Chapter Four

We finish at the yard around 3am, when we can't take the smell any more. I pray that the scent hasn't seeped into my clothes. After climbing the fence again (successfully this time), we lean against the cars, looking up at the sky.

"I know a place that would be great to watch the sunrise, but that won't be for another couple hours," Christian says.

I shake my head, "Let's save that for another time."

He smiles at me and winks. "I'll hold you to that."

I smile back, knowing that he definitely will hold me to it. After spending more time with him, I appreciated that he fit our group dynamic well. That made sense since he has been friends with Eli and Justin for a while, but he also gets along with Ariel well too. He and Adrian were even play fighting for a while. His flirting wasn't unbearable, and I found myself slowly getting used to it. All in all, he is an alright person to have around.

Smile still on my face, I look around the group. Just like me, they don't seem ready for our time together to be over. I can't help but wonder if my mom is still up. I quickly rid the thought from my mind, not wanting to get upset again.

"You guys ready to go home?" I ask.

"Not really," sighs Ariel.

"If you guys have another idea, I'm down," says Adrian.

Eli turns to Chrstian and adds, "You drove, it's up to you."

He pauses for a moment then says, "If you guys want to come over and hang out, that's fine with me. You heard my mom."

Ariel looks towards me, waiting for my reaction. "I'll go if you go. If not, you can come crash at mine or I can drop you home."

I ponder the suggestion, but ultimately agree. We allow Christian to drive off first, and we tail him. When we arrive, I realize that I forgot how nice his house is. The last time I was here, I didn't really look around the inside. We step in through the front door and all of the lights are off. We take off our shoes and go down the hallway until we reach a door right before the kitchen.

Christian opens it and flips a switch. In front of us is a set of stairs leading down to what I assume is the basement. One by one, we descend the staircase and I'm amazed by what I see at the bottom.

The room before us is fairly large and has several different setups: a TV and couches in the centre; a game area on the left, complete with a minibar plus a kitchen; and workout equipment on the right.

He takes a seat on the couch and gestures around the room. "Welcome to my man cave. The room's soundproof, so don't worry about waking anyone up."

My eyebrows raise. "So this is where you bring all those girls."

He grins devilishly, "You included."

I scoff and follow Ariel to the foosball table. We locate the ball and begin a game while the boys turn on the PS4.

"Maya," she begins, "Why don't you give him a chance?"

I check over my shoulder to see if anyone heard us, but we are far enough away, and the boys are already having a stupid argument over what game they should play. "I don't need a guy right now, Ari!"

"But why!?" she pleads. "Come on, he seems like a good enough guy. He

got his little sister a kitten for her birthday, for God's sake!"

I can't help my gaze from shifting to focus on the guys. Slowly, I shook my

head. "The timing just isn't right."

"What do you mean? We literally have over four more months until we have to go back to school. Even then, it's not like the drive is crazy far," she prodded.

Frowning slightly, I say, "I just want to be friends for now."

"Friends? Or like friends?" she asks hopefully. I shoot the ball through her defenders while she's distracted, resulting in, "No fair."

"The first one," I assure.

She huffs. "Fine. What about Justin?"

"What about Justin?" a voice asks.

Justin stands next Ariel, as if appearing out of nowhere. Her face turns bright pink and she stammers out, "Huh? Nothing! No one said anything?"

He watches her curiously before continuing his journey to the bar.

"Grab me a beer too!" calls Adrian, not taking his eyes off of the game.

"Get it your damn self! I asked you if you wanted one and you said no, you stupid pig!" responds Justin, but grabs the drink regardless.

I find my way over there and begin looking through the collection. I'm not really a beer person; I prefer something sweet. To my surprise, I find a bottle of wine. I take two glasses from the shelf and pour some for Ariel and myself.

We continue to play our respective games for quite some time until Ariel and I, a bit wine drunk, get bored and join the boys in the other area. While I sit down next to Christian, Ariel covers Justin's face with a pillow, causing him to lose the game and curse her out. She laughs it off and takes a seat on the ground between him and her brother.

"You guys have been playing this forever," she complains. "Can we watch a movie or something?"

"No, fuck you. Find something else to do," dismisses Adrian.

Ariel rolls up her sleeves, as if getting ready to fight him, but stops when she hears the "dun dun" of Netflix starting up. She sticks her tongue out at him like she always does when she gets her way.

"Something scary or something funny?" asks Christian as he scrolls through the genres.

We collectively yell out, "Scary!" and he obliges.

Eventually, we settle on a gore type film. Personally, I'd take demons over senseless gore any day, but everyone else disagreed. In the opening scene, a man is seen looking in the mirror and pulling out his own teeth.

My hands fly up to cover my eyes and I say to myself, "Wow, right off the bat, huh?"

"It's just makeup and special effects. When you think of it like that, it's not so bad," whispers Christian. His breath tickles my ear, but I find myself wanting to get closer to him.

I shake the thought out of my head. It was just the wine talking.

Taking his words into consideration, I remove my hands and look at the screen. For a moment I'm fine. This wasn't so bad!

Or so I thought.

Next, the camera zooms on, and he's scooping out his eyes. The camera then pans out, and his intestines are shown spilling out of a large gash across his midsection. I grab Christian's large hand and use it to once again shield my eyes.

The couch next to me begins to shake and it takes a second to realize that it's due to Christian laughing uncontrollably. "Maya, it's gone now," he assures once he sobers up.

Not fully believing him, I pull apart his fingers and peer through. The screen is now showing the opening credits and I curse whichever one of them it was that decided to make this damn movie.

I throw Christian's hand back at him and he rests it on the back of the couch behind me. I'm going to blame it on the alcohol, but I find myself shifting closer to him. At first his body stiffens. Then, he lowers his arm from the couch to instead drape around my shoulders.

"Shut up," I grumble.

"I didn't say anything,"

"I can hear that stupid smirk on your face right now," I say. When I look up, guess what I see? That iconic, stupid ass smirk plastered on his face.

We stay like that for the duration of the movie. During all of the gross graphics scenes, I hid my face in his side. I was pleasantly surprised that his clothes did not in fact smell like garbage. He wasn't wearing cologne, but his natural smell was calming.

By the time the movie finishes, it's almost six in the morning, and birds can be heard waking up outside. We decide it's time to call it a night. Justin and Eli opt to stay over and sleep in the basement, while Ariel lets Adrian drive because he only had the one beer.

I get up from the couch stretching, and almost lose my balance. Chrstian jumps up to steady me and I rub my eyes with the back of my hands. Looks like I'm going to be sleeping all day. We say bye to the two boys and Chrstian follows us up to see us out before going upstairs to his own bed.

We stop at the door while we put on our shoes, and I find myself saying, "Thanks for tonight, it was fun."

"Anytime," he grins. "And if you're ever feeling down again, feel free to swing by. I'll crush you in pool."

His words make me freeze. He barely knows me, yet he noticed that I wasn't feeling right earlier? I tried my best to act normal, just to avoid questions from the others. I thought that Ariel was the only one to notice.

Catching myself about to get lost in my thoughts, I mumble a quick thanks. Before I fully get out the door, I turn back and smile. "I might take you up on that."

"What?" he says, causing me to stop again. "No goodnight kiss?"

Rolling my eyes harder than ever, I reply, "How about you kiss my ass?"

Just loud enough for me to hear, he chuckles and says, "Just let me know when," before shutting the door.

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You don't understand how many times I accidentally typed Marianna instead of Ariel and Mal instead of Amaya LOOL check out my other (completed) story if you haven't yet! It's basically a walmart version of this one lmaoooo it's a super quick read that sort of follows the same bucket list concept!