Chapter 6.
I had been sleeping peacefully when suddenly a loud thumping on my door awoke me. For a second I forgot that I wasn't still in my old, single person dorm room, but was now living with four other people.
I sat up in bed, sleepy and confused.
The thumping came again and a voice (I think it was Jamie's) called out, "rise and shine! It's time to get your groove on!"
I looked at my phone to see that it was already 9am. Quickly throwing off my blankets I rushed out of bed to see the others waiting in the living room. Yvette was scowling in black cotton shorts and a singlet. She still looked half asleep and didn't look any happier than yesterday.
Eleanor was the only one actually dressed, so I was guessing that she had actually been up for a while.
Jamie and will were both in sweatpants and tees, except Jamie's was a brightly coloured tie-dye one.
Eleanor had quietly informed me that it was his dance shirt.
"Who's ready to get crayyyzy?!" Jamie yelled, holding his iPhone up in the air and throwing his head back. I laughed but worried about our neighbours. Would they be mad or be used to this crazy Sunday ritual by now?
There were whoops from Will and grumbles from Eleanor.
"Remember children," Jamie spoke, "an extra piece of bacon is on the line," and with that he pressed play on his phone and a loud, fast dance track began blasting from the speakers.
It was probably the craziest thing I had ever witnessed. Even Yvette, whom looked like she would rather die than do this, was jumping around crazily as we all danced.
Jamie was probably the best, pulling out numerous dance moves and having a seemingly endless supply of stamina.
Dancing for ten minutes straight was hard.
Around the 8-minute mark I was starting to tire, though I was also laughing which was making me breathless. I was spinning around, just trying to move my body in some way when I crashed into someone else and looked up to see Will. He caught my shoulders to steady me and I blushed in embarrassment. Before I could apologize, and without missing a beat, he took my hands in his and spun me around making me laugh as he spun and twirled me around for the remaining two minutes.
When the music cut off I collapsed onto the sofa, Eleanor falling beside me and tried to get my breath back. Yvette had collapsed onto the floor and Will was laying half on the coffee table and half on the floor. Jamie was the only one still standing.
"Ok who wins?" Jamie asked, a grin on his lips.
Everyone seemed to glare at him. "You," they chorused simultaneously and I had to agree.
"Jamie always wins," Eleanor explained to me, "its become more of a 'try and out-dance Jamie' than an equal competition."
"Hey! I don't always win!" he argued and Eleanor raised a brow at him. Last night, we had all spent about two hours talking and I had learnt a lot about everyone else. I had learnt that Jamie and Eleanor went way back. They had been friends in high school and had stayed friends through college. Will and Jamie had met first year because they were in the same biology class and Yvette had moved in when they had sent out an ad for another roommate.
They were such a fun group of people, even Yvette. I liked them already. They were all so welcoming.
We had moved into the kitchen after regaining our breath on the sofa, where Jamie was cooking bacon and fried eggs.
"So what's the plans for tonight?" Jamie asked as we all came into the kitchen.
"There's a karaoke night down at the library," Eleanor suggested, "apparently there's free food. We can laugh at the music majors as they try and out-sing each other and complain when people are off-key."
There were murmurs of agreement with the idea.
"I've got work till 7, but I'll come down afterwards," Yvette said as she looked back down at her phone. In the short few hours that I had known her she never seemed to put her phone down.
"You in little miss?" Jamie asked, flipping another piece of bacon, earning a sizzling sound from the fry pan. I looked around at everyone nervously.
"Really?" I asked, shocked that they were already inviting me out with them.
"You're part of the squad now, and the squad sticks together," Jamie explained simply making me smile as he went to place everything in the fry pan and ended up burning himself in the process.
"Sure, why not?" I laughed as Eleanor grinned at me and we all reached for the food.
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"And I-I-I will always love youuuu!" Jamie finished his song with an eccentric bow and then continued to blow kisses into the crowd. I laughed as we all watched the music majors wince at his off key, scratchy voice.
I hadn't thought that a karaoke night in a library would end up being this fun, but we had been here for 45 minutes now and I hadn't stopped laughing. We were seated at a table towards the back, furthest away from the makeshift stage that they had prepared and closest to the food and drinks table.
"That was perfect! You should have seen the one in the pink dress wincing and covering her ears!" Eleanor grinned and high-fived Jamie as he made his way back to our table. "Karaoke night is my favourite," she gushed, bright eyed.
Jamie grabbed some crackers from the table and smacked Will on the back of the head when he commented, "I think everyone was wincing."
"Hey!" he warned, "I have the voice of an angel." Yvette scoffed and he threw her a glare, which she didn't see as she was busily scrolling through her phone.
"Voice of a dying angel maybe," Will laughed as he dodged another swipe of Jamie's hand. We laughed and chatted as we watched more people go up and perform. At one point Will came up with a game of 'who can throw the most pretzels at someone without being noticed' which we played right up until we were threatened to be kicked out by the library staff.
"Will?" a feminine voice suddenly spoke up from behind us, just as we were watching Jamie toss back his 7th consecutive can of soda.
We turned to see a tall girl with long, sleek straight dark brown hair that fell to her waist smiling nervously at Will. I watched as the smile instantly fell from his face before he replaced it with a much faker smile.
I had never, ever, seen Will fake a smile.
"Hailey? Hi," he greeted awkwardly, turning around in his chair to face her. She was very pretty, with light skin and brown almond eyes. There was a group standing a little ways behind her waiting for her.
"It's been so long," Will said. She nodded and laughed nervously.
"Um, would I maybe be able to talk to you for a second?" she asked hesitantly.
"Yeah, sure," Will said, standing up and leading her outside. I watched them go, confused. Who was Hailey?
"That's Hailey Donovan, she's Will's ex," Eleanor whispered in my ear. Her hair was silky straight again and her nose piercing glinted under the lights. She had heavy eye makeup on but somehow managed to pull it off without looking like a raccoon. Which is how I would look if i tried to wear makeup like that.
"Oh," I uttered, now the awkwardness all made sense.
"Yeah, 'oh' is right. They dated first year and it ended pretty abruptly. She dropped out half way through the year and moved back in with her parents," Eleanor told me.
"Why's she back now?" Yvette spoke up, putting her phone down and turning to face us. she flicked her shoulder-length hair over her shoulder and narrowed her perfectly winged eyes at the door Will and Hailey had just exited.
"I don't know," Eleanor replied, "but she better not screw him over again, or else she'll be dealing with me this time," she warned with a scary look on her face.
I stayed quiet, not willing to put my input into something that wasn't my business.
Will was gone for around ten minutes and when he came back Hailey wasn't there. He sat down at the table again just as a voice rang out over the microphone, "any volunteers?"
We were all silent as we looked at him, waiting for him to say something. Waiting for him to answer our silent questions.
"Someone should go up and sing," was all he finally muttered, which broke the silence and we all began chattering again.
"I nominate newbie!" Jamie called out, pointing at me. He ran a hand through his dark black hair, making it stand up even more when I narrowed my eyes at him. His purple hair streak stood out even more under the bright library lighting.
"Oh no," I said, shaking my head. "I can't sing," I said, folding my arms and sinking down lower into my seat.
"You can't be worse than Jamie," Will said, earning an annoyed 'hey!' from Jamie. "C'mon, I'll come up with you," Will offered, holding out his hand to me.
I hesitated, looking around at everyone's smiling faces, Eleanor flashed me a 'thumbs up' and even Yvette smiled. Before I could even say 'no' or 'yes' will grabbed my hand and tugged me over to the stage.
"We volunteer as tribute!" he called out to the librarian that was in charge of the karaoke.
"Will!" I hissed, "I can't even sing!"
"Don't worry," he whispered, leaning down close to my ear, his cheek brushing against my hair. I suddenly realized how much taller he was than me. "The worst you sound the better."
With that bringing little comfort he grinned and said, "plus, Spiderman doesn't just swing from webs." With that he cracked his knuckles and strode up to the librarian.
Smiling, I helped him choose a song, which ended up being 'Call Me Maybe' by Carly Rae Jepson. I think he only wanted to do it to annoy the music students though.
The librarian, a kind woman with bright red lipstick, handed us each a microphone and began the music. There was a projector that printed the lyrics for us but once we had gotten into the first chorus I could only manage to giggle into the microphone.
Will and I were both terribly off-key, but Will made up for his tone deafness by miming the lyrics and doing over-exaggerated expressions. By the end of the song I was a giggling mess and could barely make it back to the table. My stomach hurt from laughing and I couldn't stop smiling.
"So? How'd we do?" Will asked as we sat down at our table again.
"You definitely earned the most winces," Eleanor said as I took my seat next to her again. Will did a fist pump, obviously pleased with her feedback.
"Although I think that was mostly due to Maisie giggling into the microphone hysterically the whole time," Jamie added and I glared at him, but it was true. I don't think I sang anything intelligible after the first 30 seconds of song.
I laughed as Jamie mimicked my giggling, whilst Eleanor mimicked the music kids wincing. I looked around at the four of them, smiling and feeling relaxed and happy.
College was actually starting to be fun.
A/N: Hmm, I don't know why but developing the story so that it flows smoothly is always hard. Feeling unwell atm so feedback would make me very happy. Vote if you like :) x
Picture of Jamie up top.