Apartment 311

Ch | 33

Brooklyn Noelle Brankovich

Chapter Thirty-three: "Two Alice's in Wonderland"

Dressed in a pair of blue paper bag shorts, a white trim cami, and low top white Converse, I got ready to start my day.
Because I was in the mood, I did my makeup and loosely curled my hair.

I bopped down to Cassie's just to say hi. We agreed to be friends and I wanted to bring that to life. Sure we hung out once already, and work together, but I was determined to break her out of that shell.
I can't keep hanging out with Noah, things are getting more and more intense every time we see each other.
Like, why didn't he kiss me the other night? I don't know, everything is just weird as is. Though I'm sure whatever's meant to be, will be.

I passed Gael in the hallway, he was leaving his place while I was going to knock on the door across from his.

"What's up, Harlem?" he asked me.

My eyes rolled at the nickname that stuck since the cruise. "Hello, Gail," I said, purposely mispronouncing his name.

Gael laughed. "Where are you going?"

"To Cassie's, duh," I jested. Gael knew I wasn't meaning to be rude, that's just how I liked messing with him.

"For what?"

"Geez," I snarled, "what's with the third degree? Am I not allowed to hang out with her?"

"She never hangs out with me," he commented, playfully being jealous.

My shoulders shrugged. "Ask her out sometime," I suggested innocently. I'm sure he wanted to, anyway.

Gael shook his head, getting all serious. "Can't. The policy, remember?"

I rolled my eyes. Everyone's so serious about this lame work policy that staff can't have any sexual interactions, but that's at every job, and people still do it. I don't see what the problem is as long as it doesn't affect our performance on the job.

"Okay, Mr.Employee-of-the-month," I joshed, bringing my knuckles to the front door of apartment 306.

"You're funny. What are you gonna do, go shopping, or something?" asked Gael, chewing down on his gum.

"You ask a lot of questions, let me ask you one: what's up with Noah?"

Gael looked more intrigued. "Do I smell a crush?"

"Gael, I'm twenty-two, I don't have crushes. I just wanna know, like, what's his deal?"

"I don't know, didn't you two go on a date the other night? Ask him," he told me. I see why they're so close, him and Noah, they (almost) act just alike.

I made a face at Gael. "I'm going to tell Cassie bad things about you. And we did not go on a date," I insisted. It was simply two friends getting food and having conversation for like an hour.

"So, you're going to lie? I'll tell Noah you have crabs. And that is a date, by the way," he countered. We blinked at each other until I cracked first. Gael laughed and said he'd see me around.

Cassie finally opened up. "Brooklyn," she sounded shocked to see me, "hey."

"Hey, Cassie. Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure," she agreed, letting me walk past. I stepped further inside and admired what she's done with the place. It screamed Cassie, the way she made it her own.

"Is everything okay?" she inquired. It was funny because I could tell that was her way of asking what I wanted.

"I just wanted to see if you wanted to hang out. I haven't seen much of California, yet."