The Beast

Chapter 20

Raine's POV
I felt a hand clamp onto my shoulder in my half conscious state, and I tried to move away from it, but the grip grew firmer, shaking me awake. I groaned inwardly as Jay's face came into view, he wasn't an early riser but he had work today and oddly he absolutely despised having breakfast alone.

I had to endure all of Jay's annoying quirks since my apartment had been raided. It was terrifying I hadn't been gone from my home for very long, perhaps even a slight change in schedule and they would have been met with me upon entering my apartment. Every time I thought of the raid shivers raked down my spine, all my belongings were trashed, my furniture broken, only a few articles of clothing and other belongings were intact. Jay had packed those when I had called him in my panicked state. Jay stayed up with me all night as I cried for all the lost pictures, pictures were all I had of my parents while at school, they meant the world to me. 

It had been a whole week since the attack, and Jay and Sophie had refused to leave me alone. Sophie had a theory that the attack was done by Xavier Night because I had rejected him. She was afraid he would come back for me, I highly doubted her theory. His final goodbye that day during our last meeting had seemed like an ending, an ending to the small story that him and I had shared. My life was back to normal, besides the raid of course. Despite how much I didn't wish to admit it, my life was back to being quite simple, and even a little boring.

Jay shook me again, and I look at him startled raising my eyebrows.
"I'm awake stop shaking me." I exclaimed annoyed.

"I see you're awake but like usual you're daydreaming so I thought I'd shake you out of that. I'm hungry and your waffles are legendary." Jay said with a boyish grin making my irritation disappear, and I flicked him in the forehead to get him to move away from me so that I could scoot out of the bed. He moved away, rubbing his forehead a he walked out of the room mumbling about me being a violent little thing. 

I pulled on a sweater over my shirt, walking out of the room so that I could go feed the overgrown child that awaited me in the kitchen.

I started making the waffles, at anyone else's house I would never be so comfortable but Jay had always pestered me to move in.  He claimed his condo was too large and that he got lonely living here alone. He practically lived at my apartment, living with Jay was something I was used to.

All I really did was mix the waffle mix with some milk, and pour it into his waffle maker. But  according to Jay when I made them, they tasted much better. My waffles were less than mediocre, but Jay would even tolerate below average cooking if it meant company over a meal. He was unfortunately one of the people who had experienced being lonely but not by personal choice, so now he really hated being alone. 

His waffle maker made a little ringing sound as they finished, carefully pulling them out with tongs, I set them on two plates. I doused mine in syrup, while Jay got out the ice cream. I tried to persuade him not to do it, but he ended up covering his waffles in scoops of ice-cream and putting a few scoops on my waffles too. Not that I was really complaining.

Finishing our extremely unhealthy breakfast, which Jay justified with the few raspberries he'd placed on our waffles, we both cleaned up. Jay hated washing dishes, so I quickly did those while he swept and wiped the table.

Finally finishing with clean up, I showered quickly. Trying to rush, but the hot water was much too tempting. I dried my hair as I walked out. Scrounging around my meager wardrobe, finding a beige sweater with dark jeans and pulling them on quickly.

I walked to work, enjoying the stormy weather as I walked. The cafe was almost empty as was to be expected in the late afternoon. The bad weather and late weekday night meant most people were likely to stay at home and drink nasty instant coffee rather than to come to the cafe. I smiled at Maggie calling out a hello to her and she smiled back at me continuing to help the customer she was with, but there was something off about her.