Despite our kind of date and earth shattering kiss, nothing really changed between Nathan and I. A week full of extra smiles, cute texts, and flirtatious comments passed without either of us actually addressing what happened on Friday night.
But even though neither of us said a word about the kiss, I knew that we were both happy. We fell back into our routine effortlessly and, come Monday, we were walking to lunch together, texting during class, and he made it a point to wink at me whenever he saw me in the halls.
By the time Friday rolled around again, I was more than ready to go to the Poconos. I was so ecstatic all day that I completely ignored Nina when she called my shoes ugly in the cafeteria while her brainless minions cackled from behind her.
When the final bell rang on Friday, I got up from my seat and ran outside as quickly as I could, with one mission on my mind. I pushed the doors open and walked as fast as possible toward Nathan’s car in the front row of the parking lot with a huge smirk on my lips.
As I pass a careless Asher who was talking to someone I vaguely recognized from one of my classes, my smirk only widened.
His gaze locked with mine as I passed him and as a flash of recognition passes over his features, I shout, “Shotgun!”
I ran the rest of the way to Nathan’s familiar black Mustang just for good measure and, with a grin, turned around to look at a very surprised Asher, who had followed me to his car. “I told you that one day I would make you sit in the back while I laughed at you from the front seat,” I tell him smugly as I sit down in the passenger seat. “What better time to laugh at your misery than during a road trip?”
Asher’s jaw drops as he stares at me in blatant surprise. My gaze slid past Asher’s shoulder to see Nathan approaching the car with a knowing smirk on his lips.
As Nathan opens the drivers door, he glances over the car at Asher and says impatiently, “Come on Asher, get in the car. I want to get on the road.”
I chuckle to myself as Nathan gets in and Asher shuffles mutely to the back seat. An indescribable feeling of satisfaction rolls over me as Asher sits in the back, stunned silent, as if this day would never come.
It wasn’t until we were pulling out of the parking lot that Asher finally mutters begrudgingly, “Touché.”
A wide smirk set itself on my lips as I take advantage of riding shotgun and start flipping through the radio station. Nathan chuckled to himself while Asher mumbled complaints from the back seat about the station I chose or the song that was playing.
Eventually, I settle on something we all like because a) I’m too nice and b) I couldn’t drag down anyone’s mood if I tried because c) we were finally on our way to the Poconos. The trunk of Nathan’s Mustang was loaded up with snacks, alcohol, and beverages that everyone collected.
Vincent was driving Tess in his pick up with their share of our necessities for the long weekend, including the six pack of bug spray that Tess bragged about buying. They drove behind us with a truck bed just as full as Nathan’s trunk.
The drive wasn’t bad, but that’s only because I dozed off thirty minutes after we hit the road. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to fall asleep, either, with Nathan and Asher arguing over nothing. But somehow, I fell asleep, slumped against the corner of the seat and the window.
When the car shifts from the paved road onto the dirt, I finally stir, and feel myself slowly come to beneath closed eyes. And, like I left them before I fell asleep, Nathan and Asher were arguing. Their voices became more focused as I slowly pull myself out of sleep.
“So you told her about your parents?” Asher’s voice sounds cautious, like he knew he was treading on unknown territory, but still curious in the most sincere way.
“Shut up,” Nathan hisses, considerably quieter than Asher. “Don’t wake her up. We’re only ten or fifteen minutes away.”
At this, Asher sighs loudly. I keep my eyes shut, unfairly eavesdropping on their conversation, but I couldn’t help it. I was extremely curious what conversation they indulged in because they thought I was asleep. My head was still leaning against the window, hair covering most of my face, and I sat there frozen.
“She’s got you so whipped, man.” Asher chuckles, taking his own words lightly. “It’s good to see you this happy.”
“She” meant me, I guess. I mean, who else could they be talking about? When I realize that they were talking about me, my moral code finally catches up to me, and I decide to stop eavesdropping. I breathe in deeply and lean into the seat as I opened my eyes. Turning my head, I shot Nathan a sleepy smile.
“Are we there yet?” I ask, my voice still laced with sleep.
The corners of Nathan’s lips quirked up. “Almost, actually. But if you ask again, then I’m dropping you off on the side of the road.”
I glance out the window my head was once resting on and see were surrounded by trees. We’re following a distinct dirt road, but were clearly in the woods. I turn back to Nathan and raise my eyebrows to challenge him. “I think it’s a little late for that.”
Asher chuckled softly from the back seat and mutters amusedly under his breath, “He wouldn’t leave you alone anyway.”
Nathan’s eyes shot to the rear view mirror, and I could see the daggers he was shooting from his glare. I shrugged and ignored the both of them, instead deciding to turn the radio back up. Instead of music, though, hopeless static came through the speakers.
“Well that sucks,” I sigh and turn the radio off. “Who wants to play a game?”
“Me!” Asher cries from the back seat.
I twist around in my seat with a huge grin, smiling at Asher by way of confirmation. And then I look at Nathan and grin wider, reaching out to poke his arm. “Nathan, you wanna play?”
He raises an eyebrow, a skill I’m jealous of, and glances at me from his peripheral vision. “I’m driving.”
“You can still participate in…” I stop to think of a game, then the grin returns on my face when I do. “I spy. You can still guess stuff!”
Asher leaned forward in between the two seats, poking his head in the middle and nodding feverishly. “Yeah, Nathan, you can still play. Don’t be a party pooper.”
“Yeah Nathan,” I chime in. “Don’t be a party pooper.”
Nathan spared us a blank stare, and then he turned to the road and muttered, “You two are annoying when you’re together. I don’t like your friendship.”
I can’t help but giggle just to spite him, but even so, I saw the corners of Nathan’s lip turn up, right before he squanders the beginnings of his smile. I ignore his words and start to look around the car thoughtfully before I settle on the black air freshener clipped onto the fan vent.
“I spy with my little eye…” I recite and look away from the air freshener. “Something black.”
Nathan’s gaze on the road doesn’t waver, but despite this, his voice is filled with utter confidence when he answers, “The air freshener.”
My secretive smile falls off my lips immediately to be replaced with a discouraged pout. His eyes dart from the road to me and he smirks before putting it attention back to the road. “How did you know?”
“I knew you would guess something obvious,” Nathan tells me casually, and it just confirms my lasting theory that he could see right through me.
I cross my arms half childishly and half in an attempt to put some kind of wall between Nathan and I. Instead, I twist in my seat and look at Asher, who has a small smile on his lips. “Asher, pick something that Nate won’t guess.”
“Alright,” Asher accepts easily as his usual cheeky smirk stretches across his lips. “I spy with my little eye a love that burns like a thousand suns- Hey!” Asher cries when Nathan swats his leg, the only thing he can reach from the drivers seat, warningly.
I chalked up the fact that I was only mildly concerned with what just happened to being a tad bit groggy after waking up from my nap. “That’s not a physical object.”
Asher’s expression turns wicked again. “Okay, I have another. I spy with my little eye something that gets hard for a special someone.”
“What?” I question innocently, wide eyed and confused. “That’s not a color.”
Nathan groans a moment later and shoots Asher a glare through the rearview mirror. I think about his words again and then finally understand with a roll of my eyes. I turn around and look at Asher blankly. “Are you talking about a penis?”
Asher smirks. “Who’s penis, Lauren?”
“We’re here,” Nathan interrupts roughly and the car jerks to a stop.
I whip around in my seat to see a cabin behind the car, and grin immediately. There was a tranquil porch at the front of the house that I immediately recognized as the best spot for coffee in the morning. I start to climb out of the car and can see just past the side of the house, where picnic tables seemed to peek out from behind the cabin.
The best part, though, was the sun casting a sparkle against the water on the lake. It seemed like when the sun bobbed and weaved from behind the few clouds in the sky, the light caught the water and made it shimmer.
A strange sense of nostalgia passes through me when I realize that it looked just like the cabin my family used to stay in during the wintertime, minus the obnoxious bright blue front door. I smile to myself and abandon the boys at Nathan’s car to inspect the inside of the house, making a mental note to double back to help with the bags.
The room was an open floor space with the kitchen to my left and the living room to my right. The cupboards in the kitchen were stained from the age of the wood yet there were new stainless steel appliances to match the charcoal and grey granite countertop. With every step further into the house, my smile widened.
At the end of a closet lined hallway, I found a cozy den. It was a screened in porch, allowing full visibility of the glistening lake and picnic tables. There was even a grill and a clothing line with a few towels hanging up for us. I felt good about this place.
After a few minutes, I tear myself away from the den and back out to the main room, where Asher was hauling in the endless boxes of liquor from the trunk. When he saw me, he narrowed his eyes and warned, “You better not think that you run away and leave us with all of the unpacking.”
“I would never,” I promised him dramatically, though there was a small smirk on my lips. “I just wanted to check out the house. You said this was a family friend’s cabin?”
“Yep,” Asher grinned at me. “Pretty awesome, isn’t it?”
“The den is beautiful,” I tell him with the same excited grin that was on my lips moments before. “And the lake looks awesome.”
A thoughtful smile replaces his boyish grin. “I used to come up here during the summers and spent most of my time in that lake or by the grill.” Asher glances at me and the cheekiness returns. “That’s how we’re going to spend this weekend.”
The door opens a moment later and Nathan stands in the doorway with miscellaneous bags in his arms. I suddenly feel guilty for not helping with the bags and head outside to finish unloading the car. I transported an insane amount of alcohol from the trunk to the kitchen.
As if a box containing three handles of vodka, a handle of whiskey, and a fifth of scotch weren’t enough, Asher also stocked up on beer. Five twenty-four packs, that is. They were stacked in the fridge on top of each other until they took up three shelves worth of space.
By the time I was done unloading the car, I turned to Asher and, when I speak, I’m only half kidding. “You’re an alcoholic.”
Asher, however, just grins at me. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” Nathan points out as he descends the staircase on the far side of the living room. “Also, there’s a minor issue with the bedrooms.”
My brow furrows as I look over at Nathan. “What’s the problem?”
His gaze settles on me and Nate explains, “There are only three bedrooms.”
“Tess and Vincent will share one,” Asher chimes in. “So that leaves two bedrooms for the three of us.”
Maybe it was wrong to assume that I would get a room to myself because I’m the only other girl beside Tess, but I didn’t see the problem here. I just look back and forth between the boys plainly and then start walking toward the front door with a wicked smile.
“So you two can cozy up tonight,” I tell them as I’m walking out the door and I turn around to throw them a lazy grin. “Decide amongst yourselves which one of you wants to be the big spoon.”
The boys begin spluttering behind me, like I literally punched them in the throat with these words, and I laugh to myself as I walk back to Nathan’s car to grab my things. I locate my paisley patterned duffle bag in the trunk and haul it out, but it ends up tumbling onto the ground with a resounding thud when I’m unable to support the weight.
I let out an exasperated breath and shut the trunk before facing my bag again, ready to brace myself to pick it up, but the crunch of gravel under tires distracts me. I glance up in time to see Vincent’s truck pull down the road and grin when I realize that I can make him carry it for me instead.
However, I hear the faint sound of a screen door shutting, and turn to see Nathan approaching the car. He leans down and picks up my duffle bag with ease, as if there were a single feather inside opposed to the tons of clothes, and I smile gratefully at Nate. He really was such a gentleman sometimes and, when he was, I absolutely loved it.
“Thank you Nate,” I let the sincerity seep into my voice as I smile genuinely at him.
His eyes float over my face briefly before he half smiles, his eyes crinkling the slightest bit as he does so, and I try not to stare, but it’s no use. Nathan’s attractiveness is the all-encompassing kind, where you can’t simply just look away. You’re stuck.
“You’re welcome,” His half smile slips into more of a smirk, and he leans forward, suddenly so close that I can feel his breath on my face. “And I’m not sharing a room with Asher, so you’re either sharing a room with me or him. Take your pick, kitten.”
My heart beat quickens, but I somehow keep my cool long enough to say teasingly, “I hear Asher’s a pretty good cuddle buddy.”
Nathan’s smirk falters for only a nanosecond before it returns and he insists huskily, “Pretty good? Well, baby, I’m the best.”
It was humanely impossible to continue our banter without my gaze falling onto his lips, which somehow became dangerously close to mine. Such a big part of me urged me to close the distance, to kiss the life out of him, and then to tell him how I felt. But an even bigger part of me got this vacant feeling in my chest when I thought of our friendship being ruined because of my crush.
So, like I had been torturing myself into doing ever since I kissed him last week, I just tried to conjure more willpower to tell myself do not kiss him do not kiss him do not kiss him.
Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with my waning willpower much longer, because a voice shouts, “Get a room, you two!”
The sudden voice surprises me and I jump back with my hands flying to my staggering heart. My eyes dart to my right, where Tess swatted Vincent’s arm and whispered something to him angrily. I couldn’t hear what she said, but it took the smirk off of Vincent’s lips.
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Nathan replies casually.
My heartbeat only quickened, if that was even possible, and I felt my face beginning to flush. Before I turned bright red, I slid my hands on the straps of my duffel bag and pried it out of Nathan’s grip, then tried not to cringe when the full weight fell into my hands.
When Nate turns to look at me quizzically, I explain with a fake smile, “I’m going to get a room before they take the best one.”
Before I could watch Nathan’s gaze turn calculating, like it always did after I spewed a lie, I turned and walked quickly to the front door. Once inside, I shut the door and let the bag fall on the ground with a huff, and then dragged it by the strap across the floor with much effort. Asher just sat comfortably on the couch and watched me struggle to drag it up the stairs, not without groans and cursing.
When I finally reached the top of the steps, I dragged my bag down the hall and peered inside each room. The first one didn’t have a window, and the second was too big for one person, but the farthest bedroom at the end of the hall had two windows facing the lake, opposite of the queen sized bed, and it was perfect. I lugged my duffel bag to this room and then left it on the floor, determined to never move it again.
I walked over to the window and look outside at the serene blue lake, tall oak trees lining the sides of it. A smile slipped on my lips as I studied the scene, determined to remember this moment for the rest of my life. Bailey and Sasha never wanted to do anything outside of their comfort zone, especially if it included traveling.
My heart warmed for a second when I realized just how lucky I was to have these new friends in my life. They showed me how to have fun, even if it wasn’t all legal.
“Hey,” Tess says from behind me and I jump a little at the sudden voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
She walks up to me and then stops beside me at the windows, and she takes the opportunity to gaze out like I had just done. “I was just a little caught up in my head, I guess.”
“What are you thinking about?” Tess prods, looking at me thoughtfully.
I glance at her and smile. “How beautiful it is here,” And then I admit, “My old friends never did anything like this. We never went on vacation or did anything fun at all, really.”
“What about Stephanie?” She asks with a slight frown. “Aren’t you two friends?”
“She’s my best friend,” I nod. “But ever since she’s been in college, I kind of have to fend for myself at school. She was always my social buffer with her other friends, I guess. When she left, I got dragged back in with Sasha and Bailey.”
Tess nods in understanding and tells me kindly, “I had psychology with Stephanie last year. She was really cool.”
It makes me happier than expected to hear this, because I realize that I wanted my school friends to like my best friend. And they did. I suddenly wish that Stephanie were here now, but I remember trying to invite her a few weeks ago, and she denied on account of studying for finals.
Tess’ voice pulls me out of my thoughts. “If you don’t mind me asking, why aren’t you friends with Sally and Barley anymore?”
“Sally and Barley?” I question with a laugh, and then correct her. “Sasha and Bailey.”
She waves her hand in dismissal. “Same thing.”
I laugh again, and then try to think of a way to approach the subject without nearing dangerously close to the social experiment. “I’ve never been as… uptight as them, and when I decided I wanted to break out of my shell, they didn’t like who I was.”
It wasn’t a total lie, that’s for sure, but I still felt bad for not telling the whole truth. But Stephanie had warned me early on not to tell anyone the whole truth, or else it would ruin the integrity of the experiment. So I fed her the semi-truth and hoped my half honesty would be enough for her. And, judging by the thoughtful look on her face, it was.
“That kind of sucks,” Tess says. “But good riddance. They weren’t real friends anyway.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize that I was holding and smile at her. “I agree. They weren’t real friends.”
Tess suddenly puts her arms around me and awkwardly drags me into a hug, which I have to adjust myself to give back, but we’re both laughing and smiling. “I’m happy we’re friends. You’re good for all of us. For Nathan, too.”
Her addition at the end makes my heart skip a beat, and I pray she didn’t feel the murmur in my chest. Luckily, before I can make a fool of myself with some kind of lame response, there’s a throat clearing in the doorway, and Tess pulls away from me. We both glance at the door and see Vincent standing in the doorway holding a bag in either hand, watching us with raised eyebrows and one of those stupid smirks that boys have.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Vincent says slowly and mockingly. “But babe, help me unpack.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “You can’t do it yourself?”
His smirk drops and he pouts instead, a face I often give into when Nathan pulls. “I just want your help because you’re so good at it. Please, baby?”
Tess finally sighs, letting out all of her willpower in one breath, and Vincent perks up considerably upon seeing this. She walks towards Vincent, but smiles at me before she leaves the room.
“Talk to you later, Lauren,” Tess calls thoughtfully.
I smile back. “Yeah, have fun.”
She rolls her eyes at me this time, and then turns to lead Vincent out of the bedroom. When they both leave, I feel an imaginary weight lift from my shoulders. Trying not to kiss Nathan and talking about Sasha and Bailey all in one day took a lot out of me. I walk backwards to my bed until I feel the back of my knees hit the mattress, and then I let myself fall back onto the plush comforter.
My body is exhausted, but my mind has one thing on it: You’re good for all of us. For Nathan, too. Tess thinks I’m good for Nathan. I knew it wasn’t that important, but my mind over analyzed anything involving me and Nathan. Nothing made sense anymore: after I kissed him, he didn’t ask me out like Stephanie assured me he would (not that I expected him to actually ask me out) but I swear he flirts with me sometimes.
Well, I mean, I think we flirt sometimes. Maybe he’s just being nice and I’m reading the signs wrong.
And suddenly it doesn’t matter that I slept the whole entire car ride here, because I decide that it’s time to turn my brain off, so I can properly deal with the sleeping situation (and what to do about living in the same house as Nathan for the next few days, but that can wait until I’m at maximum capacity) when I wake up.
All at once, without a second thought, I let myself drift off to sleep, but I already know who I’ll be dreaming of.