How To Stay Afloat (BxB)

Chapter 23: Double the trouble

We're watching a kids movie called 'Road to El Dorado'. Caleb and I used to watch that movie all the time when we were younger. Since Carla has never seen it, we just had to watch it. I wonder if Austin has seen it.

In the middle of the movie the doorbell rings. "Did you order food?" I ask the others confused.

They look equally confused. "No, just go look, I don't live here." Caleb demands.

I roll my eyes and get up to see who's there. When I open the door I'm face to face with my boyfriend, drenched from the pouring rain, with a bloody lip. He's wearing a neutral expression, odd, considering his beat up face.

"What the hell happened?" I ask him, shocked.

He looks to the ground. "Sorry, I didn't really know where else to go."

"Fuck. Uhm, come in." I say, stepping back.

"Do you wanna go for a walk?" He asks me.

I look behind him, watching the pouring rain. "Uhm, it's raining." I point out.

"Could we smoke some weed?" He asks me all of a sudden. "You have some at home, right?"

"Uhm, sure? We can go to the backyard. I'll get a blunt." I say and he leaves without saying another word. He probably walks around the house to the back.

"Who was it?" Caleb asks as he appears behind me.

"Oh, uhm. Just a neighbour, we had his package." I lie.

He frowns, but then nods. "Okay?"

"You can finish watching the movie by yourselves, I'm gonna go upstairs." I say and start walking up.

"Sammy, are you okay?" He asks me concerned and I nod.

"Yeah, just gotta call someone. I was crashing your date anyways." I say.

When I'm in my room I grab my phone. I have five missed calls, one from Harry and four from Austin. Shit, why did I leave it upstairs?

I pull out the joint I rolled in the morning from my desk and go back downstairs. I hear the movie playing again, so I assume they are busy and won't notice me going out the backdoor.

I open the door and Austin stands outside with his arms wrapped around his chest.

"Hey, you're cold. Let's get you some dry clothes." I suggest, but he declines, shaking his head.

"I'm fine. Can we just not talk for a moment?" He asks and I hand him the joint and a lighter.

He winces a bit when he puts the joint in between his lips to light it. His lip is split and looks very painful. It's swollen on the upper and bottom one and there's a slight bruise forming on and around the left side of his bottom lip.

I watch him light the joint and take a drag. His knuckles on his left hand are bruised. He looks like he's in so much pain. I just wanna help him.

After thinking about the possibilities I'm certain that he got into a fight with his dad. Why else would he say he didn't know where to go?

Austin holds the joint to me and I also smoke a bit. We stand outside for five minutes and it's unbearably cold with just a hoodie. I don't wanna know how cold it must be to be soaking wet.

"Let's get back inside." I suggest and take the blunt to stub it out.

Austin follows me inside silently. He puts his shoes to all the other shoes and then goes upstairs. Carla and Caleb are too focussed on the movie to notice us sneaking up.

I lock my door behind us. "Here." I say and hold out a fresh long armed shirt for him.

"Thanks." Austin mumbles and pulls off his jacket and hoodie.