Just Like Nicotine

Chapter 6

"Wait, wait, wait. Slow down. You actually got the email?" Celia asked impatiently, to which the latter nodded excitedly, a broad smile apparent from ear to ear.

"It's so exciting! I can't wait until next term!" Alaeia exaggerated, her giddiness was overloaded.

I should probably explain, well let's rewind to seven months ago, mid-January. This time was when our adorable Alaeia decided she wanted to sign up to a baking program for fun - of course, she didn't expect the advisors of the program to actually get back to her, let alone accept her.

I'll let you in on a little secret, Alaeia is a streamer! I know, it sounds typical but trust me. She streams every Friday afternoon and bakes a selected pastry or cake, not many people come and watch, but she's happy with the small following she has. Fortunately for her, social anxiety agreed to stay on the down low when she streamed and it helped greatly with her knowing there weren't many people there.

Last Friday she had made her first vanilla cheesecake, this week was going to be apple crumble. Of course Celia helped her out with the streams sometimes thanks to her experience with Will's, and as payment she got to take home some of the baked goods. I can't say that she shared them with Theo and Will, I guess we'll never know if she was kind enough to do so.

Anyway, you're probably wondering why Alaeia was head over heels excited at this acceptance, you see, she'd been planning on advancing her baking skills into larger things - like making a large batch of homemade rocky road from scratch, or learning to make her own custard tarts. Being accepted into the program meant that she could advance a lot faster, and learn more outcomes on the side.

"I'm so glad you got in! At least you'll have something to do for- oh..ow..my god t-that hurts.." Celia started before groaning in a pained tone. She groaned for another few seconds before painfully summoning who I assumed was Will, to which he ran in worriedly.

(Third Person/Will's POV)

I was messing around with my guitar when I heard CeCe shout for me in what I assumed was her in pain. I kid you not, I bolted into the living room to sit with her on the couch.

"You okay? What hurts? Is it the baby?" He asked worriedly, a clear layer of concern plastered on his features. Celia simply groaned in response, throwing her head back in pain. Will could hear the worried comments from a voice echoing from Celia's phone, and after a quick glance he could identify the owner of that concerned voice was in fact the cute girl he met yesterday.

"I'm coming over Celia. If that's okay, of course." He heard the girl say before he nodded seeing as he was in frame of the camera and saw the call end.

She was coming over.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Just short of 45 minutes resulted in a scattered pattern of knocking on the front door, and as Will opened it, an out of breath Alaeia was seen doubled over in front of him.

She mumbled a thank you as he let her in, an uncertain smile resting upon his lips at her out of breath state. He couldn't decide whether he liked seeing this side of her, whether he liked what part of his brain was imagining as she caught her breath. Had she ran the entire way here? Surely not...right?

"Did you seriously run for 45 minutes just to make sure I was okay?" Celia laughed, she was now sat in a comfortable half sitting/half laying position with her feet rested on an overfilled bean bag. Alaeia just nodded with an almost aggressive passion to her cause, to which Celia just laughed and beckoned the girl towards the couch. Alaeia sat cautiously next to Celia, as if she was a bomb ready to explode at any quick movement. Celia on the other hand yanked the poor girl towards her and tackled her in a giant hug whilst mumbling something nobody could quite make out.

"So what actually happened?" Was the first thing said after a good few minutes of silence, the three had been sat comfortably on the couch just quietly watching the tv.

"The pain Celia was experiencing was apparently a set of practice contractions - I think the website said they were called Braxton Hicks or something similar to that." Will answered, Celia seemed to be zoned out. Alaeia nodded in understanding, going back to the silence, except the only difference was now the two had felt less comfortable - like there was something that needed to be said but neither had the courage to in fact do so.

Celia, being the most amazingly blunt out of the three, took this as her time to shine and loudly mumbled the word 'awkward' whilst making sure to slightly drag out the ending.

Will sharply sighed and stood up whilst muttering that he was going to his room and mentioning something inaudible about Alaeia and trudged off. Celia leaned over towards her friend and smirked whilst wiggling her eyebrows.

"What?"