Get Down - Jess Kent
Nicole had been a very active child growing up, as was expected from a back up dancer. She had always been dancing; the real reason why she was so active was because she signed up to numerous after school clubs to kill time during secondary school. She didn't find GCSEs very challenging, so instead of studying she played sports. On the weekends her and her brothers used to head down to the gym to play badminton on the courts, so there really wasn't much time that Nicole wasn't running around.
She had joined the gym as soon as she turned sixteen and had begun doing real workouts two sessions a week, alongside three dance classes. The gym had become Nicole's side project; she wished to become the fittest she possibly could, to complement her dancing capabilities. Nicole loved the adrenaline, the pain that emerged deep within her, and even the exhaustion that followed. Marcus had how much the gym was affecting her mood, and that was when he offered to pay for her first personal trainer.
Her latest personal trainer was pushing Nicole to the limit, and she loved it. The gym sessions were more than just workouts, they were something straight out of a North Korean army training program. The trainer was very cocky and wasn't afraid to yell, which was perfect.
Nicole was drained. It was Saturday night and Nicole hadn't been feeling the whole party vibe, so she'd called her trainer to arrange an extra session. Despite spending just over an hour at the gym, it was only eight o'clock. Nicole began to wonder what she was to do with the rest of the night. Maybe she'd browse Netflix for a bit.
When Nicole had arrived at the house, Eva had been sat in front of the television in a very large red hoodie and jogging shorts with a bag of popcorn watching some romcom. They had exchanged brief hellos and Nicole took a place next to Eva on the sofa.
'God, you're one of those girls, aren't you?' The Lucky One was playing. Nicole couldn't stand Nicholas Sparks movies, she despised them with a deep fervour. They were too disgustingly romantic for her taste. The movies she loved were either ridiculously funny or unrealistically action packed.
'Zac Efron is the only reason why I'm watching to be honest. I have a really bad taste in movies, Nathan complains about it all the time.' Eva admitted, tilting the popcorn bag toward Nicole. Nicole took a handful and popped a couple in her mouth.
'You're lucky you've got a movie fanatic as a roommate then,' Nicole took the remote from the coffee table and backed onto the Netflix home screen, browsing the movies, trying to find her favourites. 'You've watched the Jump Streets, right?'
'I feel like you're gonna kill me if I tell you the truth.'
That was how the pair's first girls night in began. Eva ordered a Chinese off Just Eat and the two chatted and laughed so hard at the movie that Eva had tears in her eyes. The whole experience was so new to Eva; she had a proper friend that she could joke around with, who wasn't Nathan.
'I don't get how you don't have a boyfriend,' Eva was still unconvinced that Nicole and Adrien's relationship wasn't romantic even in the slightest sense. 'You're gorgeous, you're really funny, and you're a dancer, what isn't there to love?'
'I'm not single cause I can't find a guy, Eva,' Nicole told her, twirling the sweet and sour rice in her foil container around. 'I'm single cause I don't like any of the guys I've really met. I don't need a guy to feel validated, I'm quite happy single. Don't get me wrong, if someone cool comes around, I'm not against relationships, but for now I'm fine how I am.'
'I wish I was in that situation,' Nicole watched Eva slump back into the sofa, sipping on iced water. 'Boys have never really been into me. Sure there's been a couple but not a great deal. I've been with Zack for like a year and he's the only guy who's really showed interest in me, but even he's been drifting from me recently.'
'If you're not happy, ditch him. No guy is worth keeping around if he's making you feel shitty.'
The hours had flown by so quickly that neither of the girls had realised that the clock had struck one in the morning. Eventually the two detached themselves from the sofa and begun clearing the mess they had made over the course of the night.
'You're actually pretty cool, Nic,' Eva told Nicole as they packed up the leftover takeout. 'In all honesty, I thought you were gonna be a bitch, but you're actually really nice.'
'I get that a lot. Either way, thanks, Eva,' Nicole flashed a genuine smile at her roommate. 'You're not so bad yourself.'
'Real quick, just a totally random question, when's your birthday?'
'Seventh December, how come?'
'You're a sagittarius, interesting.'
Nicole rolled her eyes, still smiling as she popped outside to pop the takeout boxes in the bin. She made a mental note to take Eva out to the cinemas sometime.
