"Colby! Open the goddamn door!" I yell, kicking it with my foot. My hands were already preoccupied with large boxes.
"Nah," he says on the other side.
"You're an asshole!" I call back with annoyance.
"I know you are but what am I?"
"An asshole," I reply again. I start smacking the door. "Open it or I will drop your Kingdom Hearts game!" I know how much he loves that video-game, which is sad.
No response.
I loudly groan and set the large boxes on the ground. I see the door creek open a smidge and I automatically pounce at the sight of it moving.
"COLBY!" I yelp as I lost my balance, falling.
And to my dismay,
right above him.
I close my eyes but once I opened them, I just saw his deep ocean blue eyes staring back at me. We are so close, face-to-face, nose-to-nose. My arms are on either side of his head and his hands are on my waist while my right knee is between his legs and the other against his waist. It looks like I'm straddling him! GROSS.
My hair has fallen to each side of my face and I could only look directly at him. My cheeks instantly began to heat up.
We stare, and stare for seconds that felt like hours.
I can't look away. His gaze was mesmerizing. I just can't.
I gulp loudly, trying to signal that we are both still alive, and not just staring statues.
"I-I tried to help you not fall... and make sure my game was okay..." his stuttering voice trails off as he gazes at my lips. I unintentionally bite mine to hold myself back from losing control and crashing mine to his.
Oh how I wish.
But he's my rival. I hate him.
The thought that he was my rival finally clicks into my brain and I stand up, adjusting my top.
"Okay, that was weird," I shake, brushing off my shoulders.
"Aha, lets just not do that again," He says too, slowly getting up.
"Agreed."
"Mhm."
"We should probably go and help now?" I say, pointing to the door.
"Yea...that'd be best." He awkwardly says, shoving his hands in his pockets and opening the door for us to leave.
We didn't look at each other the whole elevator ride back down. Nobody spoke a word. It was strange. Leaving the apartment was strange. Not one nasty comment was spit that whole time.
How?
Normally, I'd probably yell at him for being a stupid idiot to open the door and he'd yell back for being a clumsy butthole or something.
But, that didn't happen.
I didn't start the insult spree.
And neither did he.
/////
After a few awkward trips with Colby in the elevator and a mumble of "thanks," every now and then, we weren't speaking or being human with each other at all.
It felt wrong.
I try to steal a glance at him but once I looked, he looked back. Then we both looked away, like as if we were on cue.
The tension was building up. It wasn't negative, but it most certainly wasn't positive. The type of the tension would remain unknown, because I don't know what it was either. There was a part of me regretting not to kiss him and pretend like it was an accident. The other was saying, he hates you, you hate him, and lets leave it the same. If anything were to change, how would life be like? One thing's for certain is that I can't ever avoid him. He lives right next to me for gods sake! I unintentionally groan at the thought of seeing him everyday.
"You good over there?" He raises an eyebrow.
"No, because you're here," I say, and it was the truth.
"So now you want to talk again," he smirks, "Because you recognize my intimidating presence, huh."
"What intimidating presence?" I scoff.
He rolls his eyes, "What makes you one to talk, shorty."
"Mm no, you're pronouncing it wrong. It's shawty," I wink.
"Gross kid," he scrunches his nose.
"I'm wearing a cute outfit today, you have to admit," I laugh, striking a pose.
He looks away and smirks, "Whatever you say, shorty." The doors opens and he walks out first. I begin to follow, feeling butterflies in my stomach. He may not have admitted it fully, but he didn't tell me I looked ugly. That's a first.
I begin to climb into the truck where Ellie is grabbing the last of the boxes with me and the guys are moving in the last bits of furniture. We all scurry into the elevator, making sure we didn't leave anything behind and locked the truck, and rode back to the apartment. We all made small talk, enjoying the time we had and then realizing it was only about three-thirty. It felt longer actually so my biggest question was what are we going to do now?
"Well, that's the last of it," I drop my boxes to the side and dust off my palms.
"Thanks for your help guys! We did it all so quickly, quicker than I imagined," Sam says.
"Of course! If you need anything, we are literally just a knock away," Ellie smiles.
"Duly noted!" Colby replies.
"So, what now? If you're asking me, I'm hungry as hell and as you already know I didn't even eat breakfast,"
"Did you want to starve, you could've just asked and we could of went on break," Colby crosses his arms.
"Now you sound like you're treating us like your little workers, hotshot." I say, also crossing my arms. I think we subconsciously step closer to each other, so we're having such an intimidating stare-off.
"Guys, lets just go to that In-N-Out place," Ellie interrupts, "Ya'll are still kids."
Colby whines, "But she started it!"
I roll my eyes, "What you gonna do, go cry to your mommy?" I mock.
Colby smirks and wraps his arms around Ellie, "Aye wassup, mami."
I literally gag. Sam just stands their, covering his eyes, "No pda in the apartment please."
Ellie just laughs and says, "Well, no time to lose, vamanos mis amigos!" Colby and her walk out the door and he still has his arm slung around her. Sam and I look at each other and just oblige to follow. We ride down, hopefully for the last time today, I'm beginning to get sick of this elevator from riding it so many goddamn times. We decided to take my car since they still had to go pick up theirs.
"Woah, sick ride..." Colby gawks at my BMW.
"I know, I have sick parents," I shrug, getting into the front seat.
"I call shotgun!" Colby and Sam both yell. As they have a mini argument, Ellie just hops into the front with me and we laugh at how dumb they look. They were still in front of my car and we were just watching this unfold. Ellie even took a snapchat.
I roll down my windows, "Get in bitches we're going to the mall!"
"We're going to In-N-Out, Ash," Ellie corrects me.
"Well we're going to the mall too, because I'm the driver," I jokingly sass with her.
"YES, I need a new pair of shoes tonight!" She excitedly squeals.
"Hey! Why'd Ellie get shotgun?" Sam says, getting into the backseat with Colby.
"Because Ellie beats out everyone for shotgun," I laugh.
"Yo, that's sexist!" Colby cries out.
"Well are you an anti-feminist?" I say with annoyance. I pull out from my parking spot and drive out the garage lot.
"No but-"
"Then Ellie sits shotgun!"
The guys just loudly grumble at my remark. Ellie puts in the AUX cord and she and I start singing to some Selena Gomez but once a throwback of Fetty Wap turned on, the windows were down, hands were up and everyone was screaming our lungs out to 679 and Rae Sremmurd to No Type.
Then by the end of the song, I swear Colby made my eardrums fucking explode.
"Hey Colby," I call to him casually.
He was singing No Type, "I DONT GOT NO TYPE, BAD BITC- what Ash, I was going so well," he finishes.
"You see, that's what I wanted to talk to you about, hun."
He plasters on a cheeky grin, "What, that I was good?"
"Nope, you suck man," I laugh, as well as Ellie and Sam.
"Oh she burning you bro!" Sam shouts.
Colby crosses his arms, "Diss me all you want but hate to break it to you Ash, ya know that Chris kid you liked? Back in Sophomore year?"
I cough loudly, that Chris kid was a boy that I told people I liked because I couldn't say Colby.
"What'd you do to fuck up my life then, asshole?"
"Hey, let me admit I was an ass in Sophomore year but not anymore so-"
I instantly interrupt with "Once an ass, always an ass."
"Fine, so I told him you liked him. And you remember that note in your locker that said 'Sorry not interested' and you had no idea who it was from and you spent your week just going insane over who wrote it?"
"No way, he wrote it?" I ask, a little shocked. It made sense but I didn't know Colby was that devious.
"Yep, and it was yo boi who made him not sign it! Suck it ya fucking gypsy." He said that with so much pride, it made me want to physically rip his skin off. Yes, that was graphic.
"I honestly hate you with a burning passion, literally call me when you're not a selfish petty bitch," I tell him.
"You guys are just so nice to each other," Sam sarcastically adds in.
"Right Sam, they are just friendship goals," Ellie chimes.
"Ha, you guys wish you were us!" Colby agrees.
"Too far nutjob, nobody wishes they were us," I say.
"Well no shit, I was just being sarc-"
"We're here!" I exclaim in the middle of his sentence. I quickly find a parking spot and hop out the car. Everyone gets out the car too.
Colby gets out and loudly mumbles, "She literally cut me off like 213 times in this one short ride."
"I heard that!" I yell over my shoulder and open the restaurant's door.
"Good!" He yells back.
We get inside and everyone orders their food. I get two cheese burgers , only because one might be my dinner tonight. Sam and Colby paid for Ellie and I's food since we helped them out but I paid for my second burger because it'd just be rude if they paid, even if they insisted. We ate, had small talk while eating and planned the rest of our day out, we had like four hours to do anything around LA. We decided to just go hang at the grove and the shopping center that I heard has Krispy Kreme, which is fire.
As we finish our food, we grab our things and I grab my other burger and head back into the car.
"SHOTGUN!" Colby screeches, throwing a hang in the air.
I swish my head his way, confused, "Wait, NO! I wanted El-"
Ellie ignores me speaking and puts on a friendly smiles and says, "I'll just sit in the back, it's chill!"
I groan and toss my head back in frustration, I unlock the car and everyone hops in.
"Ya know, why couldn't I sit shotgun?" Sam says sadly.
"Because you didn't call it," Colby replies, looking back at Sam.
I begin to drive out of lot and to the Grove. Once we got there, apparently there was some special occasion and the place was all closed down for the evening.
"Shit, no mall today," I frown.
"Darn, I really wanted a Krispy Kreme," Sam mumbles, Colby and Ellie agreeing.
I turn the car around and ask, "So what do you guys want to do?"
"Oh, I looked up online that there is this nice path on a small mountain we can go hike up," Ellie says, pulling out a pic on her phone. Colby reaches to the back and looks at it.
"Looks fun, we can go explore it," he says.
I grin widely, "Awright, give me the directions."
/////
Once we pulled up to the dirty parking space, we all got out, breath-taken by the tall trees and flowers that were growing. We all begin to walk down the gravel path in perfect silence. This reminded me of Kansas, back home where growing up was easy. Not that California isn't easy, but it definitely is a change.
"Shit! I forgot my vlog camera in the car..." I grumble.
"Well go get it! We could use it to take pictures too," Ellie says to me.
"Ugh, I don't want to go alone," I sigh.
"I'll go get it for you ya big baby," Colby murmurs, running back down the trail.
"What! But I have the keys you idiot!" I yell after him, running back down too. "Colby and I will meet you guys at the top, go on ahead!" I scream to Ellie and Sam.
"Be back soon!" Sam hollers.
"Will do!" I sprint to Colby who was sprinting also. The route was very rocky and it went downwards so I didn't have too much control on how fast I was running, and before I knew it, I was tumbling on-top of Colby. This time, he was hovering above me and my arms were practically pinned by his. We stared at each other, once again in complete silence til he said,
"We gotta stop meeting like this, shorty," He smirks.
I raise my eyebrow, "It's pronounced shawty."
He rolls his eyes and gets up, holding out a hand, "Come on, lets go get your camera."
I reluctantly take it and he easily pulled me up. I'm surprised at how much strength he naturally had, he's a tall, slender, but easily attractive guy. His touch makes me nervous, no, his presence makes me nervous.
"Thanks," I mumble. "Hey, why were you so eager to go back to car and get my camera when you don't even have the car keys?" I ask.
"Eh, in my defense I had no idea that you had the car keys, I literally realized that once I was half-way there," He laughs, and I laugh too.
"I literally screamed 'wait, but I have the keys' you idiot," I giggle slightly, continuing to walk by his side down the gravel.
"Yeah, I get it, I'm deaf," he chuckles back.
"And dumb." He body shoves me a little on the side and laughs, and I grin, shoving him harder.
"Neil, do you hate me that much?" He asks, but it seemed kind of playful in a sense.
"With a burning passion, Brock," I smile, looking up into his blue eyes.
He glances back and shakes his head, "Okay, I hate you with a burning passion too," he smiles back.
And you know the truth is, I don't hate him.
But I can't like him.
But maybe there's a possibility we could be friends.
But being friends with my rival? Not sure just yet.
I hate liking my rival.
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Thanks for reading, I'm trying my best to convey my ideas without having to rush this story but it's hard and that's kinda why this is the longest chapter I've ever written lol.
VOTE, COMMENT, SHARE AND DONT BE SHY.
hugs,kt