EDITED VERSION: Chapter Eleven

A knock on the door halted me from my work. Sam and I may have ditched class, but I still needed to get my work done. I was just getting on a roll with my manuscript that I needed to complete in a week because finals were fast approaching but everything kept getting in the way. "Nathan I swear to God if you fu-"

I swung open the door to be greeted by someone who was certainly not Nathan. The stranger stared at me with intense blue eyes and his plump lips were upturned in a smirk. "You must be Audrey."

I slightly closed the door so I could quickly shut it in case this stranger decided he spontaneously wanted to kill me. "W-who are you?"

The man laughed as he ran his hand through his dark, raven-coloured hair. "I'm a friend of Nathan's. The name is Hayden."

He held out his hand for me to shake and I gently placed mine in his. "I'd say my name is Audrey, but you already know."

I took another good look at him and a hint of recognition took me by surprise. "Nathan has a picture of you and him in his room. You travelled with him, didn't you?

"Ah yes, down under," Hayden responded with a smile. He looked past my shoulder. "Is it possible I could come in and wait for Nathan to come home?"

I nodded my head and opened the door wider. "Of course! Sorry, I'm crazy scatterbrained at the moment."

Hayden stepped into the apartment and I quickly made my way to the living room in an effort to clean up my mess. Papers were everywhere, pouring off the coffee table and onto the floor. Meanwhile, dictionaries were scattered on the couch and my coffee and leftover Chinese food were left cold by the television. "I am so sorry for the mess."

Hayden let out a velvety chuckle. "Finals, I presume?"

I picked up the last of the papers, being extremely careful not to get them out of order. "Kind of, I have to finish a manuscript for my Creative Writing class."

Closing the dictionaries, I placed all four of them on the now clean coffee table. Hayden came up behind me and picked up a few papers that I had missed. Luckily, they were just some notes. "Sounds tedious."

"Makes me want to want to rip my hair out if we're being honest," I sighed, making my way to the kitchen to make myself another coffee. "Want anything to drink?"

Nathan's friend sat on the counter stool. His piercing eyes stared at me and I couldn't help but think he was intimidating. "Coffee would be nice if you don't mind."

"Coming right up," I said as I started to make the coffee for both Hayden and me. Once it was done, I placed a steaming mug in front of him. "So, Nathan told me you continued to travel after you guys left Australia. Where did you go?"

"Went to Europe, but that was brief," he chuckled. "I ended up coming back to Canada and stayed in BC for a while."

I nodded my head. "It's beautiful in BC. I went there a couple of summers ago with my parents. Personally, I didn't mind all the rain."

Hayden smiled at me in appreciation. "Glad someone agrees with me."

The door swung open and Nathan's voice sounded. "Ed sent me home early because business was slow. How about a pizza prin-" He stopped in his tracks, looking completely baffled. His eyes darted from Hayden and me. "What the hell is going on?"

"Well it's good to see you too, bestie," Hayden laughed. He stood from the counter stool and walked over to Nathan, who still looked utterly confused. "I decided it was time to come home."

Nathan smiled with pure joy and dropped his gym bag. Walking over to Hayden, gave him a hug. "It's about damn time!"

"Yeah," Hayden said, he gave him a pat on the back. "Missed having a place to call home."

Nathan and Hayden went back to the living room and started to talk animatedly to one another. I, on the other hand, sat on the stool in the kitchen that Hayden sat on earlier and watched them talk. Nathan stared at his best friend intently, with a smile plastered on his face the whole time. He looked happy and genuinely relaxed, which was a nice change to see compared to his broody playboy demeanour he presents himself ninety percent of the time.

Stopping the conversation, Nathan turned to me. "Hey princess, when do you think Darian will be home?"

Hayden's eyes flashed with something, disbelief almost, at my pet name and I let out an awkward cough. "He's at Justin's tonight. If you want the apartment to yourselves for the night, I can go to Samara's."

Nathan scrunched his eyebrows. "No, you don't have to go. We'll order that pizza I was talking about earlier and hang out."

I looked between Hayden and Nathan, checking to see if there was any hesitation about me staying. When I found none, I shrugged. "Sounds good."

***

A couple of hours later, we all sat in the living room with boxes of pizzas everywhere. Nathan and Hayden were on the couch and I sat on the floor staring wide-eyed at the television screen.

"Audrey," Nathan asked slowly, "Are you okay?"

I turned back to see both of the boys staring at me strangely. I tilted my head to the right. "Why on earth would you guys purposely hold a spider that big? "

Nathan and Hayden burst into fits of laughter simultaneously. When the pizza arrived, Nathan had suggested we look at some of their photo albums from their time in Australia. In this one, both of the boys had spiders on them. Hayden had it in his hand, meanwhile, Nathan had let it crawl up to his shoulder with a huge grin plastered on his face. Once he had calmed down, Nate finally answered. "They were a part of a wildlife exhibit. There were handlers there and everything, so there really wasn't any danger."

"Right," I said slowly, turning to face Nathan in disbelief. Handlers or not, all spiders were evil. The next picture came onto the screen and it was the one I had seen in Nathan's journal.

"If you could go anywhere Audrey, where would you go?" Hayden asked, looking intrigued.

I thought to myself for a moment and broke out into a grin. "Everywhere."

"Really?" Hayden cocked an eyebrow. "Everywhere?"

I placed my plate on the coffee table and shrugged. "Why not? I have barely travelled compared to my sister. I would love to someday."

This time it was Nathan's turn to look intrigued. "What's stopping you?"

"What's the point of travelling if you have no one to share the experience with? If I'm going to make special memories, I would want to make them with someone special," I shrugged, picking up another slice of pizza. "Once I find that person, then there wouldn't be anything stopping me."

Hayden nodded his head in understanding and Nathan looked deep in thought. When he realized I was looking at him, he offered me a smile, one that suggested he knew something I didn't.

"I don't mean to suck, but after my day over travelling, I'm kind of exhausted," Hayden said, breaking mine and Nathan's gaze. "Do you mind if I crash?"

"Oh!" I exclaimed, jumping up as I glanced at the clock that read one a.m. I had my psychology class early tomorrow and some sleep would probably be a good idea. "Of course, just let me get you a blanket. I should hit the hay too, having an early lecture and all."

Nathan began putting the pizza boxes in the recycling and helped me put my papers for my assignment in my binder, careful to not mess up the order I put them in as I dug through the linen closet to find Hayden a blanket. Once I found him a nice blanket and a pillow, I handed it to Hayden and turned to Nathan, grateful he was so diligent with keeping my work in order. "Thank you."

Nathan shrugged with a sheepish smile. "It's no problem." We said our goodnights to Hayden and we walked down the hall, Nathan's hand was on the small of my back as we did so, causing me to have this weird fluttering in my stomach. As we reached my bedroom, Nathan said, "Goodnight, princess, have the sweetest of dreams."

***

The next morning, I awoke to someone jumping on top of me. "Rise and shine!"

"What the fu-" I began but stopped when my vision adjusted and I saw Samara sitting on my legs, dressed in a red peacoat, leggings, and knee-high black boots. "You look pretty."

Sam got up off my bed and straightened her jacket out. "Well thank God for that, who's the hottie on the couch?"

I rolled my eyes as I threw my covers off me and padded my way to my closet. "That would be Hayden, Nathan's best friend. I swear it's like having not one but two Nathan's around."

Sam followed me to the closet and picked out my outfit. Grabbing a pair of black skinny jeans and a grey rib knit long sleeve crop top. "Wear this, winter is upon us." She turned around as I got changed, but she continued to talk. "Anyway, having two Nathan's is totally not a bad thing. I could have one and you can have one."

I laughed as I slid on my ankle boots. "You are the worst."

"Hey," she held her hands up in surrender. "I'm just calling it as I see it."

I nodded my head with an amused smile. "Right. Anyway, what are you doing here? I have class in like a half-hour."

Samara waved me off as we walked out of my room. "Just wanted to see if I left my textbook here. Nathan let me in before he went off somewhere."

"Right," I said slowly, searching the living room in an effort to find my bag.

Hayden stirred on the couch and his eyes opened, looking me over with a smirk. "Hey."

I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear as I bent down beside the couch to pick up my bag. "Hey, sorry if I woke you."

Nathan's friend sat up straight and shook his head. "Nah, I was already waking up before you came in." His eyes landed on Samara and he jerked his head. "And who is this beauty?"

"S-" I began but my friend jumped in, holding out her hand. "Samara Jones."

Hayden looked up at her with a grin, so similar to the one Nathan gave me the night I had met him at Ed's. "I'm Hayden."

They looked at each other with such obvious flirtation that I felt the need to leave the room. Backing out of the living room slowly, I point to the door with my thumb. "I'm just gonna head out to my class, feel free to help yourselves with whatever."

Without waiting for a response, I walked out of my apartment and headed to my lecture.