Peace in a Storm

7 - Audrey

"Oh my God," Cat groaned as she covered her ears with her pillow.

I was sitting next to her with a frown on my face. It was a late hour on Friday night. My fathers were out at a gallery showing, and they weren't going to be back until late. On nights like these, Cat and I usually took the opportunity to have a sleepover. When we were younger, we'd stay up all night playing video games, talking, and watching movies. Ms. Elena didn't mind us staying up as long as we were quiet.

Even tonight we had plans to stay up for the rest of the night – or at least for as long as we could. At the moment, both of us were lounging on Cat's bed in our pajamas, taking turns scooping out portions of ice cream from the carton of cookies and cream that sat between them.

The room was dark; the light from one of the Scream movies lit up the room. We were doing our best to pay attention to the movie. Aside from the exhaustion from our long school week and after-school jobs making it hard for us to consciously watch the movie, the loud sounds coming from Max's room were beginning to get on our last nerve.

The racking of his headboard against the wall adjacent to Cat's room and the high pitched moans of whatever random girl he had in his room had been going on intermittently for the past few hours.

We thought we'd be used to the noise by then as it had become a pastime over the past year. Almost every sleepover we had, we were forced to deal with the annoying noises of Max and whatever girl he'd managed to charm. In the beginning, we'd bang on the wall in response. That usually resulted in a screaming match from the separate rooms. Then we made the mistake of actually knocking on his door and demanding that he be quiet. Max had opened the door naked, scarring both of our eyes, and then he ended up making even more noise after promising he'd quiet down. At that point, we decided to deal with the noises and yell at him once his fling left. If we were lucky, Max would stop soon. The recent noise had been going on nonstop for almost an hour; he had to be tired.

We sighed in relief as the moans did die down, and we were able to hear the movie without any interfering noises.

Cat rose from her spot on the bed and held her ear to the door, waiting for their retreating footsteps. "Ready to give him a piece of our mind?" She asked.

I nodded. I followed her out into the hallway and leaned against Max's open doorway. My arms crossed against my chest as Max walked down the hall, clad in only a pair of his boxers. He tried to ignore our presence, attempting to walk right past us into his room.

In unison, Cat and I stepped in his way.

"Move," he said, irritation laced in his deep voice.

"No," Cat snapped. "How many times do we have to tell you to not

be obnoxiously loud whenever you have one of your little flings over?"

He shrugged. "As many times as you want. If you didn't notice, I stopped listening to the two of you forever ago. I think you just like wasting your breath and bothering me. Besides, you don't see me poking my nose into your business when I hear you and your fuck head boyfriend going at it in your room. If I wanted to, I could easily just tell mom and Cristian about him – and his extracurricular activities."

Cat narrowed her eyes. "You wouldn't."

"I would. You're lucky I haven't already. I'm sure Cristian and mom would love to hear about how you're banging a drug dealer under their roof when they're not home. I'd like to see how fast they put you on house arrest. I don't think you'd like that now would you?"

"You're such an ass, Maximiliano," Cat said stonily before she stormed into her room.

"Why are you being so mean?" I asked. "We're just asking for a little peace and quiet."