Ready To Run

Chapter 7

It starts to rain as soon as I arrive at my apartment. I open up the door and get inside when there's another lighting strike. I rush to the bathroom to take a shower and change into dry clothes. About 5 minutes after I finish changing, I hear a knock at the door. I walk over to open it, and Nick walks in.

"God Nick! You're soaking wet!" I say while shutting the door and grabbing a towel from the bathroom for him.

"Sup?" He asks, as if he didn't just walk into my apartment looking like a drowned cat.

"Where were you?? I almost was gang raped." I say.

"What?!" He asks.

"Long story. Not really. The stranger from before? It was Harry Styles. He was hiding from the paparazzi or girls or something. One Direction showed up and tried to talk to me." I explain.

"Oh yeah, the Director spoke about it in the meeting. Did you talk to them?" He asks.

"They knew One Direction would be here??" I ask with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, they wanted to visit a whole bunch of places around the U.S. before their tour. If you would've been listening, you would've known." He teases.

"Oh. Yeah. Whoops." I say. Suddenly there's another big crack of lightning, this one bigger than anything I've ever heard.

"I should-" Nick starts for the door.

"No way. You are not going out there. You can stay here?" I offer while stepping between him and the door.

He hesitates. "I guess, if you're okay with it." He says with a smile and a shrug.

"You can sleep on the pullout. I'll go grab some blankets." I say while heading to my room.

I return with a pile of blankets. I set up the pullout and turn on the TV. "Friends" is on.

"Oh yess." He says while jumping on the bed.

I laugh and sit on the opposite side. We stay up watching the Friends marathon for about an hour, laughing our heads off.

"So where'd you go that was so important that you had to leave me to be attacked by a boy band?" I ask with a smirk.

"Oh. About that. Remember that girl from before?" He asks.

"Uhm the one that gave you her number?" I ask.

"Yup! Her name is Alexis, by the way. Well, I went on a date with her. I told you, but you were pretty focused on something." He explains.

"Oh my god! How'd it go?" I ask.

"It went great! She's cool." He says.

"Awesome! Are you going to go on another date with her?" I ask. I truly am excited for him. When I went though my depression stage, Nick's old girlfriend Nikki made him choose between me or her. I told him to choose her, but he broke up with her. He was heartbroken, and I felt extremely guilty. It did make me realize how great of a friend he is, though.

"I don't know..." he says.

"What? Why? You said you had a great time!" I try to get him to think about what he just said.

"I don't want to talk about it. Can we just watch Friends now?" He asks.

"I will never understand boys." I mutter under my breath. I lay down on the opposite side of the couch and slowly begin to drift to sleep. I swear I am half asleep when he says something.

"Remember that night when it got really bad, and you called me over at 2 in the morning?" He says randomly. When we say "it", we mean the depression.

"Of course, how could I forget? You stayed up with me until 7. Nobody else ever did anything like that." I said. "Sorry for making you go through that..."

"I didn't mind it. You needed someone, and I was happy that it could be me." He says.

"Wait- wasn't that the day you and Nikki broke up?" I ask. God, Camden. Is there no filter on you at night?

"Yeah... if I had the choice to do it again, I'd still choose you. Every time." He says while looking at me. I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I lean up and kiss him. He jumps at first, then puts his arm around me and pulls me up towards him. I wrap my arms around his neck and continue kissing him. I can hear the sound of Friends in the background, and suddenly I'm aware if what I'm doing. I pull away quickly and retreat all the way to the opposite side of the pullout bed.

"I- god Nick I'm so sorry. I'm such an idiot-" I say while putting my face in my hands.

"Cam, stop." Nick starts.

"Friends just messes with my emotions and-" I tell him.

"Cam, it wasn't-" he tries to stop me.

"And it's late, I wasn't thinking-" I add.

"Cam, I like you!" He shouts.

I freeze. What? No, he can't. I don't know what to say. UGH. WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME.

"Relax, I know you don't think of me that way... but I don't care." I am drifting back to sleep as he talks. I need to start catching up on my sleep.

"Nicky...." I start. What the hell? Did I just call him Nicky??

"Come here." I say as I pull him into a hug. After a few seconds, I realize that I'm going to fall asleep before I pull out of the hug. I don't know how long I'm out for until I hear Nick.

"I'm sorry Cam." He whispers before I pass out for good, breathing into his shoulder, smelling the strong scent of the cologne I had bought for him last Christmas.