CAPACITY FOR WONDER. | alex albon

xii. the act is innate

                 It was like a movie scene. So many things in her life felt this way at the moment. As usual, she was glad not to be the star, the heroine, the main character. Those roles seemed to fall into the lap of the 3 people in front of her.

Alex had gifted her a key before she left on Sunday, a minimal exchange as she found the envelope tucked gently into the front pocket of his hoodie once she got home. It was obviously intended for her, she might have thought otherwise if her name wasn't printed on the paper in the same calligraphy he had written in at Lewis' party.

It was more nerve-wracking than it should've been to go into his apartment for the first time. She supposed this is why they hadn't heard any shuffle of the key or turning of the door handle -- she'd done everything so softly in a subconscious fear that if she did things too harshly, they might disappear.

Which is why Alex, Lando and George had turned to look at her so suddenly. They were all shirtless, at the very least, with each of them having other missing clothing items that they were collecting off the floor.

Their flustered faces didn't help for what could be perceived from what was in front of her.

"I can come back if I'm interrupting." She told them, her hand covering her mouth as she attempted to hold back her laughter.

"I thought you locked the door." Lando said as he turned to George, before his eyes flicked between the group repeatedly.

"You have a key?" George asked Juniper before turning to Alex. "She has a key? Since when has she had a key?"

Her laugh became uncontainable now as Alex began to laugh too, looking across to him as he shook his head at her. It was funny to them, but she'd never seen laughter placed so closely with confusion. It was her and Alex, and Lando and George, laughter and confusion. A heightened sense of this returning as she spoke to Alex again.

The three of them still hadn't clothed themselves fully as she looked to him. "There's no shame, the act is innate, right?"

And he laughed again. She'd made him laugh before but never like this, in a way where the joke was funny to only them. It meant something only to them -- Lando and George could find it funny but never to the extent that they would, but Juniper supposed with the confused looks on their faces, they were no more aware than they had ever been about Alex and June.

"Seriously though, I can come back if this is a bad time." She said through her laughter, to be met by Alex shaking his head again.

"It's okay, we're done here." He returned, looking to Lando and George to confirm this.

"Alex, she has a key." George mumbled back to him, and if he was aiming to be quiet, he had failed. Juniper nodded, walking over to him and placing it in his hand softly.

"That is a key, right?" She asked George, but it was Lando who responded now.

"Looks like one to me."

She nodded at both of them before taking the key back and turning to face Alex, who had fully dressed himself now.

"I have something for us to do. It relates to what you showed me on Sunday."

"My great cooking skills?"

She shook her head at him, "Not exactly."

In retrospect, the whole interaction must've been strange for Lando and George. They both knew, to at least an extent, what was going on between Alex and Juniper. It didn't matter that all he had told them were the basics, that they were friends. If there was one thing Lando and George claimed they weren't, it was oblivious. A trait that both Alex and Juniper passed between them at times -- everybody could see that.

"She has a key." George said as he turned to face Lando and then looked back at them.

"George, even I established she had a key." Lando told him as he looked up to the taller of them now.

"You guys can stay here, I don't know when I'll be back though." Alex said, taking some control of the conversation now.

"An hour, probably."

Lando and George nodded at her now, as if Alex wasn't even there. It was a funny type of irony, where before George's party, the two of them didn't even know what Juniper looked like -- they knew her name from Daniel's party where Alex had run through what had happened there too. When he thought about it, it was parties where he continually updated the both of them, without fail since they'd met. Now, it was became the opposite of who they were listening to and where, it was Juniper and in his apartment.

"So you're ready?" She asked as she turned to face Alex now.

"As I'll ever be."

"Come on then." She said as she motioned her head towards the door, looking back to the other two only for a moment. "Bye guys."

She was flippant as ever as she called out behind her, as if Lando and George had been her friends for ages and like she'd known Alex for her whole life. They were different in this moment, she called out to bid them farewell, and he offered them a simple head nod as he slung his arm loosely over her shoulder.

The pair didn't think they'd ever looked at each other so much after Alex and Juniper left.

"We both saw the same thing, the whole interaction, right?" George said as he turned to Lando beside him again.

"That was Juniper, right?"

He rightfully earned a slap to the back of his head as he scoffed. "You watched that whole thing and thought that could have been Alex with anybody else other than Juniper?"

"I was just checking!"

She coughed now, gathering their attention again as she seemingly reappeared.

"Yeah, I am Juniper." She confirmed to Lando with a nod.

"How were you so quiet coming back in?"

She shrugged at Lando now, instead walking into Alex's bedroom. This might've seemed rude to him in the moment at least, but with Juniper as close to Alex as she seemed to be, Lando would eventually learn what Charlotte had always known: any indication Juniper had actually listened to you, not just heard, but actually listened, was going to have to be enough. Sometimes, she didn't want to give more. Sometimes, she wouldn't offer it. Sometimes, she couldn't display more. So a shrug would suffice for anyone who knew her, and as if it was reflective of how much Alex understood her, Lando seemed to accept this without ever talking to her before.

She'd picked up a jacket she'd left there off his bed before walking back out.

"You leave stuff here too now?" George mused with her, and she couldn't help but laugh at how his words suggested he left stuff there too.

"I'm not trying to make a habit of it."

"But you might." Lando added now.

"But I might." Juniper said, and she was glad Alex wasn't around to hear such a thing.

Alex met her again at the bottom of his apartment building, his arm returning to its solace of her shoulders as her hand, like usual, linked with the one resting around her.

"How confused did they look?" He asked her as they started walking. He allowed her to lead, as he always did when they were in Monaco. Every time it felt similar to the first time they'd seen each other after their initial meeting, some welcomed sense of déjà vu, a liked kind of routine. He wouldn't have known where they were going anyway, she still hadn't filled her in on where they were going.

"Not just confused, almost like lost."

"I should've paid you to film it."

She shook her head as she pushed him away gently, "That's not very nice." She told him as she shook her head, but he pulled her back against his side easily enough without stumbling. She would've been lying if she said she wasn't grateful, the air of late February was bitterly cold and the wind that swept through Monaco near the coast didn't help her lack of body heat.

"Maybe I'm not very nice."

"We both know that's not true." She told him as she slipped her hand around his back and rested it on his side as she guided them through the streets before reaching a studio and walking inside.