sure are something," I mumbled, accepting defeat, and pocketing my money.
"Thank you."
"Anytime. So, do you have the books you borrowed?" I asked him, wanting to hurry this up, so I could get back to my dorm.
"Yeah." He nodded. He opened his backpack, placed next to him, and retrieved the two books he'd borrowed.
"Thanks," I said, taking them gratefully. They were ie2n perfect condition. I contemplated asking for the tickets, but decided to let him bring them up himself.
"Andddd, here are the two tickets, as requested. Front row, for the game on Friday," He announced, proudly handing over two tickets to me.
My eyes widened. "Oh my god. Thank you so much!" I exclaimed, glancing up at him. If I knew him better, I would have pulled him into a hug. Instead, I settled on shooting him a wide smile. He was grinning, probably amused at my reaction.
"No problem. To be honest, I didn't peg you as a football fan."
"I'm not," I admit. I didn't know shit about the game, to be completely honest, but experiencing a football game from the front row is something even I'm not stupid enough to pass on, and Kate would never forgive me if I were to do so.
"So you wanted front row tickets to...?" Alex trailed, furrowing his brows.
"Cheer you on, of course!" I replied, in a falsetto tone. "I'm going to pretend that wasn't sarcastic, and settle in a simple, I'll see you at the game?"
"What do you think, Sherlock?"
•••
chapter two omg
anyways, I hope you guys liked it! votes and comments are always appreciated <3