Something New (A Chris Evans Story)

Chapter Eleven

Vacuuming sucks. No pun intended. The entire apartment was kind of a mess since I had two very long shifts this week, and absolutely no time to do anything; well, other than eating, working, and barely getting any sleep. Life was going awesome.

My vacuuming was so loud that I hadn't heard the knocking at the door. Or the slight noise of the keyhole turning.

After I was satisfied with how the living room looked, I shut the vacuum off. Good, now the apartment was fully cleaned. Pushing my glasses back onto the bridge of my nose, I walked into the kitchen to cross 'cleaning up my life' off the to-do list.

But, hey, one victory at a time.

"You should really find a more inconspicuous hiding place for your spare key," I heard his voice boom, "if you're going to leave it lying around."

I turned to find Chris sitting with his feet perched on my kitchen table, casually munching on an apple.

"Well, it was inconspicuous until Shanna told you where I keep it," I retorted. His guilty look gave him away. Busted.

"By the way, why are you here?"

"I was bored," he whined, "Ma and Shanna were busy today, and Scott isn't coming home until next weekend-"

"So you came to bother me," I mused as I looked over the rest of my to-do list.

"I also have an ulterior motive," he replied. "Since you have the day off, we're going to have a movie marathon!" He held up Avengers and the Captain America movies.

I furrowed my brows in confusion. "Weren't we going to wait for Shanna to do that?"

"Well, Shanna had the day off, but she found out that she had to go to some teacher's conference in Worchester today," he recalled, "but she has given us her blessing."

Sure enough, there was a text from Shanna confirming what he had just told me.

"Look, Chris, I...appreciate all this stuff you're doing for me," I sighed while looking down at my list, "but I have a ton of errands to run-"

"Like what, exactly?" He challenged as he reached over and snatched the piece of paper out of my hands. He began his analysis of what was written on it, holding it high so it was out of my reach.

Chris rolled his eyes and groaned, "Seriously? Taxes?"

All while I was jumping up to grab it back.

"Hey, it's never too early to start thinking about April fifteenth," I responded after I landed, waving a finger at him. "You wait until the last minute then." Procrastinator.

"You just need to take some time for yourself," he muttered, after ignoring my last comment.

"Besides..." he said softly, looking at me through his long eyelashes, "I worry about how much of a workaholic you are."

That made me smile. I exhaled, knowing that I had just caved into his demands. "Fine, fine. You win."

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"The popcorn's finished," I yelled to Chris from the kitchen. Thank goodness I didn't burn it.

"Did you bring the drinks?" His muffled voice came from the living room.

"Yeah, let me go get them." I grabbed a Coke for myself and a beer for Chris; his blood must be at least forty percent alcohol.

I stopped short when I saw the state of my living room; Chris had almost destroyed it to create something with all my throw blankets, couch pillows, and comforters.