âCourtney's P.O.Vâ
"Alex, wake up!" Damien whisper shouts, spanking his butt repeatedly.
Emily is still fast asleep but we can't find it in ourselves to wake her.
She mumbles something in her sleep and I slowly remove her arms from around me, stopping briefly when she moves to turn around.
Smiling, I cover her with the blanket and step out of bed.
"Bloody hell, Damien. Let me sleep, shithead." Alex curses, smacking Damien's hand away as he continues to spank him.
Damien only takes that as an invitation to yank the blanket off of him, making him grumble profanities at him.
"Damien, I swear, I'm gonna beat the shit out of you."
"Wake up, then."
Sitting up, he throws Damien a menacing glare, before his eyes spot me and he lights up like a Christmas tree.
"Good morning." I chirp, walking over to him.
He instantly holds his arms out and I laugh softly, giving in to his silent command as I kneel down to hug him.
"Good morning, indeed." He whispers, leaving a soft kiss on the nape of my neck.
"Today's beach day," Damien informs, "We should get going soon. It's still an hour ride to get there."
"Wake up the others." Alex waves a dismissive hand, continuing his evil torture on my neck.
I gently push him off me as Damien walks into the other room, "Alex, we can't."
"I'm not planning to have sex with you." I frown, making him chuckle. He leans back in to kiss my neck, "Although, I admit that wouldn't be a bad idea."
"Alex...stop that."
"Do you really want me to?"
"Mm, no."
"Courtney?"
My eyes instantly fly open at the groggy voice and I immediately push Alex away, moving to stand up on my feet.
Emily sits up to rub her eyes, and I approach her side, "Morning, Em. Do you need me to get you anything?"
She shakes her head, "No, thank you." Her eyes scan the room. She frowns, "Where's Damien?"
"Son of a bitch, Damien. I'm gonna kill you!"
Our focus goes over to the open door.
"Guess that answers your question." I laugh.
"Ow, what the hell? It's too early in the morning for you to be this violent already!"
"You fucking threw water on me, you sack of shit!"
"You wouldn't wake up!" Damien defends, and I see him dodge Steven's fist. "Calm down!"
"Bro, chill." Lucas sits up on the floor, stretching his arms over his head.
Steven stands up from the ground beside Lucas and chases after Damien, leading themselves back into our room.
"Emily princess, help me!" He jumps onto the bed and Emily furrows her eyebrows when he goes to hide behind her, his arms and legs wrapping themselves around her possessively.
Steven scoffs, "I'll get you soon enough." He wipes the water from his face and shakes his head, making the water droplets from his hair fall onto the carpet.
"Get. Off. Her. Right. Now."
"That can't be good."
We all pile into the other room and I shake my head at Alex, who has a deep scowl directed at Julian â he is innocently cuddling with Alexa.
He quickly moves away from her as if scalded and she frowns, "Alex, that's so unnecessary. I'm eighteen, just like you!"
"I don't care."
I go to grab his hand and he looks down at me. I smile, "Let them be, babe. Julian's a nice guy. Sure, he can be a dickwad at times but he's still a nice guy."
"I'm not deaf you know." Julian.
"Shut the fuck up." Alex.
I shake my head, laughing. "Let's get ready to head to the beach, yeah?"
"The only thing I heard from that is head and it sounded like a question, so yes."
I smack his chest. He laughs.
"Okay, gross." Alexa complains, sitting up on the bed and fixing her bun.
"Alright, get ready everyone. We'll be leaving in thirty minutes."
Alex goes back to our room after he gives the order and I follow, going into the bathroom to fix myself up.
***
"Can you explain to me, why the hell you chose those bottoms?"
Lucas looks down at his crotch, then looks over at the rest of the guys wearing beach shorts. He shrugs, "I like to be unique."
"Unique?" Steven snorts, "Dude, I can see your pubes and the sides of your balls."
"Why are you looking?" He muses, arching a brow.
He simply shakes his head, "Whatever, wear what you want."
"I already do. I don't need anyone's approval, thank you very much."
"Eww, mommy, he has hair down there!" A little girl whines, pointing an accusing finger at Lucas.
Her mother flushes, grabbing her hand and tugging her away. "No need to see that, honey."
We all laugh as Lucas reddens, taking the towel from his shoulder and wrapping it around his waist instead.
"Stop laughing."
"So, you wear what you want?" Steven mocks, "Are those bottoms still what you want?"
"Do what you want," Damien â the oh so silly one â begins to sing. "What you want with my body."
"Do what you want," Emily joins. "Don't stop, let's party."
Steven twirls in the sand, "Do what you want, what you want with my body!"
"Do what you want, what you want with my body!" Lucas continues.
"Write what you want," I follow along, "say what you want 'bout me"
Alex winks at me, "If you're wondering, know that I'm not sorry."
"Do what you want, whatâ"
"No." Alex cuts Alexa off, keeping a straight face.
She frowns, "That was mean!"
"I don't care. That's not appropriate for you to say."
"Appropriate?" She sputters. "They're lyrics! Not my genuine offer to someone!"
"Don't care."
"Alex," I warn, "Be nice to your sister. We're all here to have fun."
He goes down to sit on the sand and pats the space beside him, but instead I take my seat on his lap. He smirks, his arms encircling my waist. "This is a much better seat."
"Yeah, don't let her feel anything or she might just have to play Whac-A-Mole." Damien chuckles, offering Emily the same type of seat.
"Courtney and I can have a competition if that happens." Emily shrugs. "Who can get it down faster."
"I know who can get it up faster." Alex whispers into my ear and I shiver.
"Gross, I heard that."
"Shut it, Steve."
***
We all stay stunned at the sight in front of us, Damien covering Emily's eyes.
"And you say I'm bad." Lucas retorts, "At least mine covers my ass and my ass also doesn't look like a sea otter."
I turn to him, "A sea otter?"
"They're known to be the hairiest animals on earth."
"Oh wow, seriously?" Lucas nods. "Let me check." Damien goes onto his phone and after a few moments, he looks back up. "Holy shit, you're right."
Without the shield of Damien's hand, Emily has a free view of the man in a thong bikini and she shudders visibly.
Damien quickly notices, "Oh no, princess, I'm so sorry!"
His hand clamps back down on her eyes and she laughs, grabbing his wrist to bring his hand down to her lips, leaving a kiss on his palm. He smiles at that and leans down to kiss her lips, before he covers her eyes once again.
"You could straight up see his entire nutsack and the sides of his dick. Is that even legal?"
"I don't know how I feel about you checking out another man." Julian complains, frowning at his girlfriend.
She rolls her eyes, smiling. "It's not like I want to look. It's literally right there, in full view for everyone."
The spoken man squats down to get something from the ground and we all whine loudly, covering each other's eyes.
"I rather see the hair! I rather see the hair!" Lucas chants, "Not the crack, not the string, and definitely not the hole, the hair!"
"Ohh god, my eyes!"
"I'm so thankful for you, Damien. I'm glad I'm not complaining right now." Emily laughs.
"I need bleach to blank out the memory, and holy water to purify my eyes again!" Lucas continues to protest.
"Why did we have to look? Why?!"
"That's not a butt, that's Chewbacca!"
I begin to laugh at Lucas's last remark and uncover my eyes in the process, rolling onto my back. Emily laughs from beside me and soon enough, we're all rolling in the sand from laughing so hard.
I stop when tears brim my eyes and my stomach aches, giving me false hope that abs will form.
"I'm convinced that man sat on a dog, and its poor destiny was to stay there forever." Lucas comes up with yet another clever remark, chuckling to himself.
"You're killing me, dude." Steven wipes a stray tear from his cheek.
***
"Woah, this is yours?"
I lean my head back as I admire the beauty in front of me, my jaw dropping. "This is beyond gorgeous."
Alex nods his head, silently agreeing. "Mine and Alexa's, actually." He corrects. "Dad bought it when he got married to mom but when they divorced, they each left the house and moved away from the memories still living in here. Dad promised it'd be mine when I graduated but now that Alexa and mom are back in our lives, he said it'd be both of ours."
"I still remember when mom and dad always had food fights with us." Alexa smiles at the memory, leading all of us inside.
"Dad was on my team and mom was on yours." Alex continues, smiling as if reliving the spoken memory.
"You guys were happy, huh?" I question, interlocking my hand with his.
He squeezes, leading me into the living room along with everyone.
"We were." Alexa replies honestly, her face suddenly clouding over. "Up until that bitch best friend of mom's ruined it."
I frown, "Jealousy can make you do terrible things."
"But breaking up a happily married couple?! That's just plain disgusting! She didn't just ruin their lives, but ours as well!" She snaps, and Alex quickly lets go of my hand to comfort his sister. She sobs, clutching his shirt in her hands. "Maybe...maybe if they were still together, mom wouldn't have gotten so sick. Maybe she wouldn't have been so persistent for me to let her die. Maybe..." she trails off as another sob escapes her lips.
"It's okay," Alex holds her close to his chest. "Mom's slowly getting better, she'll get through it. Believe in her."
"Watching her progressively get worse and worse and not being able to do anything about it really sucked." She chokes out.
"I know, sis, trust me I know."
She wipes her face, pulling away. "But this isn't the time to cry about the past. Let's enjoy the next five days together."
Instinctively, I approach her and pull her body into my arms. "I'm sorry for what you had to go through." I whisper into her ear.
She sniffles, "It's fine, I have to stop sulking about things I have no control over, especially ones that happened a long time ago."
We both pull away from each other and she offers me a small smile before she turns to our friends sitting on the couch.
"Why are you sitting down? Let's go to the pool!"
Cheering, we all run out to the backyard â the guys pulling off their shirt in the process â and jump into the enormous pool awaiting outside.
And this is how we spent the following days: our mornings in the pool to wake ourselves up, our afternoons exploring the beautiful city and experiencing new things each day â I went bungee jumping with Alex, everyone else was too scared to try. Our evenings were spent in the living room watching movies until we ended up sleeping on the couch or floor, letting the morning come and repeating the process.
Now, it was time for us to drive back home.
"Do you guys have everything with you?" Alex asks, standing by the house door, refraining from closing it.
We all check for our belongings.
"I'm good." Steven replies, shoving his backpack in the trunk of Damien's van.
"Yeah, we have everything." I show a thumbs up and he nods before finally closing the door, walking over to us.
He throws his backpack into the back of his truck before he goes into the driver's seat, everyone already seated inside.
He hands me the cup he's been holding, "If you see my eyes closing, just shove this under my nose. The smell of coffee itself wakes me up."
"Really?" I raise a curious eyebrow, "That's interesting."
"It's a very long drive, we might have to stop at a hotel again."
He inserts the key into the ignition and the truck comes to life, gently vibrating beneath us.
He drives behind Damien, our faces bored after experiencing the most thrilling week of our lives.
"Wake us up when we get there." Julian speaks up from the backseat and I twist my body to look at them. I watch as they position themselves to a more comfortable position. Julian is on the middle seat, allowing Alexa to lay her head on his shoulder as he lays his on her head.
"Sure thing."
I face forward again and after a few hours, my eyes begin to droop shut, my head dropping before I flinch awake again.
A bing coming from the center console catches my attention and I look down at Alex's phone.
"Can you check it for me? The password is 1436."
I turn to him in shock. Is he really allowing me to go through his phone?
He seems to notice my silence and turns over to me swiftly. His eyes refocused on the road, he laughs. "I have nothing to hide from you, Courtney."
Nodding, I do as told. I unlock his phone and open his messages. It's from Steven.
Just as I open it, the truck comes to a sudden stop and I jolt forward. Confused, I turn towards Alex and see that he's just as confused.
I look forward and notice that Damien's van is parked to the side. Alex's phone dings with another message and I look back down.
Steven: Emily's nose is bleeding A LOT
Steven: She just passed out and Damien is freaking out
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Let me start off with, PLEASE DON'T HATE ME! This is the second to last chapter and the next chapter will be a year later, which is their expected graduation. Emily might or might not still be alive. Just please understand that this story has been planned out since the very beginning. Please don't stay mad at me for too long. I love all of you and it will break my heart if you hate me!
Sorry for the mistakes.
â¤ï¸Much Love with Hugs & Kissesâ¤ï¸
Kimmy Herz ð