Chapter Nineteen: Emma and Will

Kidnap My Heart

Chapter 19: Emma

After we ate, we spent the rest of the afternoon watching TV. Will wasn’t kidding when he said that was pretty much the only thing Eric and Taylor ever seemed to do together. In a situation like this, entertainment options were limited, I suppose, but it was still kind of odd.

As I’d expected, our dinner had been a little too toasty for any of our tastes, but none of us had the heart to tell Taylor that. She was too proud of the meal she’d mostly made by herself. We just let her have that one.

After way too many episodes of Family Guy, Will and I returned to his room—our room, technically—to go to bed, but things weren’t that black and white. No, no, no. We just had to make things difficult for ourselves. Instead of just going to sleep like normal people would, we both became wary of each other and refused to fall asleep.

It made sense. It was our first night sharing a room, and we didn’t exactly have a good relationship. We didn’t trust each other, and both of us had questionable boundaries. I was convinced he would try to pull some idiotic prank like cutting off all of my hair or shaving off an eyebrow or something traumatizing like that. I liked my hair and my eyebrows just the way they were; I wasn’t interested in parting with them.

Since I refused to fall asleep until Will did, I procrastinated as much as I possibly could. I did everything in the book to avoid going to sleep. I kicked Will out of the room and changed into a pair of his cotton pajama pants and a sweatshirt to start my procrastination off. The house got pretty chilly at night, and now that I had access to Will’s entire wardrobe, I wouldn’t have much trouble staying warm.

I went to the bathroom twice, but this backfired on me when Will followed me both times. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he was going to follow Eric’s example and never leave my side. This was going to get really old really fast.

I got two glasses of water, but again, Will followed me. What did he think I was going to do? I wasn’t as stupid as he was. I wasn’t going to hatch an escape plan so half-heartedly.

I gave up trying to go downstairs after that. Instead, I arranged the bed to suit my needs, making sure everything was properly fluffed and looked comfortable. More importantly, I made sure there was nothing in the covers or sheets that would alert me. You never knew with Will.

“You’re not a bed-wetter, are you?” I asked, my lips twitching upwards at the question. Offended reply in 3… 2… 1…

“Of course not! Why would you even ask that? I’m twenty-one, not five.”

I shrugged. “Just making sure.”

He shook his head and continued preparing his own bed. He’d found an old sleeping bag deep inside his closet, but it was too small. His solution had been to use it for the bottom half of his body and use a blanket for the top half. I didn’t think this would work out too well for him when nighttime arrived, but whatever. It was his problem, not mine. I would be nice and warm under a big comforter.

I swear I spent at least ten minutes preparing the bed, but nothing worked. Will was still wide awake. By the time I’d given up on elongating my preparations, he was already tucked into his makeshift bed, but he was nowhere near ready to go to sleep. I was pretty sure he knew what I was trying at; the smirk on his face said it all. He was just as determined as I was to stay awake.

Following his lead, I climbed into the bed and got under the covers, looking over at him with narrowed eyes.

“Man, Rage, you look really comfortable,” Will said. “I bet it’s like you’re in a fluffy wonderland. I mean, I might be biased, but I think my bed is really comfortable. I know you’re probably used to fancy mattresses and shit, but for an average mattress, it’s a nice one. It’s like heaven on earth. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Shut it, Squilliam,” I said, turning my head so it faced the ceiling. I knew perfectly well what he was attempting to do, but it wasn’t going to work. Obviously, he had something planned. There was no way I was going to go to sleep before him.

He raised his hands up in defense, an action I caught out of the corner of my eye. “Hey, no need to snap at me. I understand you need your beauty sleep. I’ll just leave you alone, and you can fall into a peaceful slumber. Sounds nice, huh?”

If looks had the ability to kill, Will would’ve been dead by then. “Peaceful slumber? Is that a death threat?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Just go to sleep.”

I let out a snort. I really needed to stop doing that. It drove my parents crazy, and with good reason. It was so unattractive. “That’s what you want me to do. No way.”

“I’m not gonna do anything to you! If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Of course that’s what I’m thinking. If you didn’t have anything planned, you would be trying to fall asleep. I’m not going to sleep until you do.”

“Well, I’m not going to sleep until you do.”

I crossed my arms and sighed. This wasn’t going to end, was it? After a long stare-down with Will, I groaned and got up, turning the lights on again.

He cried out immediately and shielded his eyes. “Oh, God, the light… it burns…”

“You’re such a child. How are you three years older than me?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Realizing the detail he could go into concerning his birth, I decided my answer was a definite, “No.”

We just sat there for a while, both fighting the temptation to go to sleep and occasionally glaring at one another. After a while, I grabbed Will’s laptop from off of his desk and turned it on.

Will frowned when I typed in his password with ease. “How did you figure out my password?”

“Your password is ‘password.’ It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure something like that out.”

“I thought it was clever…”

“Yeah, well, you’re on your own then, because the rest of the internet would agree that that’s a break-in waiting to happen.”

“What are you even doing on there? I don’t have an internet connection.”

“There must be something that could entertain me, besides your poetry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve had enough of that already.”

He immediately looked over at me. “You saw my poetry?” He looked like he wanted to pass out.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I saw a folder named ‘Poetry’ and knew it’d be a comedic goldmine.”

“They weren’t supposed to be funny,” he complained. “They were honest attempts.”

“I know.” I let out a chuckle. “That’s what makes them funny.”

He continued to grumble a little, but I didn’t care. I started searching through his folders and found a few music videos to watch, but the rest of the videos on there were unwatchable. When I accidentally clicked on one of his other videos—he’d mislabeled it after saving it, I was guessing—it played loudly and caused an awkward silence. I closed out of it as soon as I could, but the damage had been done.

After a few more seconds of dead silence, Will nodded at me and calmly said, “I see you found my collection.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I found it ages ago. It’s not very hidden.”

“Then why did you click?” He shook his head and grinned. “Didn’t know you were into that stuff, Rage.”

“I’m not,” I snapped, heat trickling onto my cheeks against my wishes. “You mislabeled it and it had no thumbnail.”

“Right.”

“Do you need me to show you? I will, if you want.”

“Nope.” He still had that amused look on his face.

“Or I could just throw this computer at your face so you can absorb the information that way and realize you’re being an ass.”

He chuckled. “That won’t be necessary. Relax. I’m just messing around.”

“Whatever.”

Annoyed, I exited out of his documents and started playing games on his computer for a while. He had chess, checkers, minesweeper, and a few card games built into the system. I wasn’t a big fan of games, though, and after an hour of this, I got bored. Will spent that hour either staring at me or staring out at space.

I shut the laptop and involuntarily yawned as I did so. I’d been trying to hold it in, but it finally just burst out.

Will smirked and was about to make a comment when a yawn of his own burst out. He’d attempted to stifle it but failed in the end. Yawns were contagious.

Since neither of us could really make fun of the other for being tired, we settled for having another stare-down, waiting for the other to crack. Will lost the stare-down when I threw one of my glasses of water at him. It wasn’t full anymore, but it had enough in it to get him a little wet.

“That’s cheating,” he exclaimed, jumping backwards.

“I wasn’t aware there were any rules. I wasn’t aware we were even playing a game.”

“Oh, you know what’s going on here. Don’t even.” He disentangled himself from his blankets and stood up, pulling his shirt off with a single movement.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“You threw a glass of water on me. What the fuck do you expect me to do?”

“I expect you to keep your clothes on,” I said, averting my eyes. It wasn’t because I found him repulsive or anything. It was basically the opposite. I didn’t want to enjoy the view. More importantly, I didn’t want to get caught enjoying the view. He would never let me live that one down.

When I risked a glance, I noticed the smug smile he wore. He’d been staring at me the entire time.

I looked him straight in the eye, forcing myself to keep my eyes focused on just his head and said, “Not gonna work, Will. Taking your shirt off and showcasing your stupid six-pack isn’t going to make me cower into my covers and fall asleep.”

I expected him to deny it or something, but instead, he asked, “You counted?”

“What?”

“You called my abs a six-pack. So you counted?”

I shot him a look—it was the same look I always shot him. It was the are-you-stupid look. “I forget you’re intellectually inept sometimes. No one ever counts. Abs are labeled six-packs unless you’re ridiculously ripped and clearly have an eight or ten pack.”

He still didn’t look convinced. I think he just wanted to believe I’d counted. Whatever. If it helped him sleep at night—literally—then he could believe whatever he wanted. I didn’t care.

“You know what I think?”

“What?” I asked impatiently.

“I think you don’t want to admit you’re attracted to me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve openly called you attractive. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“No, it is. Attractiveness can only go so far. It doesn’t take much to be born with good looks. But to make someone like you for who you are? That’s what really matters. And so far?  I’m not impressed.”

“Ah,” he said, lifting his index finger. “But here’s the thing. Attraction is just the first step. The rest of that comes later.”

“Keep dreaming,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Oh, I will,” he said, and he had the nerve to wink at me. It kind of made me want to stab his eye, except that was a bit too morbid, even for me.

Lying back down to avoid his uncomfortable gaze, I unwillingly let out a sigh. I just wanted to sleep, but Will was up to something for sure. Besides, this was war now. Neither one of us wanted to be the loser who crashed first.

***

Will

It was past three in the morning. Considering the fact that I’d barely slept the night before, I was about five seconds away from crashing. I’d heard some more noises the night before, but I didn’t want anyone to make fun of my “hallucinations” so I kept quiet. Sleeping when you knew a ghost was in the room wasn’t an easy thing to do, though, which was why I didn’t really sleep.

Knowing there was no way I’d make it if I didn’t get up, I sat back up and glanced over at Emma. She was lying down, but I could tell she was awake. Her arms were up, her hands extended outwards as she examined her nails. “I need a manicure,” she said, flexing her thin fingers.

She was so busy examining her nails that she didn’t even realize I’d gotten up until I sat next to her on the bed. My weight made the bed sink down slightly, and she glanced over. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, grinning over at her. “I’m pretty hungry, actually, and I could really use a foot massage, and—”

She reached over and smacked me. “Oh, shut up. I wouldn’t touch your feet with a ten foot pole.”

She sat up and scooted away from me; I used this opportunity to scoot closer and make myself comfortable.

“I’m guessing you don’t have a foot fetish then,” I said.

She shot me a look. “What—why?”

I just shrugged. I wasn’t sure why I’d said that, either. The next few hours went exactly like this. I wasn’t sure how we managed to avoid killing each other. We even woke Eric and Taylor up with our yelling at one point. I hadn’t meant to raise my voice, especially not when everyone else was sleeping, but Rage was so infuriating sometimes. She drove me nuts.

“Would you mind shutting the fuck up and letting us sleep?” Eric snapped, glaring at me through the one eye he’d managed to open. The light had probably left him half-blind momentarily. “You know, the thing you should be doing instead of keeping everyone up with your constant bickering?”

Sniffles was squinting both of her eyes in the light, but she still nodded in agreement.

“Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow,” he added, and with that, he marched out with Sniffles on his tail.

We kept our voices down after that, although we did continue arguing, and before we knew it, we realized it was seven in the morning. How the hell had we managed to kill so much time? We’d come upstairs around midnight. Seven hours… Jesus Christ. I was pretty sure that was the longest conversation I’d ever had with a girl, however halted and violent it may have been.  There had never been that much talking when I was with a girl, if you know what I mean.

Emma’s eyes widened when she glanced at the digital clock by the side of my bed. “Jesus. No wonder I’m so tired. When did it get so late?”

“I have no idea…”

We both looked at each other for a minute before coming to an unspoken agreement and collapsing onto the bed. She didn’t even seem to care that she was sharing the bed with me, and I barely acknowledged the fact that she was letting me sleep there. I had only one word playing over and over again inside of my head: sleep.

The last thing I saw before I completely blacked out was Rage sleeping, and the last thing I heard was her thundering snore. I didn’t think girls could snore that loud. Then I met Rage.

God help me.

***

A/N: Working on the next chapter right now and I'm cracking up at how hilariously awkward it is. I love working on this story so much! Always brightens my day.