CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
A loud thump followed by a groan of pain woke Alex up the following morning. Even through his stubbornly shut eyes, he could still see the blinding sunlight under his lashes. Managing to pull himself up and wearily shake himself awake, he looked around slowly in confusion at the piles of blankets and pillows before the events of the following night came rushing back to him.
Lacey's party had ended not long after Kalila had kissed him, the house a complete mess and empty other than his group of friends by 3am. They were all too tired to clean up and vowed to do it when they woke the next day. Lacey, along with Tyler, had dragged duvets and pillows and scattered them all over the floor of the living room. They all talked for a while, recalling events of the night and eventually fell asleep on the sofas and floor.
Alex looked over to Hannah who had woken him by toppling off the sofa she had been sleeping on. She groaned again, exhaustion apparent on her face but still somehow managing to look completely put together as usual. She shot him a glare as he laughed a little at her position, crumpled on the floor and rubbing her head where she had landed. "Shut up," she mumbled sleepily as she pulled herself up and went to search for a bathroom.
By the time Alex had climbed out of his makeshift bed and folded the blankets neatly, everyone else had started to wake up slowly. He was looking under his pillow for the shirt he had thrown off in the middle of the night when Cam wolf-whistled at his half naked state.
"Wow. No wonder Lila couldn't keep her hands off you last night," he teased enjoying how Alex squirmed when he was uncomfortable.
Kalila threw her pillow at his head as she ran a hand through her hair in an attempt to flatten it. "Oi, shut it, you," she called out, pulling herself up and stretching. The pyjamas she had borrowed from Lacey were rather thin and she shivered slightly, hugging a pillow to her chest. She wasn't able to stop the wide smile on her face as she looked over to her boyfriend pulling on his t-shirt which had been hanging on a lamp in the corner of the room.
Boyfriend.
She never would have thought she'd be able to say that someday due to her 'commitment issues' as Emma called them, but this was Alex. It all felt so natural with him, they had talked about their feelings the previous night and had come to a conclusion.
"So, what does this make us now? Are we... together?" she had asked before they opened the door to head back to their friends again.
He bit his bottom lip in concentration before answering slowly. "You know I want to be but it's entirely your choice, I'm not going to push you because it's your decision to make. So if you want to be my girlfriend then yeah."
Kalila thought about it for a minute before smiling shyly at him. "Yeah," she said slipping her hand in his. "Yeah."
---
Alex yelped.
"Oh God, how is it so difficult for you to hold an egg?!" Emma asked incredulously, looking at the poor crushed egg in Alex's hand. Now that her best friend was officially going out with him, she had stopped looking up to him as though he were a god and was perfectly comfortable insulting his lack of cooking skills.
Tyler laughed, ruffling his best friend's hair in mock adoration as he walked past Alex grinning sheepishly. They had just finished cleaning up the kitchen â although the amount of empty cups to be thrown away seemed never ending â when he decided to make himself useful and start breakfast for everyone.
Not that it had worked though.
He somehow managed to set the fire alarm off, drop the margarine all over the floor and crush an egg in his hand in the span of about five minutes. "Sorry," he said ashamed, making it sound almost like a question.
Before he could hide the evidence of his cooking failure however, Hannah, Kalila and Cameron walked in having just finished helping Lacey clean the living room. "What the...?" Cam began to ask when he saw the state of the kitchen, even messier than it had been yesterday.
Lacey burst out laughing, clutching her sides in amusement. She knew this was Alex's doing, he always had been terrible at cooking. She could still remember the time he almost burnt her kitchen down trying to make Alice a cake to cheer her up after a particularly bad break up. After breaking the guys nose of course.
Before long, Kalila decided to take charge, shooing everyone out of the kitchen other than Cameron who offered to help as well as her idiot boyfriend who was cleaning up the mess he had unintentionally created. Within minutes every surface was sparkling and the smell of chocolate chip pancakes wafted through the air thanks to Cameron actually knowing how to cook unlike the rest of them.
"At least he did a better job than someone I know," Kalila teased, nudging Alex with her elbow. He flushed a little in embarrassment but rolled his eyes at his girlfriend. He was glad things hadn't changed much between them. Although they were a bit more comfortable with each other and more touchy-feely, Kalila was exactly the same as she'd always been which was perfect. He didn't want her to be anyone other than herself.
Soon enough they were all huddled around the dining table, shovelling forkfuls of pancakes in their mouths as Lacey was telling them about the previous year's party where her and Alice had tried shoving Tyler in the fridge. Ignoring the qualm in his chest at the mention of his sister, Alex joined in and recounted tales of other random moments that brought back good memories.
---
"I'll see you all in school next week, thanks for inviting me Lacey!" Emma called out as Kalila hugged everyone goodbye. They both had essays to write up for English and decided to leave early to get it all done.
Kalila was especially panicking, they only had a few days until their art project was due and it seemed like the Christmas and New Year's break had gone by in the blink of an eye. She wanted to get home and finish all her other work so she could concentrate on one last painting with Alex and a few finishing touches. Although the pressure was immense, she was absolutely determined to perfect it all so she could impress the judges enough for them to consider accepting her into Central Saint Martins. Natalie had been the only one to really support her to get into her dream university and there was nothing more she wanted to do than to ensure that her cousin would be proud of her if she could see her now.
With that thought in her mind, her and Emma bid everyone goodbye and briskly hurried off to walk to Emma's house.
"I'm gonna ring my mum and let her know I'm still alive. Was so knackered yesterday, I completely forgot," Tyler said, looking between the cushions of the sofa to find his phone.
Lacey threw her house phone at him to use when he couldn't find it, they had been friends for so long that his parents' numbers were saved within its address book.
"If any of you need to use it too, you can," she said looking towards Cameron and Hannah. Cameron shrugged it off, telling them that his parents lived in Devon and it was cool but Alex noticed the slight flinch Hannah did. It wasn't his place to ask however, so he pushed it out of his mind and grabbed his camera and Lacey's laptop to look at the pictures of last night.
"Let's see all the pictures then!" Lacey squealed in excitement, quickly throwing out a pile of wires from a cabinet as she looked for the correct one.
Alex rolled his eyes as a wire came flying over his head. "Calm your knickers woman," he mumbled to his impatient best friend and shoved the USB cable into his camera. Her excitement was contagious though and he also was eager to look through the pictures. His camera had been passed around throughout the night and he knew there would be plenty of pictures he hadn't taken or seen yet.
They all crowded around a sofa, Lacey leaning against him and Tyler as Hannah and Cameron sat up intently. The first few pictures were of all of them standing around in a circle and talking, the laughter apparent on their faces. There were also a couple of Ty, his arms around Cameron and a genuine smile on his face.
"Aww!" Hannah burst out, ruffling her cousins' hair in adoration as he complained, swatting her hands away. She couldn't find the words to express how glad she was that he was happy; Cameron had spent his life looking after her and she was ecstatic he had found someone that made him smile like that.
Alex groaned in mock annoyance as he came across the never ending selfies of the girls, most of them in the exact same position with the same poses. "There's like a bajillion of them!" he grumbled, trying not to grin like an idiot as he looked at the ones of his girlfriend.
"Like you're not dying of happiness looking at the ones of Kalila," Tyler teased, leaning back a little to avoid getting elbowed by his best friend. Alex ignored the giggles from the rest of them and continued pressing the next button, deleting the few random ones of the floor or ceiling that had been taken by accident.
"And speaking of Kalilaâ" Lacey said slyly, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively as they came across the picture she had taken as Alex bent down to kiss her unexpectedly.
Alex's cheeks flushed but he had to admit it was a good picture. The image of the two of them was clear in the middle of the screen, lips pressed together like nothing else mattered. Fireworks loomed over them, showing through the balcony door behind them, and all the people in the background were blurry. It looked like a moment frozen in time which to Alex was exactly what it was.
"You should use that for your art thing!" Cameron burst out. Alex thought about it while Cam explained what he and Kalila were doing for their art project for those that didn't know. Alex hadn't intended on using it but it made a lot of sense and the painting of it would look incredible under all the others.
After all, Kalila was definitely the main reason he was still alive.