That's All She Wrote || James Diamond

Hands Down (1.8)

Once Camille's melodic alarm had chimed off, startling the seven teens sprawled out across 2-H's living room into various levels of awakeness, the actress sleepily grumbled about an early morning practice with her father for an audition before she trudged out the door. In her drowsy state, she had accidentally left behind the overnight bag she had packed by the entryway.

Noticing this a few minutes after the other girl left, and before the band had a real chance to wake up, Jo was quick to hop up - very intent on returning her friend's forgotten item. With a "Thank you!" towards a half-conscious Roxy and a weary glance towards the boys she was still uncomfortable being around, she was out of the apartment in a flash.

The slam of the front door was more successful at jostling the boys awake than the unexpected alarm, and when their hostess graciously offered to start making breakfast for her remaining guests, they were very instant that she go back to sleep and let them handle their meal.

Though a little voice in her head told her it was a bad idea, her yearning for more time in bed overrode her ability to stop them as she migrated from the couch into her room. Occasionally hearing the sounds of pots and pans clanging on her granite countertops, and the occasional rise of one of the boys' voices before the other three shushed it back down to a whisper, Roxy was able to peacefully drift back to sleep.

That was, until Logan let out a panicked scream, "Fire!", ringing through the walls of her apartment.

Near instantaneously, the writer shot out of bed and threw open the door separating her from the rest of her apartment to the chorus of James and Carlos trying to calm their distraught friend down as Kendall threw a glass of water into her toaster oven to douse the flames.

As she stood in the doorway, chest-heaving, the four of them looked at her, wide-eyed, a thin line of gray smoke curling out of the appliance behind them.

She, of course, had a million questions, but before she could get a word in edgewise, each boy began to formulate a different reason as to why they had nearly burned down her kitchen.

"The bread... In the-"

"Roxy, we swear it was-"

"Who set it to broil-"

"We just wanted to-"

Slowly, she glanced over at her friends before her eyes landed on Carlos, raising one eyebrow towards him in hopes of getting a real answer for the ruckus they had caused.

Blinking back at her a few times, the boy ran a hand through his black hair. He spoke fast, words nearly blending together as they flew out of his mouth, "We weren't kind to you yesterday, at all, and then you were nice enough to invite us over last night and we felt bad because we treated you so poorly so we figured if we let you go back to bed and made you breakfast you wouldn't be mad at us anymore and then we kind of ended up almost burning down your kitchen!"

God, take a breath.

"To make a long story short," Logan added, using a fork to pull the burnt piece of bread out of the toaster, "We wanted to show you how much we appreciate what you do for us."

From in front of the fridge, James scoffed. "That was until Kendall ruined it!"

"What the hell!"

At each other's words, James and Kendall began to squabble once more, and the girl's tired mind could hardly decipher their words as they went back and forth.

In the interest of keeping her living space free of smelling like charred bread, she let them play their argument out as she shuffled to the back of her apartment to crack open one of the windows overlooking the Palm Woods pool. The warm, sunny atmosphere of the sweet Los Angeles morning was doing wonders for her current, disorganized mental state as a slight breeze began to kick through the room.