Chapter three
I’d just like to say thank you to chocoholic4621 for helping me with the title and probably being the first to read this AND comment (n_n) thanks hun!
On a side note (I already wrote this on my other story but yeah) I’d like to apologise for the late update. My 10 month daughter had heart surgery in a hospital 1 hour away, which was unsuccessful, and she’ll need an open heart surgery in the new year. So it’s been a busy and tough few days and weeks.
Anyhoo, enjoy (I hope!)
Love you xx
PS. I’m soooo sorry this took way too long. I dunno if anyone if even reading this but sorry anyway. This is seven pages on Microsoft word so there’s a little something for you (^,^)
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[Roxy’s POV]
I woke up way too early. Seriously, it was still dark outside. I sighed and groaned internally at the fact that I still needed to get used to the time difference. I took a deep breath and smelt citruses wafting from behind me. I smiled and snuggled back into Nate’s embrace while he unconsciously tightened his arms around me.
This was our first time properly sleeping in the same bed and yet it felt so right. I lay awake for a while listening to the deep breathing and slight snores coming from Nate wondering why I felt so at home in his arms? Why do I fit so perfectly with him wrapped around me?
I couldn’t shake the thoughts from my mind and yet I knew this wasn’t exactly ‘best friend’ thoughts. I tugged Nate’s arm that lay over my waist tighter around me and hugged it to my chest. Oh well, I’ll think about it more in the morning.
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The beeping of my alarm shocked me awake and it was only after I settled my heart from nearly jumping out of my chest did I realize I was alone in bed. Wow, I feel like I’ve been in a one night stand without actually sleeping with anyone! I fell back into my silk sheets and wriggled like a worm while stretching out to click out the knots in my back before settling with my forearm over my eyes.
“Well, that’s a sight to see in the morning” Nate’s deep voice mocked me.
I chuckled and realized how spastic I must’ve looked. I moved my arm and looked in the direction of my favourite sound in the world and saw Nate leaning against my doorway looking mighty dang fine in a white t-shirt, leather jacket and fitted jeans. No, I thought, THAT is a sight to see in the morning… yum-my.
“Shut up Naddy… Not everyone can look great in the morning. Are you ready already?” I asked. He nodded.
“Yep, I couldn’t sleep any longer what with you snoring in my ears like a pig!” he laughed and ran down stairs just narrowly missing the pillow I threw at him.
***
Nate and I raced to school and I, to his disappointment, beat him by a whole five minutes.
“That’s no fair Rox!” He stomped over to me, “There was traffic and I couldn’t get through it. It not a fair race if I can’t actually move!” He threw his hands up in the air and I couldn’t help but laugh at his little childish tantrum.
“Awww… Is wittle bittle Naddy upset cause he didn’t winnnn?” I sang to him pinching his cheeks.
His eyes softened and he rolled his eyes at me before capturing my hands in his and kissed the tips of my fingers. “Nah, I don’t mind losing to you Rox, I just enjoy spending time with you.”
My breath hitched and our eyes held each others. His eyes flittered to my lips and ever so slowly he pulled me against his chest. “Rox…” He whispered.
“Roxy!” A voice shouted from somewhere. I shut my eyes and groaned, what the bloody damn hell am I freaking doing?! I turned around and pulled my hands out from his grasp. I saw Brooklyn walking over to us, her brown hair swinging back and forth in a high ponytail. Her brown eyes scrunched up in a worried look as he hurried over to us.
“Roxy! Oh my goodness, did you do the homework for English? I had work last night and finished late and when I got home I seriously just passed out on my bed and woke up in a panic!” She jabbered on.
“Yeah, I did. Here” I handed her my English book and let her copy the answers. Nate excused himself when he saw his friends and kissed me on the cheek saying that he’ll see me in homeroom.
“I don’t know how you don’t fall head over heels for him Roxy” Brooklyn sighed. “He’s just… he’s just… perfect!” I giggled at her frustration of how perfect Nate is. But she had it totally wrong, I was falling head over heels and I seriously needed to stop.
The bell rang and we ran to our different homerooms. Nate was sitting inside with his feet resting on the chair next to his, obviously saving it for me.
“Damn Roxay!” I hear Rome calling from behind Nate. He gave me an appreciative look slowly taking in my loose, black off the shoulder top, denim short shorts and purple converse. I rolled my eyes and sat on Nate’s feet seeing as he didn’t bother to move them.
“Geez Rox! What are you, an elephant? I swear I might need to have my feet amputated now!” Nate joked poking me with his shoes.
“Shush up Naddy, you’re just jealous” I winked and called ‘here!’ when my name was called out.
I fell into the bleak routine of school, homework, hanging with Nate, sleepovers with Nate and spending time with my parents. Though only school was bleak. It was a month later when my little routine got shaken up a bit.
Nate was sleeping over again but since it was Friday we were planning on staying up. We were eating mom’s specialty of roast beef, potato bake and roasted vegetables for dinner having light conversation about why Pluto was no longer considered a planet when my dad cleared his throat.
“So Roxy, your mother and I will be leaving for a few weeks to check up on the firm in Australia” He said. He turned to Nate “Nate, son, we asked your parents if they’d be ok with you staying with Roxy while were away and it’s all been set up.” He smiled.
There really wasn’t any point in asking Nate because he obviously would’ve said yes so it was more of a stated fact that we’d be staying together almost 24 hours.
***
I woke up to the sound of a passing motorbike and groaned doing my morning wriggle and flipping routine to stretch out the kinks in my back. I’d totally forgotten about Nate and ended up kicking him out of the bed with a muffled ‘oompf!’.
“What the hell Rox!” He shouted at me while trying to untangle himself from the bedsheets.
“Oops, sorry Naddy! I forgot you were sleeping over and well, you know how I wake up” I replied sheepishly.
He closed his eyes and smiled while shaking his head and stood up. “Yeah, yeah I know” he told me before throwing the sheets over me then jumping on top of me. “BELLYFLOP!!” he shouted.
“Ahhhhh!” I screamed, “Christ Naddy you weigh a bloody elephant!” I wheezed before doing a dramatic fainting act holding the back of my hand to my forehead.
“Naw, poor RoxRox has fainted. I shall be her knight in shining armour and save her!” Nate played along.
He crawled over me towards my head which was falling off the edge of the bed and started trailing little kisses over my hair line. What seemed to have started off as a playful joke quickly turned serious when his kisses became more tender and slower. His lips moved from my hair line across my temple and past my cheekbones, he kissed over my cheeks and moved to the corner of my mouth.
I felt his breaths fluttering into my mouth and I almost grabbed his face and kissed the life out of him, instead I opened my eyes and looked straight into his hooded eyes. He moved down to kiss the corner of my jaw and lightly sucked on it while his hand cupped my neck and tilted my head giving him access to my neck. I anxiously waited for more excruciatingly amazing butterfly kisses.
Suddenly he blew hard on my neck and held tight on the other side of my neck with his hand keeping me captive to him blowing raspberries while I screamed and wriggled and kicked to get free. He stopped and we started laughing. Eep, thank God he didn’t notice how flustered I was.
“You’re too easy of a target Rox” he chuckled before rolling off me onto the bed.
After our eventful wake up we showered, dressed and raced down to the kitchen for something to eat.
I found a note from my parent sending us their love and that they left at 5am and didn’t want to wake us.
Nate and I spent our weekend watching our favourite movies while veging out on junk food, we were still sleeping in my bed and luckily there had been no more of our little episodes throughout the weekend. I really needed to stop all this physical nonsense I was feeling towards him, and to keep to my own word I grabbed a rubber band and slipped it onto my wrist.
Everytime we were in a ‘heated’ moment or I started feeling or thinking non-bestfriend thoughts I’d snap the band against my wrist. That should snap me out of that train of thought!
By the time Monday came round it was raining pretty hard. Dark grey clouds covered the usually blue sky and the thick rain splattered across every surface. I stood in front of my balcony doors and breathed in the smell of rain. I’d always loved the smell of rain and the way it smelled so… fresh.
I jumped when Nate stuck his fingers in my sides and gave me a little buzz.
“Looks like you’re riding with me to school today Rox. Geez it’s really pouring today huh?” Nate said standing behind me.
“I do have a car as well you know?” I smiled, “But you’re right, we might as well carpool seeing as you’ll be staying over mine for the next few weeks.”
“What’s the difference with me staying over here and me living next door?” Nate laughed. “We should carpool all the time.”
I leaned back into his chest as we both just watched the rain pitter patter outside and laughed.
“If we do that all the time I might be murdered by all your little army of skanks waiting in line to jump you. As it is, I already get evil stares from them.” We laughed at that and after the chuckles died down we turned back inside to get ready for school.
“ROXANNE! I swear if you do not stop making me laugh I WILL end up killing the both of us! And if I’m the only one to die and you live I will come back to haunt your pretty little self until you join me.” Nate gasped between fits of laughter and wiping tears streaming from his eyes.
We ended up carpooling to school and to brighten up the gloomy weather I was telling him some stories from when I started living in Australia and got so confused with their slang.
We arrived at school and he parked in his usual spot and ran towards the building and shook ourselves of the little droplets of rain that clung to our jackets. Inside, it was packed full of students like sardines squished into a tin. The whole place smelled like rain and frankly, a little bit like wet dog. I scrunched up my nose as we squeezed through the crowd heading towards their lockers and managed to just reach it just in time for the bell.
As soon as it rang, all the students scrambled to their homerooms like scared mice and in no time the hall ways were empty. I breathed in deeply and sighed, here goes another day of school…
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It’d been a week since my parents left for Australia and everything seemed back to normal, like how it should be, between Nate and I. I still wanted to keep the rubber band around my wrist just in case but thankfully I didn’t have to use it. We’d continued to sleep in the same bed and carpool to school seeing as it continued to rain.
We’d just finished school for the week and were walking through the soggy school grounds to Nate’s car huddled under my huge black umbrella. We jumped inside and as soon as Nate turned the engine on I immediately attacked the heater turning it up high.
“Geez, it’s freezing!” I chattered holding my hands in front of the blowers.
“Tell me about it” Nate replied nodding his head, “Speaking of which, I’ll have to leave you by yourself for a few hours tonight Rox. Mom’s got a meeting at five that she needs to go to and Arianna’s got the flu so she asked me to take care of her while she’s out.”
“Oh, I hope Ari’s ok. And for the record Nate, I’ve been left home plenty of times, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
We reached our houses and I jumped out into the rain not even bothering to use the umbrella for the short distance between his car and my front door. I turned around once I stepped into the doorway and gave Nate a wave before he drove into his driveway.
[Nate’s POV]
She ran towards her house and once she stepped inside she offered me a little wave. I returned the gesture but by then she was already safely inside her house. Oh well. It felt weird being away from her, even if it was only going to be for a few hours.
When I got the phone call from my mom during lunch asking me to watch Ari I felt a little disappointed. I was so used to being around Roxy that I almost didn’t feel like myself when I wasn’t around her. I sighed and placed my wet jacket over the back of a dining table chair before heading to the kitchen.
“Hey mom” I said.
“Hi Sweetheart, how was school?” She replied.
“Fine” I shrugged slumping into a swiveling chair and swinging myself around in a circle. I honestly don’t know why parents bother asking their kids that. If something interesting happened I’m sure that’s the first thing that would fly out of our mouths. Oh well.
“That’s good. So, I’m leaving early so that I can avoid the traffic and what with this rain I’m sure it’ll be moving slowly. Dinner is on the stove and make sure you give some to your sister, thanks Sweetheart” She called out before slipping on her coat and opening the door letting the sound of rain fill the house before the slight click of the closing door.
I sighed deeply and smelled the faint aroma of chicken soup. I trudged up the polished wood stairs and headed towards Ari’s room. I open her pink painted door just a bit, enough to peek inside to check on her, and I see she’s awake reading a book.
She looks up, her brown eyes not quite as bright as usual, surround by dark circles and gave me a lopsided smile.
“Hey Nate” She croaked before giving a little cough.
“Hey Ari, how you feeling? You look horrible” I replied.
She rolled her eyes and laughed, or tried to anyway. “Gee, way to make a girl feel good. I hope you don’t say things like that to Roxy.”
I smile at the mention of Roxy’s name and laugh, “Of course I do, she’s my best friend. I am sworn under strict best friend law to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing BUT the truth.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… She’s your ‘best friend’. Sure.” She said, using her fingers to quote ‘best friends’. “No, but seriously, what are you guys? Best friends? Friends with benefits? Or secretly dating?”She asked wiggling her eyebrows.
The question stumped me. Did it really seem as though we were dating? I honestly didn’t mind the thought, as a matter of fact, I welcomed it. I’d been feeling so many different things for Roxy that it felt that sometimes being her best friend just wasn’t enough. I wanted more.
I cleared my throat. “We’re best friends.” For now.
After that, I left her to rest and walked over to my bedroom at the end of the hallway to do my homework. Six o’clock came around I thought I’d grab something to eat as well as for Ari. Humming a tuneless song I sauntered over to the stove and poured two bowls of chicken soup and went back upstairs to eat with Ari.
I washed up after we ate and decided to take a nap until mom got home. I was already feeling excited at the thought of seeing Roxy again. When I walked into my room I automatically glanced over towards my balcony doors to Roxy’s to maybe see her silhouette. Nothing. I let out a big sigh and closed my eyes welcoming slumber to take over.
[Roxy’s POV]
Stepping out of the shower and drying myself off with my towel, I watched as the steam dispersed and crept over the ceiling. I wiped the condensation from the mirror and stared into my violet eyes. I was pretty wasn’t I? I couldn’t see why I was so hung up on my best friend when I should be checking out other guys. ANYONE else besides my best friend. What was wrong with me?
I snapped out of my thoughts and snapped the rubber band against my wrist. Wincing at the slight prickling pain I dropped my towel and slipped on my silk robe then lathered my peach blossom lotion over my warm skin and massaged it in. I’d been taking as long as I could doing everything slowly just waiting for Nate to come over.
I sighed. I was really digging myself into a ditch here, I needed to find a nice, kind, funny guy and start dating him. I needed to get over these crazy feelings I’d been feeling for Nate so I wouldn’t ruin our friendship.
I stepped out into my bedroom and shivered a little at the bite of cool air that hit my skin. While walking to my wardrobe I looked over to Nate’s balcony. No movement, he must be with Ari or downstairs. I slipped on my black lace thong and black lace bra with a little diamond that hung between my breasts.
I rubbed the silver ring that still and always hung around my neck and wondered when Nate’s mom would get home. Oh well. I ran and fell onto my bed letting my body bounce twice and stared at my ceiling. Thunder cracked loudly outside and I thought I heard something else as well. I strained my ears for the sound again… but nothing. Must be my imagination.
Without getting off my bed I grabbed my homework from the pile on the floor and started on my English assignment. Erghh, I wish I had Nate to help me, or better yet, distract me. Snap! This rubber band trick isn’t really working. A creak of the floorboards outside made me look up. Thank God, Nate is here!
I wrap my robe around me just enough to cover my modesty and watched as my door so very slowly creaks open. My smile drops as a tall unknown man dripping rain onto my floor pokes his black hooded face inside my room. He smiled a cold smile and my bones stiffen in fear.
He opens the door wider and I can see he is completely in black; black hoodie that covers his eyes, black slacks and heavy black boots. But what my eyes couldn’t move away from was the shining silver knife that was held loosely in his right hand. His mouth turned up into a smirk and his deep voice penetrated the silence.
“Well, well, well… Look who’s all alone on a night like this.”
[A/N]
Sorry about the cliffhanger but I thought the story needed a little something else besides being all lovey dovey, hot and heavy stuff with Roxy and Nate. Don’t worry, I’m starting chapter four NOW! xx