TORN

Chapter 19

"Jacob?" Someone stumbled in the room and flopped on the bed. "What time is it?"

"Shhh. Go back to sleep." The voice didn't sound like Jacob but only Jacob had the key to the room.

Zena turned on the bedside lamp to find Payton slightly snoring. "Payton? Where's Jacob?"

"Shhh. Sleep." Payton started to irritate her, so she pushed him off the bed. "Ow! Why'd you do that?"

"Where's Jacob?"

"Don't know. He was with Hayden and Thom when Steph, Chai, and I left," he said rubbing his head. "Now go to sleep."

"Well do you know where Thom or Hayden are?" Payton rolled his eyes getting a bit irritated. "Please. Just answer the question and you can sleep."

"I heard Hayden say they were heading to a party. Something about showing off Jacob or something. Don't know where though, he just met the girl who's party it was. That's all I know. None of them came home." Stupid, stupid, stupid. "Can I go to sleep now?"

"Yeah, thanks." Payton quickly stripped down to his underwear and hopped into bed. It was kind of uncomfortable at first, but when his bicep draped over Zena's torso, she felt safe.

*Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.* The knocking turned into banging on the door waking both Payton and Zena from their sleep.

"Let me sleep," Payton yelled and the knocking stopped for a few seconds. Payton smiled at his friend and fell back to sleep. Then the knocking started again. "You have to be joking." Zena quickly got out of bed and rushed to open the door only to find two drunk lads and a drunk Half. "You must be joking," Payton said joining Zena in the living room.

"I'm not dealing with this right now." Payton followed her back to her room and the two fall asleep again while the three drunks stumbled around in the living room.

"Z, you awake yet?" When he doesn't get a response, Payton kissed Zena's forehead and headed to the living room to find three boys sprawled all over the furniture. Payton went to wake each of the boys and let out a groan when Hayden puked on the floor and fell back asleep. "WAKE UP!" All the boys jumped to their feet startled and Payton smiled. "That was easy. No,w where did you all head off to last night."

"Some girl's party that Hayden met. It was pretty cool until Thom started sassing one of the bouncers. It was all fun and games until the bouncer bought up Thom's girlfriend. Then they got into a fight and we got kicked out." Payton just shook his head. "Where's my girl?"

"I don't think she wants to talk to you right now. She was pretty upset last night." Jacob looked confused. "She thought I was you last night. When she saw it was me she grilled me on where you guys were and when I told her, she rolled her eyes and went to sleep. You should've called her before we went out." Jacob slowly stumbled to Zena's room to find her fast asleep clutching the pillow Payton slept on.

"Does she miss me so much that she's clutching my pillow?" Payton looked at Jacob with sorrowful eyes. "I messed up big time. I should've come home last night." With one more look at Zena's room, Jacob walked to his room and went to sleep. Thompson and Hayden looked confused and shrugged it off as they went back to sleep while Payton cleaned up the living room before joining Zena in bed.

"You came back." Zena smiled and cuddled up to Payton's naked torso as she fell asleep again.

"I never left," he whispered. He gently pushed her hair out of her face and smiled. "I'll never leave you." He kissed her forehead before falling asleep.

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In the boy's penthouse, everything was to complete chaos. Arguments were breaking out left and right, every room was trashed, nobody wanted to listen to anyone, and Zena couldn't do anything about it. It's been like that for the past few days and it was only getting worse. "SHUT UP!". Everyone stared at Zena upset. "Everyone just shut up. You guys have been arguing for three days straight and it's really annoying."

"Well if you don't like it..." Zena slammed Thompson against a wall and no one made a sound.

"Next person who makes a sound will join him. Now, as I was saying, I don't know what you guys are arguing about but it needs to stop right now. I'm not going to spend my last few days watching you guys argue. You're better than this, I've seen you get through worse without trashing your penthouse." Everyone angrily stared at her and she angrily glared back causing them all to quiver. "Now clean this mess up and if I hear so much as a sneeze, you'll end up worse than your friend." Finally some peace and quiet. She walked to one of the bedrooms and fell asleep.

"This is my area. Go clean somewhere else."

"Bite me. Ow! You actually bit me. You're an animal." Well, that was short lived. Zena woke up to a thud followed by a loud groan. You must be joking. Pissed off more than usual, she found chaos in the living room. Without warning, the boys started flying around the room one by one.

"Wait, wait. Please. I didn't say a word," Stephan pleaded.

"You just did." Zena threw him against one of the bedroom doors and watched him collapse like his friends. She began to clean the penthouse when she heard a groan. Thompson woke up to find his friends passed out. She ignored the begging and pleading while she cleaned the penthouse in peace. About an hour later, everyone awoke to a spotless penthouse. No trace of arguments, hatred, or disagreements. No one said a word as they went about their daily activities.