“Here’s your cheese grater,” I said, holding it out to them. “Thank you for lending it to us.”
“Actually, no, we don’t need it… you can use it for as long as you need it,” Ash said quickly.
“No, honestly, we’re finished with it,” I said quickly. Could this conversation be any more cringey and awkward? Honestly, I cannot think Ash and I have had a normal conversation at all.
As the conversation was dwindling to nothing, a Pizza Hut guy came up to us, wobbling behind a huge tower of pizza boxes, with a plastic carrier bag slung on the crook of his arm.
“This is an order for Natalie?” the guy wheezed from behind the boxes.
“Oh, yes, that’s for us,” I said. I searched in my jean pockets and pulled out some crumpled notes and paid the guy, before taking the bloody tower off from him, as well as the carrier bag. How much had we ordered? I didn’t remember ordering so much crap! Chicken wings – did Pizza Hut even do them? And I counted about four boxes of garlic bread. Honestly.
And the carrier bag! Loads of fizzy drinks and two huge tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
“Wait, excuse me, is this the right order?” I asked. “I don’t think we ordered chicken wings. Or four boxes of garlic bread for that matter.”
“A lot of it is included within the voucher code you gave us, and we’re currently giving free garlic bread for each pizza you order,” the guy said, shrugging, before he headed down the stairs.
We all stared at the pizza tower, as I laid it on the ground – my arms were about to fall off. Our neighbours hadn’t left and I thought, What the hell, let’s just make friends.
“Would you like to join us for dinner?” I asked, looking at the huge stack of pizzas. I then cursed myself – I mean, I was all for Maisie and Stef, but I really, really hoped they would be able to talk. They were so weird! Just standing there, gazing at each other and not saying a word, looking like they’d just fall unconscious any second.
“Do you have beer?” Dru asked.
I shook my head apologetically. Dru shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Pizza’s fine by me.”
“Me too,” Ash said. He then nudged Dark Curls. He winced, exactly the same as he had done last time.
“Me too,” he said weakly.
I bent down to pick up the pile of boxes, but Ash quickly helped me.
“Honestly, it’s fine,” I said.
He flashed his gorgeous grin – I felt light-headed and wasn’t fast enough to argue back. We trooped into our flat, ready to start our dinner with our neighbours.
I placed my boxes on the round, glass coffee table in the centre of our lounge, and Ash carefully placed his next to my stack. We circled round the table – it only occurred to me as we had sat down the total cringe-ness of it. We were all sitting in pairs; Jay and Nathan, Charlotte and Dru, Maisie and Dark Curls (duh) and Ash and me.
We all dug in, silently. Some might have said it was awkward – eight grownups eating pizza takeaways in complete and utter silence, but for some reason, I didn’t feel at all awkward. As Dru was taking alternate bites out of two different types of pizzas, he decided to introduce himself properly.
“We’re neighbours but we don’t really know each other well,” he said. “Well, I’m Dru. Andrew Francis Wakely, actually… um, yeah, I’ve got some French in me… well, not really – oh just forget it.”
We all exchanged names – I finally found out Dark Curls’ name. Stefan, only he preferred to be known as Stef. Hilarious how when he was introducing himself, he looked like he was only introducing himself to Maisie, blanking out the rest of us. Cheers.
“What are you all doing in London, then?” Dru asked, slurping a glass of Coke.
What a question – I was well curious on what they all did for a living. Considering I thought all they did was make noise, but that probably wasn’t the case…
Jay went first. “I major English and I’m an intern at a journalism office.”
I decided it’d be safe for me to go next. “I’m at Imperial.”
It was then Maisie’s turn, really, but she didn’t say a word. “She’s majoring in History,” Jay said for her.
Dru looked over in Maisie and Stef’s direction and then sighed. “Can you two speak to each other? It’s painful to watch you two sit there silently,” he said.
My thoughts exactly.
Stef then held his hand out to Maisie.
“Hello, Maisie,” he said as steadily as he could, his voice wobbling slightly. “My name is Stefan James Donald John Abingdon. Do you have a boyfriend?"
Well, I'm guessing Dru wasn't expecting that to break their silence.
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Noisy Neighbours (The Midnight Beast Fanfic)
JugendliteraturNatalie, Maisie and Jay have recently moved into their new London flat expecting peace and quiet, but soon enough, they discover their noisy neighbours are definitely one of a kind...
