Hated, Dated, Fated

Chapter 23 - Dated

ALEXA

I woke up to my phone ringing incessantly. Groaning I lifted my head of my warm moving pillow –

Warm moving pillow? What the hell?  

I glanced down and sighed with relief when I realized that I had fallen asleep on Caleb’s chest. I started giggling to myself, then grabbed my phone before it woke Riley and Caleb up as well.

“Hello?” I croaked out, my voice still filled with sleep.

“Alexa? You okay?” a concerned voice crackled down the line.

“Alex? Yeah I’m fine,” I coughed, clearing my throat. “You just woke me up, that’s all.”

I heard Alexander sigh in relief and I wondered what had happened.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he said, urgency trickling into his voice.

We talked for a while more before agreeing on meeting for lunch. Surprisingly, he even invited Caleb.

“Caleb, come on, I have classes today,” I grumbled, trying to get him off my bed so I could prepare for school.

He grimaced and stretched out like a cat, his muscles rippling as he pulled himself taut, loosening his sleeping body.

“You look like a cat like that,” I said, giggling lightly as he got off my bed.

“Mmm and you look delectable in my shirt,” he said, eyebrow rising suggestively.

I laughed and shooed him out of the room, getting myself ready for my three-hour long tutorial.

Hopping into the shower I turned the heat up and groaned as the hot water hit me, relaxing and warming up my stiff body. Coming out in a billow of smoke I walked over to the closet, wrapped in a towel and picked out my clothes for today.

“It’s monochrome Monday!” I heard a muffled shout from Riley, who was just dragging herself from the bed.

Laughing I grabbed my black tank top and shorts, then an oversized white button down shirt that looked suspiciously like one of Caleb’s, seeing as it was ridiculously huge.

“You look cute. Totally rocking the boyfriend shirt look,” Riley said, smirking at me as she straightened her hair.

I stuck out my tongue at her and we both made our way to our classroom.

“Gosh I love Psychology!” Riley jumped around excitedly as we exited our tutorial. 

I nodded, laughing in agreement. Ms. K was one of our favourite lecturers. She made our lessons fun and interactive with various experiments and projects. Today we were given a project brief where we had to do an experiment based on the psychology concepts we had learned in class and Riley and I were bursting with various ideas. We chatted easily about possible experiments we could conduct while we made our way to Caleb’s car so I could go meet Alex for lunch.

“You sure you’ll be okay?” Riley asked as I got into the car, her eyes filled with worry.

“Yeah of course. Even if anything goes wrong Caleb is coming with me,” I said, placing my hand on hers, silently assuring her that I was going to be fine.

“Hey baby girl,” Caleb said easily, kissing me lightly.

I knew he was trying to be calm for me but he was nervous and very apprehensive about this meeting.

“Hey player,” I teased, trying to diffuse some of his tension.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, hands tightening on the wheel. I sent him a worried glance, then told myself to take a deep breath.