Just Like Nicotine

Chapter 15

"Yo, bitch." Theo calls, pulling up the blue Ford Fiesta at the curb. His window is wound completely down, and Hot In Herre by Nelly is blasting through the speakers. His smile is brighter than a kid in a sweet shop and there's that same mischievous 'embarrassing older brother' glint in his eyes.

"Oh for fucks' sake." Alaeia mumbled jokingly as she got in the front passenger seat, failing miserably to hide the creeping grin from noticeably appearing across her face. Theo just grinned triumphantly as he saw the many disapproving looks from the local workers passing by and turned his mischievous gaze towards his platonic little sister.

"What?"

"How was work? I want all the details!"
And so the two spoke happily during the ride home about their days, purposely missing out any mood-killing information. It didn't take long for Alaeia to soon pass out from a sleep attack, leaving Theo to quietly hum along to the radio as he drove to Alaeia's flat complex.

~

Luckily for Alaeia, she had handed spare keys to her flat to both Theo and Celia in case of an emergency - or she had began enduring a sleep attack on the way to her flat. Of course, the second situation was more common amongst the three, and led to Alaeia randomly waking up on the couch with either of her friends just sitting on the couch opposite watching the telly.

It didn't alarm her most times, as she was usually led to believe that her friends were already in the house when she originally dozed off. The other times, however, were mostly orchestrated with panic from the mere fact that Alaeia had forgotten she handed each friend spare keys and was wondering how they got into the flat. It always resulted in a good laugh later, either situation.

Theo was sat comfortably in an old reclining armchair, Alaeia had bought it at one of those charity sales because Theo had mentioned they were the best type of chair - he also convinced Celia that it was needed after they walked around the endless markets around London. Celia of course turned him down and said that they definitely didn't have any space, so Alaeia bought it instead and promised it's ownership to Theo whenever he came over to her flat.

Theo rarely was at his own house nowadays, let alone Alaeia's. Once he'd realised that it wouldn't be long until he was officially a dad, he picked up extra shifts at work to have some extra money in case 'babies were overly expensive' - in his words.

"So, any particular reason you wanted me to pick you up? I mean, I'm not complaining. I love our carpool karaoke sessions." Theo asked, his recently unfocused gaze now resting upon the girl in front of him.

"I love them too. I don't think I really had an actual reason aside from the fact I feel exhausted. You know how I say I feel when I'm close to having a sleep attack?" Alaeia pondered, leaning back into the comfort of the couch as she spoke. Theo nodded, gesturing for her to continue on.

"That's how I've felt all day."

~

It had been a total of three days since Theo last saw Alaeia. In fact, it had been a total of three days since anyone had seen Alaeia. You see, the girl had asked for a few days away from work, happy to use the somewhat vacation days she had collected over the years. Her sister, Alette, was supposedly arriving in town today, and with that meaning that Alaeia would have a visitor in her home, she took to cleaning madly in need of everything to look the stereotypical 'perfect'.

Alette would be arriving in around four hours, giving her twin around three to rearrange her couch pillows and kitchen utensils for a fifth time in hopes that they'd eventually look presentable enough. She had cleansed each room from top to bottom, by now just being left with her bedroom and the kitchen. Surely enough her bedroom hadn't taken too long to sort out, but she did have the task of setting up a spare bed. Maybe she shouldn't speed-run this room...

_____________________
A/N #2

Hello! I'm not officially back, but after quite a bit of editing and rearranging and overall stressing, I've published this chapter. I'm really sorry for being so inactive lately, and I know I promised that I wouldn't be one of those creators who uploads every other month, and I won't be. At least, I hope I won't. I appreciate everyone who reads these, thank you. You make my days better. Chapter 16 is still currently unwritten as I have the dreaded writers block, and if you go and take a look at my most recent post on my 'announcement board' or whatever it's called, you'll have a bit more depth as to how I really am right now.

Thank you to those who have stuck around and been patient with me, and I really do promise to give you the very best I possibly can. I'm aiming for there to be around 40 chapters in total, and if I make it to that goal, then I may change it to 50, and so on. I love this book so much, and I also have another one that I'm writing on the sidelines, so that might be published later on in the future. 

Thank you for reading, and thank you for being patient. <3

~ lils