I Want You On My Team

The day wasn’t over we took a celebratory dinner as a team and then back home. Home I would say is like a safe haven for me. Or at least my room is. And after today I am exhausted. But god has to throw another “wonderful” surprise for me. Avoiding my parents was easy I just took the back entrance. Descended the spiral staircase to my exposed underground courtyard. Used my key to the French doors. Didn’t even take the time to switch on the over head light in my room. I dropped my bags and stripped off my warm up top. You see I am used to being alone down here so privacy isn’t something I am not afforded. So tossing my clothes on the floor as I stride to the bathroom for a shower is something I can do. But with a throat being cleared in the corner I jump, scream, cover myself with the first thing I find, and grab something to be used as a weapon all at the same time. This intruder laughed.
“It’s just me, Lex.” Nick laughed again.
“Why are you in here in the dark?” I inquired, he’s such a weirdo sometimes.
“Why are you naked?” He retorted.
“I am not. I have under things on.” Which was true I had a sports bra and spanks on. Normal attire for when you think you are alone in your room.
“I just assumed can’t tell with that jacket.”
“You could have been a creeper for all I knew! You should really stop stalking in the dark. It scares people. No wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend.” He frowned.
“That’s not it it’s because no one has been the right one.” I smirked.
“Your mother thinks your holding out for me.” Sarcasm filled the air in the room. He looked up with this face that I never could tell whether he was joking or not.
“Maybe I am, Lex.” With that I retreated into the bathroom for my shower. I locked the door behind me and stood there a second wondering. I shook my hair and didn’t let it sink that far into my brain. I turned on the shower and soon stepped inside of the cylinder shaped shower. All four heads on the ceiling spurted out small streams of water that massaged my worn muscles. For a minute I could completely relax. It was nice for awhile. Well until I had to climb out. The cold air hitting my skin made it quiver like a string pulled taut and then plucked. I wrapped myself in a towel. I did my normal routines. Exited the bathroom calmly. Though it didn’t remain that way for long because Nick had to speak.
“I hardly remembered that when we were very little your name was Calliope.” He was holding a pageant tiara from when I was four. “I liked that name.”
“Mom changed it, I was getting made fun of at school.” I frowned in reminiscence of those times. I became Alexis in first grade. Right before I started at a new school. My mother, a Victoria's Secret Angel, had met my father, a lawyer, on a steam boat during Mardi Gras. So when I came a long they felt like remembering the old times by naming me after the boat's steam organ. I was followed around with kids saying toot toot for years. In the pageant world weird names were okay. You got noticed more for having a weird name, but real life kids... They are mean. So they changed my first name to my middle name and my middle to my first. Then enrolled me into a different school so no one would know about my previous first name and make fun of me for it. My mind wandered back to the present where Nick was looking as if he had asked me a question and I ignored it. "What'd you say?"
"Ms. Marie wouldn't let Joe and I stay in a hotel. Joe took the guest room. So I guess this'll be like old times, right? Sleep overs that we had back when the guest room was your bedroom and this was an apartment for guests. Back when we held hands across the gap between the twin beds."
"Cause you were scared of the dark."
"I was not." Nick protested. I crossed my arms.
"Then why were we holding hands?" I replied.
"I'm going to change into pajamas." He walked away changing the subject. I shook my head and climbed into bed continuing to think about when I was four and he was six. That seemed so long ago, but yesterday at the same time. I was mostly asleep when I felt him lay down in my bed. I didn't know if I had imagined it or not, but he pulled me close to him. "Lex, I'm scared of the dark." I say I didn't know it was real because of the fact that most twenty year old guys don't admit to girls that they are scared of something. One of his arms reached around me and held my hand. I smiled as my eyes drooped and I fell deeply into unconsciousness.