Waiting For Us [COMPLETED]

chapter 31 - concrete jungle

Talia:

I wake up to a ringing in my ear. And then there are voices.

"Jake, I swear to God, delete that or Gray is going to kill you," says a voice that sounds just like Rowan's.

I hesitantly open an eye and—sure enough—Rowan stares at me. I lift my head up and then remember a certain someone's own head was on mine, forcing it to drop on my shoulder. Grayson awakens with a grunt and rubs his eyes.

Coughing to clear my throat, I look up at where Jake and Rowan are in the bus isle. Curiosity gets the best of me. "Delete what?"

Grayson, who missed what Rowan said, suddenly becomes very intrigued about what we're talking about. Both Rowan and Jake freeze, eyes widening when Grayson stares at them, expecting an answer to my question.

Jake takes a deep breath. "So, you see—"

Rowan doesn't let his best friend have another word before he rips Jake's phone out of his hand. He presses something on the screen while Jake dramatically protests, and then hands over the phone to Grayson. I lean over to see what so desperately needed to be deleted. A picture on us sleeping from the bus ride stares back at me. My head rests on Grayson's shoulder, his head rests on my head, and we both look insanely calm and relaxed. I'm just glad I'm not drooling on him.

Grayson looks at it and hands it back to Jake. His face is unreadable. "Send it to me, then delete it."

Despite not being obliterated by Grayson, Rowan smacks the back of Jake's head, muttering something about him being an idiot as they sit back in their seats.

Grayson's phone goes off and he opens Jake's message where the photo is. His lips tilt up a fraction of an inch.

"Can you send that to me, too?" I ask him. He nods and my phone alerts me of it being sent. Out of the corner of my eye, I note that Grayson sets the photo of us as his home screen. My heart beat picks up.

I rub the sleep from my eyes one more time and look out the window. Based on the thousands of lights and busy streets, it's safe to say we're in the city. The time on my phone, now also set with that photo as my home screen, reads 9:54 PM. We must be getting close to the hotel.

I turn to Grayson to find him staring out the window like I was before. "Sorry I didn't wake you up," he says.

"That's okay." The bus rolls to a stop and releases one of those hissing noises that tells me this is a permanent stop. I can barely contain my excitement. It's the small things in life that give me joy. "We're here."

When I heard the senior trip was going to be to NYC, I think I talked off Jessica's ear for a whole week. Despite our parents making business trips here thousands of times, we've never visited. There's a whole world of art in this city that can't be found anywhere else, and I intend on discovering as much as possible. I cleared a bunch of storage space on my phone, just so I wouldn't be restricted with the amount of photos I want to take.