Pucker-Up

Chapter Fifteen - Gaby

I sit anxiously on my bed, waiting to Mathew to message me. What could have possibly happened which stopped him from replying for so long? Belle brings me in a glass of coldly crisp water, sitting on the end of my bed with a packet of cookies in her other hand. I turn off my phone and toss it onto the bed between us, accepting the glass of water and taking a long sip. "Do you know what's happened?" She asked before biting into a cookie, holding her hand beneath it to catch any crumbs from landing on my fresh linen. "No, hopefully he's all good." I placed the glass onto my bedside table, pinching a cookie from the pack to eat. Mid mouthful, my phone starts buzzing away, causing Belle to instantly flip my phone over to see Mathew's name on the screen. She screeched and threw me my phone. "It's him- answer it" I raise the phone back to my ear, hearing him sigh before realising I answered.
"Hey! Really sorry about that."
I wait a moment assuming he was going to continue, but he didn't. "That's alright, I was about to get into bed. What happened?" Belle signals for me to put the phone on speaker so she could listen. I click the speaker button and place the phone in the middle of the bed between us.
"There was a little- fight break out between Rutger and Frank." He slightly huffs in annoyance "Ethan was the punching bag of it all." He then scoffed in slight laughter, hearing Ethan in the back trying to argue against that. Belle covered her mouth with her hand, probably worried about Ethan.
"Oh gosh-" Belle then cuts me off, talking into the phone. "I'll get Gaby to send you our apartment number- come over and we can help you both out." She looks at me with a thumbs up, making me slap my hand over my face out of embarrassment. There's a silence linger for a moment before Mathew spoke again.
"That would be good, actually. I don't wanna deal with Ethan's bloody nose alone." He chuckled "Send it through and we will be over in about five minutes." Mathew hangs up, Belle grinning away as she took the phone off the bed and sent our address to Mathew. "Why did you do that- that's so embarrassing." I rub my forehead nervously as Belle stands up and takes the cookies back out into the kitchen.

In about three minutes, there's a knock on the door. Belle points at the door for me to answer it, but I push her towards it. I stand close by as she unlocks the door and swings it open, greeted by Ethan with richly dark blood along his hands and down the front of his shirt, and Mathew- looking as charming as ever. "Come in-" Belle moves aside and closes the door behind them. "Thanks for inviting us over- thankfully I'm not too battered and bruised." Mathew chuckles and looked to Ethan who is clearly the battered and bruised one. "Did you wanna go wash your hands off, Ethan?" I suggest and he nods, following Belle into the bathroom.
I look to Mathew, fidgeting with my hands a bit. "Nice pyjamas." He grins and nods towards what I'm wearing. I look down to follow his eyes, and it's the worst thing to wear in front of him — I have navy fuzzy pyjama pants with a Bluey shirt on. "You're hilarious." My face gets red, looking back to him. Thats when I noticed the slight purple looking bruise along his jaw. "Were you punched??" He sucks in a slight breath and moves his hand through his hair, causing my eyes to stare at his red coloured knuckles. "It's not as bad as it probably looks- quite a pathetic punch on Frank's end." He drops his hand back by his side, probably realising I was staring at it in shock. "Hey Gabs!" Belle called out from the bathroom, Mathew and I walking over and standing in the doorway.

Ethan was sitting on the side of the bathtub, holding his head back on an angle so the blood could be stopped. His now clean hands slightly pinched the bridge of his nose as he patiently waited. "Do we have any medical stuff?" She asks, kneeling on the ground as she dug through our bathroom cabinet. Mathew moved from standing behind me, past me and over to Ethan, looking down at him as I helped Belle find something useful. "I'm so tempted to give him a tampon for his nose." She whispered to me with a giggle. "Hah- do it." We snicker and stand up, Belle holding a tampon in her hand. "I have a tampon you can use." She fights against a smile, Mathew also trying not to laugh. Ethan nods acceptingly. "Oh sure, that'll be fine." Belle unwraps it and moves his hand off the bridge of his nose, carefully putting the tampon up his nostril. He tips his head to sit back upright, just seeming so innocently clueless as he looked to us all with a tampon hanging from his nose. Mathew leaned over with laughter, placing his hands onto his knees to support himself, Belle also covering her mouth with her hand while laughing. "Aye judge all you want, but this is actually working wonders." Ethan stands and moves over to the mirror, admiring himself for a moment.

Moving out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, I opened the freezer door and took the pack of frozen peas out. Closing the freezer door, I turned to see Mathew standing by the shelving along the wall. I watched as he studied Isabelle and I's framed photos, ones of us together from school and our families with us. He turns and catches me watching. "Oh, is that for me?" He nods towards the peas, smiling. I look back down to them in my hand and smile "No, I was just feeling peckish... but if you want you can have them I guess." I joke and grab a tea towel, wrapping it around the bag of peas. "My jaw is really okay, you don't have to worry." I nod and step closer to him, taking his wrist and lifting it to hold the peas against his knuckles. His hand was fully red, his knuckles already in the process of completely bruising. He clearly didn't brace himself for the coldness, his breathing hitching. He didn't speak as he looked down to the bag on his hand, giving me an appreciative nod. "So.. Frank. He's on your team?" He took the bag from my hands and held it on his knuckles, nodding. "Yeah he's very.. I genuinely don't think I have words to describe him." He scoffed and shrugged his shoulders, looking back to my face. I felt my cheeks get a little warm, nodding with understanding. "It's a shame you need to deal with someone like that on a daily."

"Ahem.." Ethan and Belle were standing near the door, looking at us. "I just wanted to see if you were ready to head off, Mat." Ethan asked, looking between Mathew and I. Mathew nodded "Ah, yeah we can get going." He looked back to me and smiled "Thanks for having us over, we appreciate it especially at this hour." He goes to hand the bag of peas back "Oh it's okay- you need them more than I do." I laugh awkwardly. Am I just giving him our frozen peas right now? "Okay- I'll be sure to get them back to you." He chuckled and walked towards the door with Ethan. We said our goodbyes and closed the door, locking it again. "I'm buggered and going to bed." I yawn and stretch my arms. "Awww- okay, we will talk about all this in the morning. That's if you're even able to fall asleep after everything that just happened, I bet the adrenaline will be running through your veins." She giggled and walked into her bedroom "Nigh night!"