'Love' With You

4. Extracurricular Activities [H]

C H A P T E R  F O U R -  Hunter Kingsley

It had been a couple of weeks since Clare's sudden appearance but she had settled quite nicely into the group. Everyone had taken quite the shine to her, Robin in particular. I don’t think Noah had developed any serious feelings for her, it was still a harmless crush: thank God.

During the course of the two weeks Clare had been here, I had grown less wary of her. There were still times where she would fizz out of the conversation and disappear to another dimension with that blank look in her eyes but they were becoming less frequent.

We’d hung out loads, purely because Noah had longer shifts at the diner now that Nathan was out of town with Isabelle again and Robin and Alec had gone on a ton of ‘romantic getaways’ (hurls) whilst they could. Meaning we were the only ones with a huge amount of free time, so we just thought we’d be bored together instead of dying in the silence of our own companionship.

Despite her little other dimensional moments, we’d pulled some killer pranks on the town together. Once, we’d actually managed to ‘accidentally’ bump into Michaela at the grocery store and swap her ordinary shampoo with a cleverly disguised concoction of our own. Let’s just say a certain pink-haired bitch threw quite the tantrum the next morning.  

When we weren’t terrorizing the town, we would just chill at my place and enjoy each other’s company: watching movies, playing games or simply lying in the backyard, basking in the sun.

She was awesome.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

I was busy throwing blankets and pillows down onto my bedroom floor alongside the bowls of popcorn and other various snacking items when my phone rang.

Reaching over to my desk, I slid my thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to my ear, "What?"

"Well, aren't you just a bundle of gold today?" Robin's annoying voice answered as she laughed at my apparent bad mood.

"The saying's 'a bundle of joy', Robin," I sighed, grabbing a couple more pillows from the cabinet, "What do you want?"

"Tomayto, tomahto. Same difference," I rolled my eyes at her stubborn response, "Just wanted to call to let you know that we're five minutes away so get your fat ass ready before we eat all the pizza."

I panicked slightly and quickly scanned the room for any evidence of my previous uh... activity.

The doorbell rang just as I finished my inspection: all clear.

Phew, I swiped my forefinger across my forehead and made my way down the stairs.

I opened the door and there they were. Alec was dressed in his usual cargo shorts and a polo shirt, Robin in short shorts and her signature plaid shirt and white tee combo and Clare was wearing a shirt that looked like a unicorn farted on it. In a good way.

"We come bearing gifts!" Robin grinned, waving over at Alec who was carrying four boxes of pizza and Clare who was gripping two large bottles of soda in a struggling grasp.

Before I could reply with a greeting of some sort, Robin marched right past me and through the house, moaning about how hungry she apparently was with Alec in tow, leaving me with Clare.

"Hey," she smiled at me, her eyes crinkling but her smile wavered and I noticed her arms were shaking slightly.

"Let me get those," I grabbed the bottles out of her tiny arms and smirked: they weren't even that heavy.

"Thanks," she sighed in relief, smiling as if the weight of the world was just taken from her.

"No problem. Come on in. We're gonna go watch a movie in my room," I stated, making my way towards the kitchen where Robin and Alec were busy chattering away.