The Home Game

8. Relaxation

Author's Note:

Did you miss me? Lol I apologize for such a long wait. I'm manager for the stock room at my retail job so the build up for Black Friday here in the US has been INSANE. I won't even call this a double chapter because it seems like 10k words is just what I'm doing now.

I hope you all enjoy this chapter, on top of being busy at work I struggled a lot writing this one. The number of typos and things I had to fix has been insane so I apologize if I seem illiterate.

ALSO! I made a Tik Tok! Same user name as this account (linked on my profile) and there may or may not be a face reveal for Quinn up already.....

Again thank you all for waiting, sorry I took so long, but I hope the long chapter helps make up for it a little.

———————————————————————
8. Relaxation
———————————————————————

Quinn woke up surprised by the brightness of the room around her. She closed her eyes again immediately and started to hunker back down into the couch when she realized she had her arms wrapped around a set of legs in her lap. Quinn's eyes shot back open but she didn't move, suddenly very aware of just whose legs they were. Quinn listened for a second, trying to see if she could hear Nika's quiet snores.

At first she couldn't hear anything over her heartbeat raging in her ears, but once she calmed down sure enough she could hear Nika very quietly snoring. Quinn slowly looked around to see Nika still lying against the back of the couch, the comforter pulled all the way up to her shoulders. Thankfully Quinn's legs were free and she very slowly started to slip off of the couch. Lifting Nika's legs just enough to get out from under them but not so much as to wake her was by far the hardest part. Thankfully Nika seemed to be in pretty deep sleep because she didn't so much as flinch as Quinn slipped off the couch.

Quinn checked her pockets and thankfully found her phone was still in there. It was nearly dead, but at least she didn't need to dig through the couch Nika was sleeping on to find it. There was only 1 text from Paige at about 2am saying that they had made it home, and thanks again for hanging out with Nika.

'Yeah, because hanging out with Nika isn't exactly what I want to be doing' Quinn dry laughed a little to herself.

She looked over at Nika as she slept on the couch. Just like the night before Nika's face was soft and relaxed. Usually there was a firmness to Nika's expressions, which made sense to Quinn because Nika was a fairly serious person. But there had been a few times where Quinn had seen the mask slip. Each time it happened it stopped Quinn in her tracks for a second. She wasn't sure why Nika had a soft spot for her, but the fact that she did made Quinn want to be around Nika even more.

It was just before 8am and Quinn didn't work until noon. Nika also hadn't mentioned she had plans so Quinn decided to let her sleep. She quickly made her way into the kitchen and quietly got out everything she needed to make a fairly simple breakfast. Quinn got out a medium sized pan and turned the heat on high. As it warmed up she prepped a plate with a paper towel and cut open a new pack of bacon. Once the pan was hot she turned it down just a touch to medium high heat and added in 3 strips. She opened the window above the sink to help vent the room, not wanting Nika to wake up to the smoke detector.

The bacon took a few minutes to cook and during the wait Quinn got working on cubing up 3 medium sized russet potatoes before adding them to a bowl, keeping the cubes fairly small to help them cook faster. Quinn took the 3 bacon strips out of the pan and added 3 more. She took the open package and put it in a gallon size ziplock before tossing it back in the fridge. Quinn put the smallest bit of oil on the potatoes before seasoning them with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. Quickly she diced up half a red bell pepper and half a yellow onion very fine.