Chapter 17: TRANQUIL TIMES AND LOUD MINDS.
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The weekend was finally here and I couldn’t be happier to snuggle up in my comforter. Since I got a job, my life has been all about work, but after a long time today I was able to sleep-in until that annoyingly bright sunlight slipped through the cracks of my curtain and forced me awake.
I decided to freshen up and make myself a cup of coffee before I could officially start my day scheduled with all the unpacking I was left with. Mom couldn’t plan to meet-up since she was currently busy with a client and that work required her to be in Austin.
Kate was coming over today, to see my place to hangout and to help me unpack all the cardboard boxes that still stood perched all over the apartment floor. She only wanted to hangout ‘outside of working hours’ but my plans for the day left her with no choice but to help out.
Right as I was pouring myself a cup of coffee, the doorbell rang and I opened the door to an excited Kate, she was carrying multiple shopping bags and I extended my hand and offered to relieve her of that burden but she didn’t even notice, instead her eyes were widened as she took in the place, that was now my home. “Oh my god! It’s beautiful! I can’t even see all of it but I already freaking love it!” she squealed, and I grinned at her reaction. “Even the building, an-and your front door looked so fancy, I couldn’t stop admiring it until you opened up.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” I chuckled at her child-like excitement.
She then looked at the barely unboxed living situation and said, “Oh boy, it seems as if very recently you went on an online shopping spree and brought everything on Amazon.” I rolled my eyes, “Wait till we are done with your place it’s gonna look divine.” she added.
“Okay, sure we’ll do that but after I’ve had my coffee…” I went back inside the kitchen to pick up my neglected coffee mug. “There’s more coffee in the pot if you want some?” I offered.
She didn’t hesitate to help herself. “Did you have breakfast yet?” I asked, barely glancing at her.
“Not yet…” she said, “but I got us some cupcakes” she smiled as she looked through the bags that she brought with her and pulled out an assorted box of cupcakes.
“The day just got a lot better.” I mumbled, smiling into my cup.
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“So…” Kate began and trailed off as if she wanted me to understand what she was getting at.
“What?” I asked, cluelessly.
She rolled her eyes and elaborated “you and Jensen seemed pretty friendly last time.”
I scoffed, “The fact that I was holding back from snapping at him that whole night says otherwise.”
“Come on, you were more than getting along…. And he was actually enjoying himself, which is rare.” Kate told me.
“I think it was a form of truce, he didn’t want me to slash his tires in a fit of rage like I was planning to.” I said, smilingly.
“I don’t understand your pranks at all… ” Kate shrugged. “Just don’t shoot his efforts down if he’s actually trying okay…?”
“So you’re saying if he tries to make my life miserable, I should let him because he went through a lot of effort?” I asked cheekily.
“Or the opposite.” Kate said and walked into the kitchen, leaving me confused.
Morning passed quickly, while we chatted, enjoyed our food. It was past noon when we managed to get at least half the work done, there was a lot left to unpack but already this place was starting to look inhabitable.
Even though I had managed to push this work ahead forever and procrastinate like a pro, there was still a lot of comfort in arranging my stuff and assembling the furniture that came from IKEA.
I was particularly proud of arranging my blu-ray movie collection, while Kate tackled my book-shelf.
I even arranged some photographs and paintings that gave the bare walls some personality, and it’s been forever since my friend decided to arrange my book.
“Kate, are you done or did you drown in a sea of books?” I hollered from my living room.
When there was no reply I went to my bedroom to find her sitting among piles of books looking distressed.
“What’s the problem?” I asked, when she looked genuinely concerned.
“I can’t make up my mind….” She answered miserably.
“About what?”
“About organizing this…. every time I start, I change my mind midway and decide to redo it, there are just too many options, should I arrange it according to colour? Alphabetical? Genres? Author? Size? Read and unread? Favorites to least favorite? Just aesthetically pleasing? I didn’t know!” She said, looking like she was honestly frustrated. This OCD thing of hers sounds like a real pain.
It’s not just this, she washes her hands too many times a day, and fixes every small thing to stay in ‘order’ and gets stressed over it if something isn’t properly organised.
“Let’s do this, let’s just go with what looks good.” I suggested.
“Okay… ” She agreed and so we got to work.
One hour later we finally finished up with the book-shelf and then gazed lovingly at all my favourite books. We were not proud to say that it took up way too much of our time, so yeah there was that… but my book-shelf looked picture perfect.
Next, I arranged the furniture to face the right directions and Kate was soon in my kitchen, judging from all the clinking of pots and pans. She probably re-assembled all the shelves there because of her obsession and I’m probably never going to find anything in the ‘right’ place whenever occasionally I would decide to cook.
In exhaustion we both fell on the couch in the living room. “I don’t think I work so hard even for money.” I heard Kate say, making me laugh. We were hungry but didn’t possess the will nor the strength to cook so we ended up ordering a pizza for lunch. So healthy.
My ringtone suddenly started playing in my bedroom and I dragged myself to get the call. I smiled to see Josh’s name on the caller ID, “Hello Boss’s friend! what made you think of me today?”
“Boss’s friend huh? I see you’re still salty about last night.” He said, referring to the bowling game.
I scoffed, “Of course not.” I strongly denied as I walked back to the living room, where Kate had miraculously found a bag of chips to munch on as we waited for our food, I sat next to her. Kate raised her eyebrows in question, silently asking me who was on the phone.
Who else? I mouthed as I continued to speak, “In fact I should thank you, It really would have been a solid competition if it wasn’t for your gutter ball.” she caught on as soon as I completed my sentence and started laughing silently.
I heard him groan at the other end and chuckled at his reaction, “Oh come on… not you too, stop reminding me of that!” he whined. “Jensen had blamed me enough.”
“As he should.” I laughed, “I mean……what are friends for?” The doorbell rang and Kate went to get the pizza.
“Everytime you say the word ‘friend’ it sounds like mockery.” He stated the obvious.
“Good to know you’re not as dense as you appear to be.” I smirked.
“I appear dense?” He sounded shocked, and that amused me.
“Immensely.” I confirmed. I picked up a slice of pizza
“Wow, that’s definitely a first. You see, usually my appearance is described as handsome, gorgeous and dashing.” He said. This guy knew no limits of narcissism, it reminded me of Sam for many reasons.
I laughed because what he said was such a Josh thing to say, I just couldn’t help myself. “It appears to me that you surround yourself with equally dense companions.”
“Ouch Alex… that hurt, it really did.” he faked pain and I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t be dramatic.” I said, “Is there a particular reason you called, because unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time for dilly-dallying.” Kate was giving me the let’s-eat-and-get-back-to-work look.
“Oh yeah yeah yeah…. This conversation totally went off the track.” He said.
“I’m not surprised, you seem rather good at it.” I smirked as I heard him groan another time in embarrassment.
“Walked right into that one didn’t I?” I just laughed. Without waiting for me to stop chuckling he spoke further, “So there’s a party at my place tonight, to celebrate our achievement, actually that’s just an excuse for me to throw a party and you’re obviously invited and you are coming. It’s not a formal event so don’t worry about a dress code or anything just show up at around eight-ish. Okay?”
I mentally awed. “That’s sweet Josh, but I can’t tonight, I promised Kate that I’ll spend time with her.” Kate looked at me when her name was mentioned.
“No no no, I’m not taking no for an answer, by the way Kate is invited too, I was just about to call her, you can both show up and hang out here…. Come on you’re the life of the party, you know how Jensen is, besides he’s probably not even coming… Please, I’m begging you. I’m literally on my knees right now.” He whined and I laughed at his stupidity.
“Wait hold on… let me ask.” I held the phone away and talked to Kate “There’s a party at Josh’s place tonight, wanna go?”
“Hmm…sure.” she shrugged.
I spoke into the phone and said, “Okay Josh we’ll be there.”
“Great! See you then! I’ll text you my address.” I could hear his grin as the phone call disconnected and I shook my head before tossing my phone at the couch.
That was probably a really bad decision.
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I was officially settled in my new place, I still was getting used to the environment and change of scenery outside my window, but It was all worth it.
Kate marvelled over everything, even the kitchen counter and bathroom sink and my closet space, and the guest rooms which were practically empty. Kate claimed one of the rooms for whenever she would stay over and I just laughed at her enthusiasm.
It was around six in the evening when we both got hungry again, so we ordered chinese food and devoured it. The conversation topic somehow turned out to be Jensen Black, and I was telling her about last night where he was being civil to me for the first time in a long time.
“And it actually looked like you weren’t hating his company for once.” she noted, a small teasing smile played at her lips which I pretended not to notice.
“Yeah …for once I wasn’t.” I agreed “I really thought that we would never see eye to eye after what happened during that meeting with Mr. Smith.”
“What happened at the meeting with Mr. Smith?” Kate asked, perplexed and I realised I never told her what actually happened there.
“That day Jensen asked me to attend a meeting with him after which I offered to make them some coffee, and while I was doing that I experienced a dizzy spell and ended up breaking a coffee mug, he got really mad about it.” I told her.
“You’re experiencing dizzy spells again, Alex why didn’t you tell me?” She worried, “Did you see a doctor?”
“Nah…I just took some meds, it was my fault actually, I didn’t really eat much that day.” I admitted.
“Gosh, why are you so careless, no wonder your mom worries about you so bad.” She sighed. “So wait, instead of taking you to a doctor Jensen decided to get mad at you?”
“He didn’t know, I didn’t really tell him.” I said, of course I don’t tell my medical history to people, especially when I know they’ll just pity me.
“Although later he did seem a little suspiciously concerned.” I remembered how he bandaged my hand and constantly observed me with troubled eyes as if he expected me to suddenly drop dead or something.
“What the hell, you should have! And, did you drive home that night?” Kate scolded for something that’s in the past now, she sometimes sounded just like mom.
“Of course not. Sam came to pick me up.” I said, exasperated. This is why I don’t tell them stuff, whenever something happens, they immediately assume the worst.
“When was the last time you went for your routine check-up?” Kate was frowning like a very concerned best friend that she is. See what I’m talking about?
“Last month, and I have my regular appointment scheduled for next month, everything is fine…” I dragged the last word lazily, already tired of this conversation, “Now can we stop this interrogation.”
Kate stuffed her mouth with some rice and glared at me as she chewed. She looked like a lunatic.
“The mug you broke…” she suddenly spoke up after she swallowed as if she realised something, “was it a grey one with white vertical pattern?”
I tried to recall, “I guess it was…” I was unsure. “Why?”
“I wondered why It suddenly disappeared from the cabinet.” She mumbled, and turned to face me, “It makes sense now, that mug, it was his dad’s….it was really important to him.”
I deflated, feeling bad now, maybe he’s not always as rude as I thought. But he was so confusing, I still remember the first time we met, when I fell over him, he seemed more worried about the crockery than my well being. What was I supposed to think?
“How’s Kyle now, I hope he’s doing better… ” Kate changed the subject.
“Yeah, he’s fine… he came back just yesterday, I’ll go see him tomorrow… no broken bones so that’s a good thing.” I mumbled.
“He’s a tough nut.” I heard her say.
“And a little thick skull-ed.” We both chuckled.
“That’s for sure.” Kate agreed.
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When It was time to get to that party we decided to take my car, that way at least one of us could drink without worrying about driving. Kate borrowed an outfit from me since we had plans to stay indoors and watch a movie while snuggling on the couch but that plan changed a while back.
She wore a casual dress that I had no idea resided in my closet, it reached her knees with flat sandals, while I was dressed in my fitted black pants and a blue blouse top with a pair of my usual skechers.
After finding a parking space among a sea of cars, Kate and I got into an elevator. According to Kate Josh lived in a penthouse on top of the amazingly tall and beautiful building that we were ascending.
When we arrived at the party scene it wasn’t falling apart like I expected it to. “Well…. this isn’t too bad.” I said as I took it in.
Kate agreed, “At college parties usually by this time beer cups would have been littered everywhere”
“And people would be drunk out of their minds, embarrassing themselves and others.” I added.
“While dancing with strangers and not realising how bad their dance moves were.” I cracked a smile at her description.
I didn’t really know what I expected to begin with, but what I saw made sense. The music wasn’t blasting through the windows to the whole neighborhood to encourage any kind of noise complaints, but it was still upbeat and good enough for a party. People weren’t wasted but they weren’t being entirely careful either.
Kate and I smiled, said hi and gave a couple of head-nods of acknowledgement as we passed through the throng of people, looking for Josh as we went, I expected him to be frolicking around in his overflowing merriment, somewhere around the living room.
We couldn’t find him right away, but knew that he would turn up all on his own so we just settled and took in the party atmosphere. Kate got us drinks, beer for herself and a mocktail for me, we sat and talked to a group of three friends who seemed quite welcoming, especially this one guy Drew.
Hal, Jamie and Drew were close friends it seemed but Hal and Jamie were clearly dating and Drew very obviously hated being the third wheel, hence the overenthusiastic invite, which was basically a desperate call for help. Kate and I decided to go with it though, they seemed fun to be around, and we mixed right in.
Hal was a blonde with mischievous eyes full of secrets and a playful smile on his straight lips, Jamie was beautiful with her long dark brown hair and big innocent eyes while Drew was the charismatic one with an easy going flair and humour.
“Stop being so dramatic, we are not even flirting!” Jamie scolded Drew while he looked, the ‘picture’ of incredulous.
“Not flirting? Sure.” Drew couldn’t sound more sarcastic if he tried. “So let’s just say that Hal’s lips ‘accidentally’ fell on yours the moment you walked through those doors, shall we?”
Jamie blushed a bright pink and looked down at her hands as we all laughed.
Her boyfriend clearly found that cute as he threaded his hand through hers and planted a quick kiss on her cheek, it only made her blush more.
Kate awed and I laughed as Drew pretended to barf.
We found out a lot about each other as we got talking, they were all Josh’s company executives and it didn’t even come as that huge of a surprise seeing as they all seemed so confident and outgoing.
When Drew asked Kate for a dance, she accepted and they both walked to the semi-crowded dance floor in the middle of the huge living room. I decided to leave the love birds alone and made my way towards the bar to order myself a drink.
“One Pina Colada, without alcohol” I said to the bartender.
“Coming right up.” He smiled and got to work.
Someone came and asked him for a bunch of beer, he interrupted his work and pulled out beer bottles to hand it to the guy.
“Thanks man.” The guy said, and left with the drinks.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around to see a handsome man looking at me with bright green eyes.
“I was wondering if you would like to dance?” he asked, a cute, inviting smile on his face “my name’s Evan by the way…” He held out his hand for a handshake.
“Hy, I’m Alex…” I shook his hand, but I didn’t want to dance so I declined politely. “Not tonight Evan, maybe some other time….” He left after that and I stood there alone again.
“So alcohol and men, What else have you sworn off?” The bartender teased, a playful smile on his cute boyish face.
I rolled my eyes at him, leaning forward I rested my elbows on the countertop and lazily said “I’m driving tonight….” He looked at me like he expected me to say something more but smirked when I didn’t add anything.
“You didn’t say anything about the latter” The bartender guy noted, whose name was Ben according to his name tag.
“Precisely.” I said. He chuckled.
“You came alone?” He certainly looked perplexed since I didn’t ask for extra drinks.
“No… I came with a friend.” I looked at Kate on the dance floor where she and Drew were laughing and dancing without a care in the world.
He followed my gaze and smirked “She certainly seems a bit preoccupied to keep you company.” Ben was quite chatty, but surprisingly I didn’t mind his company.
“Yeah…” I agreed looking at her, she seems to be having fun. “I don’t mind it.” She definitely deserves a break.
“Not in a mood to party are we?” He asked, already knowing the answer.
“No no no I was totally prepared for one, only it’s called a pajama party.” I explained.
He laughed, somehow without toppling the drink he was expertly mixing. “And who, pray tell, made you do something so far against your will?” He mused and leaned closer over the counter as he placed my drink in front of me.
“Someone literally begged me on their knees.” I told him straight as I picked up the glass and sipped the drink. It was quite good, Ben was skilled. “I couldn’t say no.”
“Who, your friend over there?” He asked as he chuckled and vaguely gestured towards Kate.
“No. It was Josh…” I said.
“I heard my name….” A familiar voice said, “Alex come on, you don’t have to rave about me to every stranger you see.”
Ben looked at Josh over my shoulder and seem to shake with suppressed amusement.
“That kind of ‘raving’ is nothing to brag about Josh.” I said flatly.
“It was far from flattering, trust me.” Ben added. Josh looked at both of us in confusion, our inside joke lost on him.
Ben acted like he was a good friend of Josh, he was so easy to talk to, it was hard to tell if they were actually close. It sure seemed that way.
“So, how are you liking the party.” Josh tipped his beer bottle outward at the crowd around us as he asked.
I crossed my arms, and turned slightly to face him, standing sideways to the bar counter, while Josh was looking away from the bar, his back leaning on the counter edge. “I don’t want to be too honest with you, in case I bruise your fragile ego.”
“Damn.” Ben snickered as he winked at me.
Josh pretended to be hurt as he clutched at his heart, but soon he smirked and said “You don’t pull your punches, do you? No wonder Jensen is always so sore around you.”
“He is?” This was news to me, my eyes widened as I processed this piece of information. “Maybe I’ll consider being a little less hostile if he wasn’t such a delight to be around.”
Josh chuckled at that, “that’s a pretty valid argument.”
Yeah, it doesn’t work in my favour most times, “I think it’s another fact that irks him about me.” I smiled, and then wondered out loud “Speaking of, where is he? Fashionably late?”
“He won’t show up, never does, he tends to stay away from crowds and me when I’m drunk.” Josh told me and laughed, like I was supposed to be in on the joke, l smiled anyway.
“Not surprising.” I mumbled. A few minutes later Josh slipped away to attend to his other guests with a promise of seeking me out soon.
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Any guesses who’s gonna show up?
It’s way too obvious, isn’t it?
Sorry, I’m clearly not good at maintaining mystery.
Go on read the next chapter!
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