The Damsel and the Musketeers(ON HOLD)

Chapter Three

Every morning that I got to visit one of the boys, my routine was the same. Get up; take a shower, dash into my closet, clothes flying everywhere. Then change, makeup and hair, and then run out of the door to either the boys’ car or down the street. I never woke up on time. I always said, next time, I will set an alarm. I never did.

So that is exactly how my morning went when I was going to go visit Landon. I swept my long hair up into a messy bun, not caring that it should be neat when I visited him. I shrugged on a blazer over a tank top, not bothering to even look for fancy shoes, just slipping on combat boots. Landon’s parents were not going to be home. It seemed that every time I went to go have lunch with a family, I never did.

In the beginning, I did. All three of their families were home whenever I came round when I first had to start visiting them weekly, I thought, almost tumbling down the stairs. I had seen Landon’s car pull up just before bolting out of my room, so I raced out the door, not even bothering to say good bye.

I skipped over to Landon, always being polite and getting out to greet me. I strolled up, holding out my arms for his normal hug. He repeated the action and pulled me into him, then picking me up and spinning me in a circle. I started laughing “Landon! Put me down! This was fun when I was five!” I heard him chuckle in my ear “Oh yeah? Then why are you laughing so much?”

“Touché, Landon, touché.”

He let me down, and then escorted me over to the passenger side, opening my door, and closing it after I got it. I watched his lolloping walk back to his side, on his long legs. Out of the group, he was the most athletic, yet also the most technology savvy. Landon didn’t fit in with the jocks at school, or the computer geeks, so that’s how he became friends with Eli and I.

We drove for a bit, talking about normal things, the weather, work, college. “Yeah, I’ve gotten a few scholarships for some places, but I’m not sure where I want to go yet.” Landon said, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to look at me. I made a face at him, knowing that he would not make a choice until I made a choice about who I was going to marry.

I controlled these three boys’ futures.

*********

Ten minutes later, we were at Landon’s apartment. We walked in, waving to the doorman, and walked towards the stairs to go to the third floor. When we got into the apartment I took off my shoes and bent down to pet Landon’s black lab, Bandit, to get covered in kisses from him. I started to giggle, used to this treatment whenever I came over.

After finally getting Bandit distracted, Landon and I headed into the living room where we plopped down on the worn carpet, leaning against the couch. “What game do you want to play today?” I asked Landon. He was tech savvy, so he enjoyed video games to learn about the graphics, controls, and cheats. He had ones as ancient as something called a Nintendo 64, another that was as old called an Xbox360, and the newest games today that included Modern Warfare 27.

He looked at all the games longingly, he could never decide easily. “Hm.. I think... I think I’ll go with Xbox360, we haven’t played that in a while, have we?” I laughed, knowing that we hadn’t played it since he got the latest games that we had been playing for the last couple of visits. “Sure thing,” I smiled over at Landon.

He crawled over to the TV and plugged the Xbox in and said absentmindedly, “Call of Duty?” I laughed again, “You know me too well.” He laughed too, after getting everything set up and handing me a control, he pulled up the game, right where we had left off from a few weeks before. “You take front, I’ll protect your flank.” He instructed me. I nodded, already absorbed in the game.