All about the Girls Ch. 02

I stopped on my way to sprinkle some food into our sixty gallon fish tank, trying to convince myself that I wasn't doing what I very well knew I was doing. I looked at the bookshelves for a minute as if scanning it for a book to read and then gave up and went through the laundry room and pulled open the door that led to the garage. It was empty, though I had honestly expected as much and I let the door close as I attempted to ignore the heaviness that settled in the pit of my stomach. I moved back through the house, hands in my pockets and staring at my shoes, pointedly not looking at my three friends as I headed toward my room. I shut the door, locked it and sat down on my bed, eyes still down, elbows on my knees, hands hanging limply in front of my knees.

I glanced over at my clock and was shocked that it was just barely one in the morning; we must have left the bar at just after midnight to have made it home so early. I stayed there, sitting on the edge of my bed and staring blankly at the wall for a while, letting time slip by and not really paying attention to it. I finally got up, kicked off my shoes and flipped off my light then sprawled out on my bed, fully clothed and let my eyes close after a last glimpse at the clock that let me know it was about to be four in the morning. It took a bit but I finally drifted off into a fitful and restless sleep that was plagued by nightmares I hadn't dealt with since I was around nine.

I woke up with a start to someone banging on my door, peeked one eye open toward the blinds to confirm that the sun was at least up and then glanced at the clock. It was just after eight and I had barely been asleep for four hours which so wasn't enough to leave me in a good mood. The banging came again and I growled a little at the offending noise which was giving me a headache so damn early in the morning. I heaved myself into a sitting position on my now tangled blankets and sheets and realized I must have tossed and turned a lot throughout the night to have destroyed it so thoroughly. I leaned over, flipped the lock on my doorknob and then pulled it open and got a look at James through the one eye that was actually completely open.

"What?"

"Get up."

"No. Go away."

"Lux, seriously, stop being all gruff and get your ass out of bed."

"Why? Why do I need to get up right now? Seriously James, I didn't get to sleep until after four and I'm exhausted dude."

"Should have known you'd pick someone up last night. Angel said you didn't, you just brought them home but they fell asleep around one thirty, I told her you probably went back out and met someone. You dog." I didn't bother correcting her assumptions, not wanting to get into what had managed to keep me up until such an unreasonable hour if not wild sex with a total stranger. She grinned as she reached over and gave me a little shove on the front of my shoulder that, had I been standing, might have actually toppled me. "Well, whatever, that's your own damn fault. Right now, I just got off the phone with Cara, she wants me to come over for the day and bring you and Angel." Cara was James' rather adorable cousin who I had never bothered to tell her I hooked up with in our sophomore year of college. She wasn't gay, at least, not once we finished school, you know those girls, the 'gay until graduation' crowd, she was one of those. I chuckled a little and just nodded to let her know I was agreeing to the ordeal and then pushed up off my bed to get ready.

It took me all of thirty minutes to be showered, dressed, have my hair styled and be out in the living room waiting on Angel with James. Being who she was, it always took her at least twice as long as the two of us to get ready, but we were used to it after so many years. She finally joined us and we all headed out and piled into James' car without any discussion about it. I let Angel have shotgun, needing some time in my own head and knowing that the drive would be perfect. As I expected, she and James fell into a conversation that was punctuated by the top forty hits coming through the speakers around us. Thoughts spun around in my brain and while nothing settled in for long I did spend quite a bit of that time wondering what was going on with Court. I decided that I needed to let it go until I could actually talk to her by the time we pulled up to Cara's house.

We exited the car and made our way up to the front door, James and Angel joking and poking each other the whole way. They had always behaved a bit like sisters with each other and normally watching them would make me laugh but today I just didn't have it in me. I was a prisoner to my own thoughts and it really sucked if I was being honest about it all, not that I was being very honest about much these days, even with myself. Definitely not with myself. I heaved out a sigh and hurried to catch up to my friends as James rang the doorbell and worked to get my expression under control. I was right behind them with what I hoped was an acceptably believable fake smile on my face when Cara opened the door.

She welcomed us and then I somehow managed to make it through five hours at her house without anyone realizing that I didn't really want to be there. We finally caught a break when James said we needed to get going because we had things to finish before the work week started again the next day. We slipped back into our seats in the car and turned toward home, the conversation starting up in the front seat again as I drifted back into my head. I was so distracted that Angel had to open the door and shake me a little to get my attention when we pulled into the driveway and parked. I snapped back to the moment and gave her a slightly embarrassed smile before exiting the car and going about my usual Sunday night routine on auto-pilot.