Meant For You

seven.

Miles Dempsey

Ruffling my hair to look slightly presentable, I skip down the stairs toward the kitchen. When I get there, JT stands by the island. His green eyes bore into me as he takes a chug from the water bottle in his hands. I roll my eyes and pass him, grabbing a bottled water from the fridge.

The silence makes me antsy after a while so I close the fridge a bit harder than usual. "What?" I voice, looking at my roommate. He turns to face me, sighing. "That was gross. All of it," he finally says. "Seriously? Fuck off, Jason." I never call him by his first name but lately everything including him, has been getting on my nerves.

"Please don't use the government name. I thought sex was supposed to make you happier not..." he waves his hands in a circle around me, "whatever this mood is." I force my eyes shut, breathing out slowly.

He's not wrong. When the season - or my life in general - gets stressful, sex is one of my many outlets. While that may sound gross, I don't go around having sex with multiple women. I've had Allie help me out with my stress for the last couple of months. I'm not committed to her, nor her to me, but we have a mutual agreement about only sleeping with each other. That's all it is.

But just like all my other stress relievers, sex with Allie hasn't been enough. I'm still reeling over things like hockey, life, details about my birth parents, and most of all, as much as I hate to admit it...

Nola Scott.

The thought of her makes me tense. I don't know why the girl has been consuming my brain these past couple of days. Just when I think I won't see her anymore, I do. Her little blonde self, walking into my life, time after time. If this were any other girl, I'd say it was fate. Like some stupid 'this is happening for a reason' type of thing.

This isn't just any girl though. It's Nola. The girl who's shown me no mercy since the first day we laid eyes on each other. I had been trying to make up for our first interaction the other times I had seen her, but she wouldn't let me. She took what I said to heart. I don't even think what I said was all that bad but she told me she doesn't do well with bad first impressions.

That day at Blazing Ice, a bad first impression is exactly what I gave her. I never knew the reason she disliked me so much until a couple of days ago at the coffee shop when she told me. Still, she acted childishly. I wasn't going to apologize then. She's the one who pissed me off that morning too. Normally it's the other way around.

I was just trying to have an easy morning before my life potentially fell apart in the next hour. Finding out who my birth parents are had been a top priority for me these past couple of months. I finally got the balls to ask my parents until Nola decided to kill all of the power I had that morning. My mood went from 70 to 10 in a matter of a couple of minutes because of her. There was no way I was going to be able to have that conversation with my folks that morning.

Not even close.

A couple of days later and I still haven't found the words again. I'm back at square one. I've even considered asking Tiffany if she could get in contact with that private investigator again. Of course, I can't bring myself to do it. I care entirely too much about how my folks would feel if they found out I went behind their backs to find out who my birth parents are.

Thinking about all of this again makes me want to pull my hair out in frustration. I can't even be calm for a couple of minutes before my mind starts reeling again. Or stupid conversations like this one, trigger some bone inside of me that makes me an asshole.

"Was the sex not that good? I can find a way to get her to go.." JT whispers, adding when I don't answer immediately. "What?! No. It's not that," I tell him. He crushes his water bottle and throws it into the trashcan next to him. "Then what's on your mind, man?" JT's green eyes burn holes into me. The kid cares, I'll admit that. He's always asking me about my feelings and stuff like that. I don't know why.