pls vote and comment <33
Elijah's POV
The next week passed without any more... run-ins with Carter.
The weather had been mild during the day and chilly at night. The days started to blend together into one.
Eli felt like he was living an endless routine - waking up, going to class, studying, hanging out with Porter and May, then sleeping and repeating.
He felt like he was waiting for ... something. He just didn't know what.
He was currently at another one of Porter's gigs. He was sipping on an ice-cold drink, surveying the crowd as he listened to Porter's songs which he had heard hundreds of times.
Della had a midterm the next day so she couldn't come. This meant Eli was on his own. As he liked.
He heard the other chair at his table squeak back, glancing over to see a girl with really long blonde hair flopping down next to him. She was dressed in a short dress, which was weird considering how cold it was.
Eli noticed how she had a lot of bangles on her pale arm, which made a lot of sound as she sat. She fixed her hazel eyes on his light grey ones, clearing her throat and speaking. "I'm Karen." In a soft voice.
He nodded at her, turning back to suck on his straw.
They both sat there watching Porter's band.
"Can I ask you something?" Karen said, after a few minutes.
"No." He let out.
"You're rude," Karen commented, her face scrunched in interest. "It's kind of hot."
Eli looked at her incredulously.
She slid a piece of paper towards him. "Here's my number." She finally got up and left him alone. Eli shoved the piece of paper in his jacket pocket, planning on throwing it out later. He wasn't going to leave it for the wait staff to clean. His mom raised him right.
When Porter was almost done, Eli got up to leave. He spotted Karen from before sitting with a group of girls, eyeing him.
He walked past her straight to the parking lot, getting in his car and driving home.
*****
Eli was asleep when a hard knocking sound invaded his thoughts. He ignored it.
Then he heard someone barge into his room. He groaned, opening his eyes to see Della smiling down at him.
"Wakey wakey, sleepyhead." She beamed.
"I hate you." He glared at her, tossing his pillow at her. She caught it, effortlessly, throwing it back to him.
"My exam was great, thanks for asking." She informed him. "We're having a party to celebrate."
"Who the fuck is 'we'?" He knew the answer before she said it;
"You, Porter, and I!" Fuck. Since Porter and Della loved partying, they always had celebrations after exams. Since there were no large gatherings allowed in her dorms, they were at the apartment.
"He already texted everyone on his phone. And you know that means basically everyone." She waved her dark arm in front of his face. "Now get up. It's 5 pm, people will probably come at 9, so we have plenty of time to go buy alcohol. Bring your fake, I forgot mine."
Their upstairs neighbors were two girls (very pretty ones who Porter constantly flirted with. Eli had never met them, he had just heard of them). They were college students too so they didn't care for the noise.
Their downstairs neighbor was a deaf old lady.
Due to these lucky coincidences, their apartment was a hotspot for noise.
He got up, going to the bathroom and making himself presentable before meeting Della at the front door to get her and Porter's precious alcohol.
*********
A few hours later he was sitting on the couch, slightly tipsy, with a girl from NYU sprawled across his lap, her head resting across him, on the couch.
He hated how she felt but he wasn't in the state of mind to push her off.
Their apartment was full of people, Kanye West blaring through the space as people danced around him. He spied Porter dancing with Della, slightly grinding up on her. He paused, shaking his head and closing his eyes. He probably imagined that.
"Yo, Eli! Come do shots!" He heard Jamie call him over.
He groaned, mustering up the strength to push the girl off him, onto the couch by herself, and staggering up to them.
He threw a shot of tequila down, while they cheered him on.
Eli was now passing the border between tipsy and drunk, but he did not want to be hungover the next morning, so he sauntered to his bedroom, stumbling in and closing the door behind him.
He barely sat on his double bed when someone threw the door open loudly and followed him into his room. He turned, eyebrows raised ready to kick them out, freezing when he saw who it was.
Carter had her usual bright smile on, she was in grey jeans and a white halter top. She had on a light pink teddy jacket thrown over her shoulders.
"Hi!" She said, coming closer to where he was sitting on his bed. Her eyes surveyed his black bed, moving to the grey walls, and then his plain black desk. She frowned. "Why is everything so dark?"
He ignored her question, "What are you doing here?"
"Della invited me, I just got here and saw you come in here so I came to say hi." She explained.
"Well, you said hi. You can leave now." He said, looking away from her.
Carter scoffed, not leaving. "What made you this way?" She asked, with interest, coming closer into his room.
"What way?" Eli got defensive.
"Why are you so rude?" She pushed.
"I'm not rude. I just don't waste my time on stupid things like small talk." He defended himself.
Carter said nothing. He was glad she wasn't talking for once. But then she did something worse.
She slid off the teddy jacket, down her caramel arms, throwing it on his plain black chair.
Eli gulped when his eyes subconsciously drew down to her cleavage. He noted that her top showed off a lot of skin. He didn't usually care what people wore; everyone was responsible for their own body and it was no one else's business.
But, he was a straight guy, and he couldn't deny the physical attraction he felt for Carter.
She was still analyzing his room, not seeing him struggle.
His eyes darted down to her feet, ready to see her blue converse so that they would turn him off, frowning when he found pink socks with clouds on them instead. They were actually cute.
She flopped down in his chair, across from him, and had the audacity to throw her feet on his bed, right next to his thighs. He caught a whiff of her perfume as she pulled the chair closer to him.
Eli internally groaned. Why was Carter so... annoying? He felt like she was everywhere with her jade green eyes and her soft skin and her constant scent of lavender that he could smell even from a distance; what the hell was that?
She reached into her jeans pocket, pulling out two wrapped starbursts. One was pink, and one was red.
"Do you want one?" She asked. Her voice was so soft, yet so loud, easily clear over the pounding music outside his door.
He found himself nodding; Eli had a big appetite when he was tipsy.
"Which flavor do you want?" She opened up her palm, showing him.
"Red."
She giggled gently, "Red isn't a flavor silly. It's cherry." She pursed her lips. "Cherry is my favorite, but I'll let you have it. Because you're special."
He frowned, "Why am I special?"
She shrugged, handing him the red starburst. "You just are."
Eli watched her nimble fingers unwrap her own starburst, watching as she slipped it in between her plump lips. He noticed they were shiny pink, probably from some of the lip gloss stuff Della was always putting on.
He averted his gaze before she saw his eyes on her mouth. He looked back at her hands in her lap instead.
"Why do you paint your nails like that?" Eli questioned. He clearly didn't have a filter around her.
"Like what?"
"Different colors. It's not even a pattern."
She looked down at her nails, the colors ranging from red, green, pink, and even yellow nail polish.
She exhaled and mumbled out, "I don't want any of the colors to feel left out."
"You... what?" Eli's eyebrows scrunched up. "They're colors. They don't have feelings."
She smiled keeping her green eyes downcast, "I know, it's stupid. it's just something I've done since I was little. When I was a kid I always thought that if I picked just one color, the rest would feel unloved, or excluded." She explained. The smile slipped off her face slightly, as if the reasoning was deeper than that. "No one really told me any different until I grew up and understood it myself. But by then it was sort of a habit, and those are hard to break."
Eli paused, analyzing her expression. Her smile was still present, but her eyes showed a hint of sadness in them. He looked away.
"Here." He said in a gruff voice, stretching out his hand, handing her the red starburst from before. "You can have it."
He saw her straighten up from his peripheral.
"Really?" She said brightly, not hesitating before she took the starburst back. "Thank you."
He looked back when he felt her stare on the side of his face. She was looking at him with deep thought.
"What?" He asked, self-consciously.
"Hmm?"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
She grinned, leaning herself even closer to him, and then bringing her hand forward to bop him on the nose with her index finger as you would do to a pet dog.
He pulled his face back slightly offended.
"You're a big softie, you know." She explained. "You seem so tough and rowdy on the outside, but you're a sweet guy on the inside."
"I am not a sweet guy," Eli informed her, outraged. She made him sound like a pussy.
"You are," Carter argued. "I've seen it. You even got me the teddy bear I wanted at the carnival."
Fuck. He didn't even know why he got that teddy bear. When she left her bag on the bench, his only plan was to return it to her. But when he passed by the booth with the bear, he remembered the adoration in her eyes when she saw it, and he doesn't know how but the next thing he knew he was playing another game for the bear, and shoving it in her bag when he won.
He stared at her smug expression, speechlessly. She stared back. Then she leaned in even closer, her face only a few inches away from his. He could see little flecks of chartreuse in her green eyes.
"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone and ruin your rep." She whispered. "It'll be our little secret." She winked leaving him frozen.
Carter got up then, "I'm gonna go say hi to Della and Porter." She told him. "See you soon!"
He didn't reply, watching her leave his room, shutting the door gently behind her.
a/n remember karen she will come up again ;)
hope everyone enjoys their weekend ! currently making aesthetics for each character