𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 • 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐛𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐤

fifteen

When I woke up the next morning, I was a little disorientated, until I remembereI was at Kat's place. I sat up and groaned at my headache, then changed out of the clothes Kat gave me for sleeping purposes and pulled on my dress again.

"Hey there!" Kat said as I walked down the stairs. "Slept well?"

I nodded and sat down at her dinner table with her. "Very good, thank you."

"That's great. Here, I thought you'd need this," she said, and slid a glass of water and Advil my way.

I chuckled and swallowed the pill. "My savior."

"So, why'd you so suddenly change your mind yesterday?" Kat asked, leaning her elbow on the table, holding her chin in her hand.

"Oh, it was nothing," I chuckled, watching as Kat took a big gulp of her glass of water as well. "I ran into Colby making out with a girl in his room and I didn't want to intrude."

Kat made a coughing noise as she almost choked on her water, only barely not spitting it out. "For real?"

"Well I didn't make it up," I chuckled, taking another sip of my water.

"God, Colby. What are you doing?" she asked, but it was more directed at him than me so I didn't respond. "And you're okay with that?"

"Well, I don't know?" I answered doubtfully. "Maybe?"

An awkward silence fell between us, so I started talking.

"Could you take me to the house, please? I'd love to change out of this dress and take a nice shower. Also, have you seen my phone?" I asked, looking around.

"Sure! And I think it's still in my car if you didn't take it into the house with you," she replied, grabbing her car keys. "Let's go!"

I hopped of the chair and followed her into her car, where I looked into the cup holder in the door. "Yes, here it is!" I cheered. "Also, we need to have a proper sleepover some time."

"Definitely," she grinned as she pulled out of the driveway. I tried to unlock my phone, but it was dead.

"Battery's dead," I said. "Great."

"I have a charger in my car," Kat replied, handing me the cord.

"Oh, thanks!" I said and plugged it in. It did take another five minutes for it to come back to life though, and as soon as it did, it started buzzing with notifications.

[Messages]
Colby🐨 (7): ellie can i talnjtoyyou?
ellie where r u??
pls respond
i asked sam bur he gasnt heard xfrom yoh either
oh kat just texted sam to say yohre with her
its fuor in the mroning youre probably asleep
why do i feel so bad
Samuel (2): Hey Ellie, where are you? Colby apparently can't reach you
Oh Kat just texted me that you're with her so if you're asleep right now, please ignore this when you wake up in the morning :)

[Instagram]
xepherwolf started following you.

I quickly followed back Xepher and decided to not respond to the messages, as we were pulling into their driveway already. I stepped out of the car and Kat followed me into the house. Apparently the front door was still unlocked from the party last night.

"Anyone home?" Kat yelled into the hallway.

"Over here!" we heard Sam yell from the TV room.

"I'm going to shower real quick," I told Kat and she nodded. I walked up the staircase and - this time after knocking, slowly opening the door - entered Colby's bedroom, but it was empty. He must be up already. I grabbed some leggings and an oversized shirt from the closet, as I wasn't in the mood for anything fancy, and did my thing in the bath room. I really felt brand new as I stepped out of the bathroom, and tied a knot in the front of my shirt as I made my way down the stairs. My hair was still dripping a bit - I hadn't bothered drying it. I walked into the TV room as well, taking notice how they had already cleaned the house. But then, I had slept 'till 1 p.m., and by now it was probably 2.

"Hey everyone," I smiled, waving.

"Ah, our lost Pokémon has returned!" Jake laughed as he looked up.

I chuckled and looked around the room, noticing Colby was looking at me with furrowed brows. I tilted my head and furrowed my eyebrows as well, as to asking him what was wrong, so he motioned for me to go to the garden by nodding his head towards it. As I walked, he stood up to follow me. I quickly slid into my sneakers that were still standing next to the back door. I was surprised, seeing that meant they'd survived yesterday's party there.

"So," I said as I went to sit down on the counter top from the barbecue area as we did yesterday evening. "What's up?"

Instead of sitting next to me - like I expected he would - Colby went to stand in front of me. "I'm sorry, about, well you know, what happened yesterday evening," he started, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "I did more than a couple shots with Brennen a couple minutes before and I didn't really know what I was doing anymore."

"I should be apologizing, really," I responded. "I should've knocked or something, instead of barging in like that."

"No, Ellie, that's not the point here," he said and let out a small sigh. "Thing is I shouldn't have been kissing that girl when I knew damn well I wanted it to be-," he cut himself off. "I didn't want to kiss her. I never would've done it sober."

"So why are you apologizing to me?" I asked quietly, looking into his tired-looking blue eyes.

"Because we've been having these moments and I kissed you at New Year's and I felt bad," he responded. "I didn't want you to feel like I haven't noticed that and like I didn't appreciate them. Because I like your presence, Ellie. I like being around you and you as a person in general."

I tilted my head. "It's fine, Colby. It's not like you were cheating on me."

"The regret really felt as if I was," he spoke quietly.

I let out a slight chuckle. "Come here," I said as I opened my arms.

He stood in between my legs as he accepted the hug, seeing as I was still sitting on the counter, and he laid his head against my collarbone. "I don't deserve you."

"Don't say that. I like being around you as much as you like being around me," I replied, hugging him a bit tighter as I combed my hand through his hair. "How's your headache?"

"Much better now," he replied softly, as I felt his hands playing with the hem on the back of my shirt. "How's yours?"

"Fine," I replied. "Thanks to your water bottle from yesterday because otherwise I would've thrown up."

He chuckled as he pulled back from the hug. "As much as I'd like to stay like this forever, we should go inside. I don't want you to catch a cold."

"It's not that cold, Colby," I replied. "I'm from Kansas too, remember?"

"Right," he smiled. "You wanna sneak out and go somewhere?"

"Right now?" I asked, and he nodded excitedly. "But I look like I just walked out of a grave."

He laughed. "I do too!"

"I'm going to have to grab a hoodie though," I said, and looked at the back door of the house.

"Nope, I have one in my car," he grinned.

I raised my eyebrows. "You really want to just vanish on them?"

"Yep," he said, popping the 'p'.

"Fine," I chuckled, and followed him through the small passage next to the house. We got into his car and drove off towards who-knows-where.

"You want coffee?" he asked. I looked over at him, his eyes focused on the road.

"Always in for that," I replied.

A couple minutes later, we pulled into the drive-thru from Starbucks. Colby ordered us both a caramel macchiato and as soon as we received them, we continued on our way.

"Where are we going, actually?" I asked, in between sips.

"You'll see," he grinned.