Perfectly Dysfunctional

By the time I’d made a couple of trips to and from Nareesha’s house to Siva’s we’d decided to just go shopping and fix everything up when we got home. It was a short drive filled with chatter. I could tell Nareesha was trying to cheer me up about Emma leaving, and I started off by humouring her, but then it started to actually work. We went to the cinema and then for something to eat to prepare ourselves for what was coming next. We’d worked out our options; fix everything up in the house or go shopping. Of course we opted for the latter option, and traipsed around the shops for another few hours before heading back home.

The sky had already started to get pretty dark as I started to drive back to what was now Nareesha and Siva’s house, “Wow, how long were we out for?” she asked as her phone started ringing. “Oops,” she said as she pulled it from her bag, “I should always remember to take my phone off silent when we leave the cinema – eight messages and twelve missed calls... and they’re only from Seev-” She turned her attention to her phone, “Hello?”

I turned the music off as we stopped at a red light so she could hear what he was saying, “Where are you two?”

“We’re on our way home now, why, what’s happened?”

My heart had jumped to my throat, and Nareesha’s facial expression wasn’t helping me at all. I jumped out of my skin when I heard multiple car horns blare at the same time, and quickly pulled away from the light that I realized was now green, “How far away are you?” he asked, totally ignoring Nareesha’s questions.

“We’re just over ten minutes away, why? Siva, you better tell me, or-”

“Just hurry up and get home,” he said then hung up. Nareesha slowly pulled the phone away from her ear and glared at her phone before glancing at me.

And suddenly the ‘just over ten minute’ drive was cut down to a five minute journey. When I pulled up I hadn’t even properly parked the car yet and Nareesha was already fumbling with her seatbelt. I pulled the hand break on and fumbled with my belt, shutting the engine off and leaping out of the car along with Nareesha. We made our way to the front door which was lying open a crack.

“They’re like, five minutes away, Siva; you couldn’t have just left it!” Nathan was saying. I glanced at Nareesha who frowned and open the door, storming in. Why would Nathan be there?

“What the Hell is going on?” she demanded as I followed her in. Nathan jumped then clutched at his chest – his hand was outstretched as if he had been reaching to grab the front door.

Nathan took a breath to talk but was cut off by Siva, “Nothing!” He bounded through from the kitchen and grabbed Nareesha’s hand, “C’mon!” He dragged her upstairs as Nareesha threw obscenities at him, “You too, Jenny!” he called over his shoulder and over Nareesha’s abuse. I threw Nathan a look who gave me an apologetic one in return before I walked by him and jogged upstairs, following the string of Nareesha’s insults to her room. Halfway down the hall though, her insults stopped, intriguing me, and as I reached Siva’s room I knew why. Well, it was now Siva and Nareesha’s room; all of her stuff had been brought up to the room and set up similar to how her room was before. He was pulling Nareesha over to the closet and she laughed as he opened it. All of her clothes pretty much dominated the space that was there, and all of her shoes were underneath it. He opened the two drawers at the bottom, and both of them were filled with both of their clothes. He then pointed to the suitcases Nareesha had used to bring her clothes over, and both of their clothes were folded up in it.

“Uh yeah, we figured you’d need a bigger closet,” Nathan smirked from behind me as he leaned against the doorframe.

“You two did all of this today?” Nareesha asked, taken aback. I was really impressed too, I must say.

“Well yeah,” Siva looked down to his feet for a moment, “Your office is down the hall, too. I don’t know-” he was cut off as Nareesha put her hands on the sides of his face and kissed him. I took a step back, turned around, and pushed on Nathan’s chest. He took the hint and spun around out of the room as I closed the door behind me.

“You like?” he asked grinning.

“Yeah, it’s great. Thanks for saving us the trouble,” I laughed, “But!” I hit his chest, “We were shitting ourselves! I nearly crashed God knows how many times to get us back here, and broke pretty much every speed limit there was to get us back.”

“Hey, wow, ouch! Jeez!” he jumped and ran away from me and I chased him back downstairs.

“I thought it was something to do with Dave,” I said as I got into the kitchen.

“Well, I was actually in the middle of telling Siva he’s a dick for panicking you both when you got here, so-” he poked his tongue out.

“What are you, like twelve?”

He acted hurt, “Stop mixing me and Jay up!” he yelled, acting frustrated, and I laughed.

“Stop acting like him then?” I laughed as his face became serious and he straightened up. My eyes bugged out my head a little, “Shit...”

“Too far Jenny, too far,” he advanced towards me and I backed up, trying to make a backwards beeline for the kitchen door.

“No, don’t, please-”

“Please what, Jenny?” he lowered his voice and smirked as he came closer. The corner of my mouth turned up a little and I let out a nervous laugh, but stopped abruptly as I hit the wall. I quickly glanced to my left and saw I miscalculated the door by a couple of inches and cursed, making Nathan laugh. Before I had a chance to turn my head back again he jumped forward and slammed his hands on the wall behind me, making me flinch and scream. I opened my eyes quickly in surprise when I didn’t feel his touch anywhere on my skin. “So,” he prompted, “Don’t what?”

Before I had a chance to tell him not to tickle me, we heard a bang from directly above us followed by Nareesha’s giggle then the call of Siva’s name. Nathan and I glanced at the ceiling above us for a moment before looking at each other again, “Uh...” I didn’t have anything to say. Talk about awkward. I covered my mouth as I started to laugh.

“Have you had dinner yet?” he asked, trying to at least refrain from laughing.

“We ate about four hours ago...” I trailed off as suddenly it felt like all I could hear was Nareesha and Siva.

“So no, then,” he quickly said, moving his hands to have one grab mine, “Wanna go out to dinner tonight?” I laughed at his hurried state as he rushed to grab his car keys and look for his hoodie. “God dammit, if I don’t find it I’m going without it...” A bang was heard from upstairs and I started laughing again. “We’re leaving,” he said and ran from the house, leaving me to lock it up. I unzipped the hoodie I had on and threw it to him as I got into his car.

“I think that’s your one,” I said, pointing to the red American Apparel hoodie he had in his hands. He raised his eyebrow at me and smirked, “You have the same size as me and it’s the same colour, it’s an easy mistake to make.”

He laughed then threw it back at me before reversing out of the drive, “You wear it; you’ll be cold without it,” I rolled my eyes and tossed it to the backseat, “Besides, you’ve probably already made it smell like a girl,” he acted disgusted as he drove out of the street and started his quest for somewhere to eat.