Don't Hold Your Breath

Chapter 3

That night, Zeke stayed with me and slept on the floor. I had expected him to insist he also sleep on the bed, or kick me to the floor, but he didn't say anything on the subject and instead went straight to making a make-shift bed out of blankets. Nothing was exchanged between the two of us besides an awkward silence that lingered like stale air. It took me a while to fall asleep, but the surprisingly soothing sound of his soft snores soon lulled me to a dreamless sleep.

The next thing I was aware of was a knock on the door that made me sit up abruptly.
"Indigo, are you awake? There's breakfast if you're hungry."

It wasn't Zeke's voice, but the other man who spoke from outside the door. I slowly got up from the bed and made my way over to open the door.

"Good morning!" he said brightly as he saw me. "Breakfast?"

I nodded shyly and he beamed even more, grabbing onto my hand and pulling me off to the kitchen where he sat me down at the table and placed a slice of pizza and cup of coffee in front of me. I gave him a funny look and he shrugged.

"We haven't been to the store recently so it's all we got."

I shook my head in amusement and began to eat the cold pizza. The door opened and I turned my head to see a sweaty Zeke walk in dressed in running apparel.

"And how was the sprint of death?" Dex asked cheerfully.

"It's not that hot outside." Zeke rolled his eyes, wiping some sweat from his face.

"It's already in the 80's, that's too damn hot to be running." Dex told him.

"I'm going to shower." Zeke said, ignoring the jibe and starting down the hall, already stripping off his shirt. My eyes widened at the sight of his bare back and I immediately averted my eyes to looking at the table.

"Wow." Dex chuckled. "I know Zeke's got an awesome bod, but you're so red it's almost as if you've never seen a naked back before."

My face turned even redder, if that was possible, and Dex laughed harder.

"Wait a minute, have you seriously never-"

"Shut up!" I hissed, looking up at him with a glare.

Dex jerked back slightly in shock.

"Now that was more intimidating then I expected." He mused. "Something about your eyes, you're kind of scary."

I blinked at that and looked away from him, taking a drink from my coffee as an excuse to not look at him.

"But seriously, you're how old? Nineteen I think Zeke said, and you've never seen a guy naked or shirtless at the least? Have you never been swimming or something? Did your rich parents leave you in a box for your whole life."

I slammed the cup down a little harder than I meant too, but it shut him up. Without looking at him, I stood up and walked down the hall back to the bedroom. I sat in there until I heard voices coming from the living room, which made me go to the door and open it a crack so I could eavesdrop.

"-then so what?" Zeke asked in a bored voice. "You were probably being annoying."

"No I'm telling you, there was something strange about it."

"We kidnapped the girl, of course she's going to act strange."

"Shut up Zeke, there was something else that was weird about it."