I turn over at the sound of birds chirping outside. I'm not sure what time it was and I don't even care. I just wanted to sleep a little longer. It's been a while since I stayed in bed late.
I snuggle into my duvet and roll to the side, only to get pushed back by someone. An arm drapes around my torso when I roll back to my previous position. At first, I didn't give it much thought and snuggle closer. Then it hits me. The strong smell of cologne. It alarms every fiber of my body and my eyes shot open.
It takes me a while to adjust my vision with the morning light, but as it starts to get clearer, I cut out the figure next to me.
My eyes fall off the socket.
"What the hell!" I push the person and he falls off the bed, taking me along with him.
We land on the floor with a 'thud' and yelp.
"Bloody Mary!" Someone screams from under us.
I try to readjust my position but Ashton is still holding me tightly. He opens his eyes and blinks them to adjust in the daylight. We might've stayed like this longer but something groans from under him. With a gasp, I roll over to the side and so does Ashton.
Miles shoots up from the floor. "Are you two fucking crazy?" He yells. "You could've killed me."
'Yes,' my brain responds automatically but I choose not to answer the question. So does Ashton. He's not even fully up yet.
Miles crosses his arms and looks around my room in astonishment. His eyes land on Grace first, who's still sleeping on my bed. Then they move to Owen who's sleeping on the duvet to Nyako and Jason who're sleeping on the floor.
He looks back at us. "How did we all end up here?" His eyes move around again. "Did-"
Ashton raises a hand to stop him. "Don't," he says. "Please, don't make me recall the night. In fact, if possible, just pretend it never happened."
I kind of agree with him. It's better if we pretend last night never happened. We're not even sure who ended up where. All of them were already passed out by the time Ashton and I reached my house. So we had to carry them all in without waking up Kat or any of our neighbors and let me tell you, it was not a fun experience. At all.
In fact, never try it at home. Or anywhere else as a matter of fact.
Ashton yawns beside me and scratches his arms, revealing a bit of his toned torso. I try my best not to take a peek. But of course, my traitorous eyes keep going back there.
I wonder how he managed to look this good even when he's still half asleep.
"Snow?" Ashton shakes me. I look up at his face. It looks like he said something and didn't hear it, as I was busy staring at something in particular.
The corner of his lips turns up and he gets off the floor.
It's something past nine in the morning. It's Saturday-thankfully- and we don't have school today because we worked on this week's issue on Thursday. Mrs. Roth thought it would be better if we took the day after Halloween off. Turns out, she was right.
From what it looked like last night, there's no way they could've made it there today.
I look at Miles but he's sleeping on my bed now.
I get off the floor and look around. Everything looks like the way we left it last night, everything except for Ashton.
"What were you doing on my bed earlier?" I ask the boy in guilt.
He shrugs. "The floor was very uncomfortable?"
I roll my eyes. "The floor was supposed to be uncomfortable, that's why I told you to go back home."
Ashton gasps dramatically. "You want an injured guy to drive home all by himself?" He fake sobs.
"Well, you seemed fine when you drove Owen's car here and carried at least four guys who weigh more than two hundred pounds inside."
He leans down so we're at the same eye level. "And don't worry I behaved well, don't want to spoil our first time." He whispers in my ears. Before I can proceed with his words, Ashton leaves the room.
Once the reality dawns back to me, my cheeks fluster and I chase after him.
"What was that supposed to mean?"
Ashton ignores me and enters the bathroom. I follow him in.
"Do you happen to have a spare toothbrush?" He asks.
"Yes, look in the cabinet," I open the cabinet door and show him. "We'll need more of them."
He turns on the faucet as water starts to flow out. His eyes meet mine in the mirrors and he winks. "I know, that's why I'm up early."
I roll my eyes again. Of course, he thought about it already.
Before I can ask again about the comment he made earlier, we hear a gasp from behind me.
"What the fuck?!" We turn around and find a very pale Kat standing by the door as she points a finger at us shakily. "Why-why are you in the bathroom with him?" She asks. "And-and why's he shirtless?"
I blink to look at the sight around us. Indeed, we're now inside the bathroom. How did we even get in here? I turn to my side and find that Ashton has taken off his shirt long ago.
When did he even do that?
I shrug and turn to my sister to explain the things, just as another figure appears behind her.
Kat turns around and screams again.
"Kat-"
"I don't even wanna know!" She yells. "Mom and Dad have left only last night and there are already two shirtless guys roaming around our house?"
I try to explain the situation to her but she beats me to it. "And can anyone please explain it to me why Payton and Luca are sleeping on our couch downstairs?" she asks. "At first I thought I was dreaming but now-but now this!"
She screams again and runs inside her room. We hear the door locking from inside.
I sigh and turn to the boys in front of me. "Happy now?"
Two very shirtless Ashton and Tristan put their hands up in surrender.
"I was still in my Halloween costume and it was so hot and then Promy was taking forever in the bathroom downstairs," Tristan explains himself.
I turn to Ashton. "What?" He asks. "It's hot, okay?"
I roll my eyes. Boys and their wearing no-shirts urge.
"Anyway nice chat but he's my cue to take over the bathroom ASAP."
Before I can tell what's happening, Ashton pushes me out of the bathroom and bolts the door.
Tristan groans and falls down on the floor.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
"Care to tell us what happened last night?" Grace asks once we all gather around the kitchen counter as Ashton makes green tea for everyone. He said it helps to recover from the hangover. I'm not sure if any of them believed him but they took whatever he had to offer them to get rid of the headache.
Kat had another fit when she saw everyone and traumatically carried her breakfast upstairs. Grisbee also chose to ignore the crowd and follow her to her room.
"How much do you remember?" I ask Grace sipping my coffee.
"I remember arriving at Micheal's house with Miles, and then someone offered us drinks, and-yeah that's pretty much all," Grace says.
"Me too," Jason says, massaging his temples. Among all of them, he's having the worst hangover. Maybe it's because he doesn't drink much. Everyone else says they can't remember much after they arrived there.
So Ashton and I explain everything to them. We also tell about the rumor Dylan heard.
"So that dipshit wasn't fooling around," Miles mutters.
I nod. "We really should've given it a second thought before tossing the idea away."
"You tied us up?" Cora says massaging her wrists. "That's why they hurt so much."
"It's not from tying you with a rope," I tell her. "It's from trying to sleep on that tiny couch with someone," I smirk, remembering the way Ashton and I found them in the morning. They were cuddling on the small couch together. They looked so cute that we had a hard time resisting ourselves from waking them up.
Cora blushes as Asher spits out his tea.
Ashton elbows me and I giggle. They looked so cute together. Unlike Derek and me. He hasn't replied to my texts yet.
I sigh and try to forget him for the weekend. We can take care of him on Monday.
"So what do you wanna do the rest of the day?" Luca asks to lean back.
"How about we try to find out what happened at the party yesterday?" Jason suggests.
"Yes, we definitely should," Bonnie says. For someone who's very new in our crew, she looks too excited about it.
Am I the only one who finds her eagerness a bit odd? I shake the thought away.
I shouldn't judge.
"How about we relax in front of the day?" Grace suggests. "I mean after what we went through last night, our bodies deserve a break."
"I second her. All we do is work these days?" Payton says. "I want a day off."
"I agree with them," Ashton says. "I'm sure we'll have plenty of work on weekends once we grow up, so why not relax now?"
I raise a brow. "You and working on weekends? I thought you'll inherit your father's company."
"You never know," Ashton winks. "Better be ready for the worst."
I sigh. It's impossible to decode him sometimes.
"Yeah sure, Mrs. Roth gave us the day off anyway," Jason says as he massages his temple. "Ugh, does it hurt this bad every time?"
"Welcome to the club man," Luca snorts as Asher and Ashton high-fives him.
"So what's the plan folk?" Miles asks. "What shall we do?"
Cora looks at him. "You want us to spend the weekend together?"
"Sure why not? It'll be cool," Miles says. "I mean if you don't mind."
"No I think it's a good plan," Asher says.
"Uh, I've to go home, Mom will be worried," Bonnie says promptly.
"Sure hun, don't let us hold you here," Grace tells her.
Tristan and Promy also leave because their parents might be worrying too.
"So what's the plan?" Ashton asks after three of them left.
Miles taps his chin. "I was thinking about going out for breakfast." Everyone groans. "Relax, we can have that here."
"How about going to the pool after breakfast?" Cora suggests as I pale. "Kiara's house has a big pool."
Oh no, we can't.
But everyone else agrees with her, leaving no room for me to complain.
"You okay?" Ashton asks as everyone else starts to get up.
"Huh?" I look at him. "No, I'm fine."
I'm so not fine. How can I be fine when I don't even know how to swim? But I can't tell him about it.
It's going to be so embarrassing. Especially when there's a pool in my own backyard.
Now I really hate my parents for buying a house with a pool.
Then an idea pops in my head.
"What are you guys going to wear?" I ask them. "You can't stay in your costume all day."
All the boys are moving around shirtless, but the girls, they're all still in their Halloween costume.
"I can go back home and change," Miles says. "The guys can join me."
"Yes and we can borrow something from Kiara, right?" Cora says.
That's for me to say, bitch.
Ashton pinches my arm. I look at him and he shakes his head.
'Not now,' he mouths.
I cross my arms and sigh. Maybe I can make an exception for today.
"Sure, you can take anything from my closet," I tell them.
"Okay then it's all settled," Ashton says looking around the room. "Is someone missing here?"
Just then, a head pops at the doorway.
"Was anyone calling me?" Owen asks, entering the room with only a towel wrap around his waist.
The whole room turns to chaos.
"The heck!"
"Oh, my virgin eyes!" Miles says.
"What the hell dude?!"
"Have you lost your mind?"
But I calmly watch the purple towel wrapped around his waist.
"Kiara?" Nyako says. Everyone else stops and turns to me.
"Snow?" Ashton calls but I don't look at his way. So he follows my line of vision and pales.
"Owen," I say calmly. "Where did you get that towel?"
"Oh, this?" Owen points at the towel around his waist. "I found this in your bathroom," he says. "It must be nice to have an attached bathroom, right? My brother doesn't let me have the room with the bathroom even though he's away for college now." He keeps going on nonchalantly. "Anyway, I was looking for a pair of pants and a shirt. Do you have any spare one?"
My breathing fastens and Ashton wraps an arm around me. "It's okay Snow," he mutters. "It's just one towel."
"One towel?" I growl. "That's my towel."
Everyone gasps.
"Uh oh," someone says.
I push Ashton away and turn to Owen. "You have only five seconds to run for your life."
Owen's eyes grow wide. "But what have I-"
"Five," I cut him.
"Rip my friend," Nyako mutters.
"But-"
"Four," I keep counting. Owen turns to me.
"Kiara, I'm sure there's some-"
"Three, two, and one!" I count at once and charge toward him.
"Run for your life Owen!" Grace cries. This time Owen listens. He grips the knot of the towel and storms to the back door.
"Wait till I get my hands on you, you filthy fucking bastard!" I yell and chase after him.
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