Chapter 6 #2
Those perfect, captivating grey eyes.
“I think we need a change of scenery,” she says, closing her laptop with her unoccupied hand. “I’m starting to have a hard time focusing.”
Starting? I don’t think I ever could.
“We could go back to my place.” I give her the smile, the one that says ‘give me a chance, sweetheart’.
My heart thunders in my chest, I want her to meet my friends so badly…
well, formally meet them. They’d love her, and —knowing my friends— once they get their minds set that she’s one of us, they won’t let her go.
Sasha quirks a brow, “are you hitting on me?” Her arms cross, sending a bolt of excitement through me. I love it when she gets a little sassy with me, and I love it when she plays.
Forcing myself to play it cool, I lean back in my chair and wink at her, “only if you want me to be.”
A beautiful laugh echoes throughout the coffee shop, and with it, my heart drops to my asshole. “Careful, Johnny Davis. You’re starting to sound like you might be into me.”
“That obvious, huh?” I smirk.
She laughs again, throwing her bag over her shoulder and reaching out a hand, “let’s go, lover boy. We have work to do.”
When I pull out my keys to give her a ride to my place, she goes completely white —again. Her hands start to shake, and she stares at the car like it’ll start rolling and hit her.
“Can we walk?” She says quietly, “I like the fresh air.”
Nodding my head, confused and a little worried, I motion for her to lead the way.
Being around Sasha is so easy, everything comes naturally when I’m with her. There’s no weird tension —other than the obvious because I’m so down bad for this girl and she doesn’t have a clue— and there’s no awkward silences.
We can talk for hours and never run out of anything to say.
It’s weird how quickly her personality changed, she went from this shy little thing to a sassy, headstrong woman.
But it’s only ever with me, as soon as someone else comes into the picture, she retreats into herself and tries to hide in the shadows.
My hand rests on the door handle when she grabs my wrist, halting me in my tracks. I turn towards her, trying my very fucking best not to look down at where she’s touching me because staring at her hand would be weird.
But holy fuck, she’s touching me.
“What’s up, Pixie?”
Nice, playing it cool.
She doesn’t let go as she takes a breath and looks up into my eyes. There’s so much she wants to say, I can see it, but nothing comes out. Instead, she nods her head for me to continue, only letting go of my wrist once we cross the threshold.
“Honey, we’re home!” I yell out, laughing when my roommates peek their heads around the corner. They’re sitting on the couch, staring at the girl behind me with more curiosity than I think is necessary.
I feel Sasha stiffen behind me, so I step in front of her and point to my friends accusingly, “play nice. Don’t be assholes.”
“I’m offended you think we’d be assholes to your new hookup,” Blair scoffs. “We would never cockblock you.”
I look back at her, seeing the blush starting to creep onto her cheeks and whip my head back to Blair. “That. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t do that.”
August grins from the far side of the couch, “well, would you like to introduce us to your not-hookup then?”
I know what’s going through that head of his, and I need him to stop. We both know she’s way more than a hookup, I’m just hoping he can keep his trap shut.
Stepping off to the side, I wrap my arm around Sasha’s shoulders and force her to stand next to me. She shrinks slightly under the gaze of my idiot friends, but gives a sheepish smile regardless.
“This is Sasha, my…”
“Friend,” she blurts. “I’m his friend.”
My heart sinks to my asshole. Thinking we’re in the friend zone is one thing, but having her say it out loud and in front of my friends is completely different. How many blows can a man take to his ego in one day?
I look down at her, masking my disappointment with a gentle smile. She returns it.
Claire comes skipping around the corner, a bright smile on her face, “did I hear we have a new friend?”
“Clarity, this is Sasha. Sasha, this is our residential ray of sunshine,” I pull the raven-haired girl closer to my friends, “she’s the glue that keeps us together.”
August snorts, “more like keeps y’all from ripping each other’s balls off.”
Miller smiles from the centre of the couch, waving towards us. “Hi Sasha, I’m Miller. Don’t listen to these idiots, I promise we’re not all like that.”
Sasha’s shoulders seem to ease a bit at that, and I thank my lucky stars that Miller’s here to offset my other friends’ personalities.
I finally let go of Sasha when Claire takes a couple of steps forward, wrapping her own arms around my Little Pixie and guiding her towards the living room.
“I’m so happy there’s another girl, living with this much testosterone really weighs me down sometimes.
” She sends a wink towards the boys, who all roll their eyes in dismissal.
Lucas’s eyebrows knit together before he opens that big fat mouth of his, “aren’t you the girl who puked all over Claire’s bathroom?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Oh my god, it is” Blair howls, “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”
Sasha looks like she wants to crawl into a hole. Surprised, but wants to crawl into a hole.
Luckily, my favourite brunette comes to the rescue.
Claire gives the look of death to Lucas before a sweet, innocent smile creeps onto her face. “Did I ever tell you guys about the movie Lucas and I-“
“Shut up!” He yells, “you promised you wouldn’t say anything.”
Everyone takes their eyes off of Sasha, now distracted by whatever story Claire was about to share. It must be good if Lucas is telling his girlfriend to shut up.
They bicker, but telling her to shut up is something he would never do. He loves Claire more than anything, and with everything she’s been through, he tries to be gentle… tries being the key word.
August jumps up from his seat, throwing his arms around Lucas and covering the jack-ass’s mouth. “No, no, continue, Claire. We want to know all about the movie you and Lukie-poo watched.”
Muffled curses come from behind August’s hands, and I see Sasha start to relax again, knowing the heat is off of her.
Claire winks at me before turning, saying to Sasha in a hushed tone, “don’t worry, the dogs have found a new bone to chew on.”
Sasha mouths a silent thank you to Claire, letting loose a deep breath and closing her eyes for a single second.
As the guys all yell over each other —desperate to know this new secret— Steph comes strolling down the stairs and looks at all of us, confused, “what the hell is going on down here?”
“Claire was just telling us about a movie that her and Lucas watched,” Miller laughs.
I try not to smile at how utterly stupid my friends are. They’re probably scaring the living shit out of Sasha right now, but at least they’re being themselves. If she has any hope of surviving in this group, she should know what she’s up against right off the bat.
“Oh, you mean when he cried during The Princess Bride?”
The words barely leave Steph’s mouth before we’re all dying of laughter. I have to physically stop myself from falling to the floor, because oh my god that’s so good.
I would give a fucking kidney to see that in person. I really hope he’s an ugly crier.
August finally lets go of Lucas’s face as he tumbles off the couch, clutching at his stomach, giving our friend the chance to yell at his girlfriend. “You told Steph?” He yells.
“Sorry,” Claire shrugs, “she’s my best friend.”
Despite wanting to watch how the rest of this plays out, I decide that making sure Sasha isn’t scarred for life is more important. So while my friends are distracted, I tap her shoulder and motion for her to follow me. We get all the way up to my room before I notice how truly upset she is.
Her fingers run through her hair over and over again, and she starts to scratch at her wrist like she did the morning after that party.
It starts to turn bright red, and rather than pull out a sarcastic —yet funny— remark, I take a hesitant step towards her and keep my voice soft, “what’s going on, Pixie?”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” She yells, hands fisted at her sides.
Well, okay then.
I smile at her softly, “because every time I see you on campus, you’re always darting to your next class.” And because your face is so otherworldly, I don’t have a better word to describe it.
“Now,” I say, sitting on my bed and patting the spot next to me. “I know that’s not what’s really bothering you, so if you’re done ripping my head off, would you like to talk about what’s going on?”
Please open up to me. Let me help you.
Sasha sighs, taking the seat next to me. The stress is radiating off of her, I can feel it even as she starts to calm down.
My fingers itch to comfort her, rub circles on her back, but I know I need to keep my distance for now. This one scares easily.
“They remember me,” she whispers. When I look at her confused, she continues. “People don’t tend to remember me, so when they did —and only because of something so… gross— it felt like some sort of sick joke. I felt like the butt of the joke.”
Still not following.
She sees that I’m lost and flops down on the bed, hair fanning out around her. “Your friends don’t like me.”
I can’t help but laugh at how utterly ridiculous that is. Lying down next to her, propping my head up so I can look her in those captivating eyes, I smile. “They like you, probably a little too much if you ask me.”
“What are you talking about?” she groans, “all they did was stare at me, make jokes, or ignore me completely.”
I give her a look, “exactly. My friends were being themselves, if they didn’t like you, they’d wave hello and go right back to what they were doing.”
A small smile peeks out, and pride ripples through me when I see it. “Really?”
“Really.” I grab her hand, hoping she doesn’t find it weird or something, “they know you’re important to me, and thus you’re automatically important to them.
” She looks up into my eyes, staring at me until I finally break the trance because one second longer and I would kiss her.
“Ready to work?” I ask, sitting back up and rummaging through my bag.
“Yeah,” she says quietly, like her thoughts are preoccupied with something else.