Long Rides

I sat there on the sofa with my knees pulled close to my chest. I rested my head on the knees and Alex stroked my head, comforting and calming me down. Zack has his arm wrapped around me while Marc was staring at me sympathetically yet curiously. I sobbed into my knees as the tone of Caleb’s voice was haunting my mind.

I heard some arguments outside – sounded like Austin and Caleb. I heard Arne also spoke, and then Verion. The yelling had turned down into murmuring.

No longer after that, the bus’ door opened. We turned to see who was going inside and I immediately looked away when Caleb’s gaze met mine.

“Ath—“

“Shut up,” I muttered as I buried my face into Zack’s muscular chest.

“I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Caleb this isn’t the best time,” I heard Verion said.

“I’m still going to try,” Caleb replied. I felt he took steps closer to me. “Alex…? Do you…?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Alex said and I felt the seat next to me was empty and then it shrunk down after a while.

“Athe?” Caleb called my name. “I know you’re upset with me, but let me talk. Please?”

“Go ahead, but I won’t be listening.”

“Athe, stop it,” Zack whispered.

“It’s okay Zack. I know she’ll listen anyway,” Caleb said. “Athe… The call was from my ex. She wants me to go back with her and I don’t want to, so I started yelling at her.”

“And why did you snap at me?” I asked.

“I got carried away with the emotions, I guess…”

I leaned away from Zack’s chest and inhaled deeply before turning to Caleb.

“Holy hell – were you crying?” he said concernedly.

“Of course, do you think I was poking out my eyes with a fork?”

“Oh my god I’m so sorry,” he said, pulling me into a hug. “I feel like shit now.”

“You’d better be sorry for making a pretty girl cry,” Alex said.

I felt Caleb was rolling his eyes at that. He kissed my forehead and I was sure Alex’s eyes were about to pop out from his head.

Guys.

* * *

Later that night, I was on the middle seat in our van. Verion took over the back seat and the boys took the front seats. Everyone was asleep and I was still awake. I couldn’t go to sleep; either it’s because I was cold or I couldn’t sleep below 12 AM except if I was really tired.

I suddenly remembered Caleb.

Call me whenever you’re cold, okay?

I stared at my sidekick that I had in my hand. I can’t call him at 11.56 at night. That’s so rude.

A few moments later, I jumped because someone was knocking the window. I sat up straight and found Alex mouthing something like ‘open the door’.

I leaned across the other side of the seat to unlock the door he opened it.

“It’s so cold outside,” he said, getting inside and sat next to me before he closed the door.

“It’s cold in here too.”

“Why don’t you call your personal heater?”

“How do you know about that?”

“He’s warm and fuzzy and we all know that. He hates being a personal heater but he’s different to you I guess.” He brushed his hair with his hand to clean some snow on his hair.

“Alex…” I breathed out.

“What?” he said, looking at me with his hand on his head.

I giggled. “You’ve got snow on your nose.” I leaned over and brushed off the snow on his nose with my fingers.

I stopped smiling when I realized that we were so close. My fingers stayed on his nose and I couldn’t tear off my eyes from his. He should stop staring into my eyes; my heart was pounding so hard that it was about to jump out from my chest!

I somehow managed to sit back. It was awkward for a while, but somehow we melted the awkward situation and had normal conversations. No romance included, either it was contact or the topic. Nope.

Arne that was on the driver’s seat stirred and opened his eyes. “Athe?” he murmured sleepily.

I saw Alex went super panicked and he reached out to open the door. He did though, but I grabbed his hand to stop him from going out. He hung his mouth open and stared at my hand that was grabbing his.

“It’s okay. Just… stay,” I smiled.

He smiled back a little and closed the door.

“Oh – there’s Alex?” Arne said sleepily. “Hey Alex. Why don’t you guys continue what you are doing and pretend that I’m asleep…? Okay.”

And we didn’t hear anything from him anymore. Alex looked at me and that was when I realized I was still holding his hand. I blushed a little and snatched my hand away.

“It’s a little bit cold in here, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“I can be your second personal heater if you want,” he grinned down at me.

I raised an eyebrow. “Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

I scooted over and rested my head on his shoulder after putting a nearest blanket over us.

“Wait,” he said, changing his position so his back was leaning against the door – he had locked it – and his legs were on the seat. He pulled me close to him until my head was rested against his chest. He kept an arm around my shoulder as he threw the blanket over us.

“This is better,” I smiled.

“Yeah. Good night Athe,” he murmured into my hair.

“Night Alex.”

I soon fell asleep when he started to sing Remembering Sunday.