What Happens In Vegas

Chapter 3: Just Us Then

Nany's POV 

It was the morning after Heather and Cooke's huge fight last night over Cooke kissing Dustin. I was sat alone in the kitchen, swirling my spoon around my half eaten bowl of cereal while everyone else was stil asleep in bed. It was the quiet atmosphere that made me feel like last night never happened and we were all back to normal and Adam never left and that bitch Cooke never came. My hopes were high but sometimes my dreams are better than reality. 

After sitting there for a good few minutes I reached over and picked up my packet of cigarettes from across the table. As I was walking towards the door, picking at the wrapping of the cigarettes I heard what sounded like muffled crying coming from Dustin and Cooke's room. I ignored it at first but then I quietly stood besides the arch in the door trying to focus my hearing. I looked under the curtain covering the door and saw that the lights were on. I slowly peeled back the curtain eyeing the room, I looked over at Cooke's bed. The covers moved slightly as I heard the crying sound become slightly louder. 

I pulled the curtains back stepping into the room placing my feet on the carpet softly still focusing on the upset crying sounds coming from underneath the covers.

"Why don't they like me." A raspy voice said filled with heavy yet short breaths. 

"Erm...Cooke?" I said softly forcing myself to walk further into the room sitting down on the edge of Dustin's bed. 

"Oh..hey Nany...I..I...I'm sorry about last night I didn't mean to kiss Dustin..I..I.." Cooke said breathing heavily as I watched her pull the sheets close to her face as she was wiping the mascara off her eyes leaving stains on the sheets.

"Heather said she felt bad about last night...you know...the yelling...the throwing of items..." I look at her hiding under the sheets as I brushed my hair back with my hand. 

"I just wanted you guys to like me." Cooke finally brought herself up looking at me with messy hair and smudged make up, part of me found her quite cute then the other part of me thought what the fuck Nany. 

I stood up and smoothed her hair out with my hands and used my sweater as a wipe to clean up her make up. She looked up at me with her beautiful, glazed over brown eyes giving me what seemed like a half smile, I looked down at her holding back a smile and settled for the resting bitch face. 

I looked away quickly yet let my hands rest on her cheeks.

"So...um...maybe us girls should go out...get to know each other...what do you say?" I asked her making sure I didn't lock eyes with her. 

"Naomi and Heather wouldn't do that." She replied with an upset tone to her raspy voice.

"Then just us?" I said already regretting everything I was saying at this point. 

Cooke smiled a little looking down, then cracked a slight giggle. 

"Are you asking me out on a date." 

"Sure." I sighed with a little laugh thrown in to make the entire experience less awkward. "And No Kyle." I laughed in her direction yet not at her. As she frowned at me for making that statement about her alter-ego I noticed her eyebrow twitch slightly. 

Cooke's POV

I was doing my hair in the mirror waiting for Nany to finally finish doing her make up in the mirror next to me, neither of us spoke, just an eerie silence as Naomi was once again sat on the toilet talking about everything and nothing. 

"Naomi, shut up bro." Nany finally broke Naomi's constant talking. 

I weirdly loved the way Nany said bro, the way her voice cracked half way through each of her sentences, I was weirdly attracted to the little things I noticed about Nany this past week. 

When we was finally leaving, walking down the corridor there was still that awkward lingering silence that filled the air. I looked down at my red, chipped toenails focusing on each step I took as we walked to the elevator. 

"So..tell me more about your soccer?" Nany asked, I knew she didn't care I could hear the fakeness in her voice. 

"Oh well I played in College and I hope to play for the Philippines one day." I accidentally sounded way too excited. I looked up at her grinning feeling stupidly proud of myself, I knew she was ignoring what I was saying. 

"Impressive." She looked back at me, looking into my eyes and smiling warmly. "Sorry I kicked your soccer ball out the window." She reminded me as she pressed the button on the elevator.

"It's fine..I got it back it has my number on it anyway." I laughed awkwardly, the elevator opened finally and in a sweet way Nany stepped to the side to let me in first. 

After an awkward elevator and taxi ride we finally arrived at the resturant. We both ordered Sex on the Beach and a salad. I would look up at her every so often, watch the way her lips wrapped around the straw in her drink, leaving marks of her dark red lipstick. 

"So what are you?" Nany asked "I don't mean in a rude way I mean like ethnicity." I heard the way she regretted saying that.

"Well I'm American and Filipino." I laughed trying to make her feel less awkward about the situation. "What are you?" I said in a sarcastic tone.

"I'm dominican, I grew up with my mom and my step dad...never really knew my biological father, he...he was put in jail before I was born." Nany confessed to me as she stabbed at her salad refusing eye contact with me. 

"I'm so sorry." I didn't know what to say, it felt like Nany was letting her wall down, not a lot, but it was a start.

"...so you dating anybody?" She looked up at me again avoiding talk about her family.

"No, you?" I laughed awkwardly trying to drive the conversation away that similar to how she did with the family topic.

"No...well I did...but we broke up....I mean I broke up with him...for Adam and then....yeah..." Her voice lowered with every word, I looked into her eyes seeing them tear up slightly feeling that something else was wrong.

A few hours had passed realising that we were still sat here, laughing, getting to know each other. I could listen to Nany tell me stories about the past month at the house and her life in general all day. I loved noticing little things about her, I didn't know if it was the amount of drinks that we had or some sort of subconcious feeling but it felt as if everytime we looked at each other, there was a moment. 

It was around 11pm when we finally got back to the hotel. We stumbled in through the front door, laughing about the bicylist crashing into a trash can outside and Nany getting her heel stuck in a manhole cover. The roommates had already left for the nightclub, silence filled the air once more as I sat down on the side of the bowling alley taking off my heels.

"Just us then?" Nany seductively whispered.