Close Behind || Aaron Minyard

17

A few hours later Naomi is sitting in front of her door next to Allison, when she'd came upstairs her and Dan had been horrified by the blood spilling down her chin from where she'd broken skin. They'd started yelling and saying that Andrew had been unfair doing that when she'd only slapped him, Naomi had waved them off and said he didn't do it.

There wasn't much a reason to be sitting guard at the door now but she wanted to be in the hallway when Neil got back. So Allison had stayed with her.

"And so I told the bitch, she needed to get away from me before I ripped out her shitty extension," Allison says fiercely.

"Were they that bad?" Naomi asks, vaguely curious.

"Oh, my God. They were genuinely the most horrible thing ever. I think she was going for a Narcissa Malfoy look but it just looked skunky." Allison wrinkled her noise.

Naomi laughed and dragged a hand through her hair absentmindedly thinking of what the real color would look like. "Did you ever dye your hair?"

"Oh, yeah," Allison says, a wave of her hand. "I did pink streaks every October for like, nine years? I don't anymore because it would look horrible with the orange uniform."

She hums in agreement, it probably would look horrible with orange uniforms. No worse than her natural hair would probably look. "You should do it this year, I'll do it with you."

"Will you really?" Allison asks excitedly. "Oh, I'm going to have so much fun with your hair. I could do a..."

"Naomi," Andrew says as he stops in front of them. She looks up at him with a blank look, matching his. He's still sober. "Your brothers been spotted. Let's go."

"Why would she go anywhere with your deranged ass?" Allison interrupted.

"Dont call him that, he's not deranged," Naomi scolded her harshly. Allison just rolled her eyes at that. Naomi sighs and gets up, she smiles down at Allison and looks back at Andrew. "Let's go, then."

They walk down the hall in silence. not because Andrew's sober but because Naomi is still pissed at him for Columbia. His red hand printed cheek is still firmly in place, she hadn't realized she'd hit him that hard.

Word of it had spread around quickly because Nicky never kept his mouth shut. Naomi had gritted her teeth when Renee and Allison were talking to her about it. Renee had been a little disappointed but mostly surprised Andrew had seemingly allowed her to hit him like that. Allison, well, she thought it was the greatest thing to ever happen.

Fair enough, honestly. The only person who ever really gets Andrew to stand down is Renee and she wouldn't raise a hand to him. Maybe she would but not the way Naomi had.

She was a little curious, though, as to why Andrew had let her hit him. Naomi wasn't entirely sure he'd let her, maybe when she'd announced it to him he'd been shocked and didn't react fast enough. Still, he hadn't hit her back which was more curious.

They got to the car and Naomi pointedly stood at the passenger seat. Andrew just huffed a little and unlocked the car. She would not be letting Neil in the front when they got where he was as well. he should understand that well enough.

A few seconds later they were peeling out of the parking lot and she didn't have a seatbelt on, Andrew may have purposely crashed a car once but he wouldnt do it again. Naomi's probably the only one who feels safety in that.

"If I had known Nicky would do that," Andrew breaks the silence. "I would have done it differently."

"Careful, Andrew," she mocks him lightly. "Sounds like you're having regrets."