Suicide, Skittles and Skates [✓]

Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

A loud thump followed by a groan of pain woke Alex up the following morning. Even through his stubbornly shut eyes, he could still see the blinding sunlight under his lashes. Managing to pull himself up and wearily shake himself awake, he looked around slowly in confusion at the piles of blankets and pillows before the events of the following night came rushing back to him.

Lacey's party had ended not long after Kalila had kissed him, the house a complete mess and empty other than his group of friends by 3am. They were all too tired to clean up and vowed to do it when they woke the next day. Lacey, along with Tyler, had dragged duvets and pillows and scattered them all over the floor of the living room. They all talked for a while, recalling events of the night and eventually fell asleep on the sofas and floor.

Alex looked over to Hannah who had woken him by toppling off the sofa she had been sleeping on. She groaned again, exhaustion apparent on her face but still somehow managing to look completely put together as usual. She shot him a glare as he laughed a little at her position, crumpled on the floor and rubbing her head where she had landed. "Shut up," she mumbled sleepily as she pulled herself up and went to search for a bathroom.

By the time Alex had climbed out of his makeshift bed and folded the blankets neatly, everyone else had started to wake up slowly. He was looking under his pillow for the shirt he had thrown off in the middle of the night when Cam wolf-whistled at his half naked state.

"Wow. No wonder Lila couldn't keep her hands off you last night," he teased enjoying how Alex squirmed when he was uncomfortable.

Kalila threw her pillow at his head as she ran a hand through her hair in an attempt to flatten it. "Oi, shut it, you," she called out, pulling herself up and stretching. The pyjamas she had borrowed from Lacey were rather thin and she shivered slightly, hugging a pillow to her chest. She wasn't able to stop the wide smile on her face as she looked over to her boyfriend pulling on his t-shirt which had been hanging on a lamp in the corner of the room.

Boyfriend.

She never would have thought she'd be able to say that someday due to her 'commitment issues' as Emma called them, but this was Alex. It all felt so natural with him, they had talked about their feelings the previous night and had come to a conclusion.

"So, what does this make us now? Are we... together?" she had asked before they opened the door to head back to their friends again.

He bit his bottom lip in concentration before answering slowly. "You know I want to be but it's entirely your choice, I'm not going to push you because it's your decision to make. So if you want to be my girlfriend then yeah."

Kalila thought about it for a minute before smiling shyly at him. "Yeah," she said slipping her hand in his. "Yeah."

---

Alex yelped.

"Oh God, how is it so difficult for you to hold an egg?!" Emma asked incredulously, looking at the poor crushed egg in Alex's hand. Now that her best friend was officially going out with him, she had stopped looking up to him as though he were a god and was perfectly comfortable insulting his lack of cooking skills.

Tyler laughed, ruffling his best friend's hair in mock adoration as he walked past Alex grinning sheepishly. They had just finished cleaning up the kitchen – although the amount of empty cups to be thrown away seemed never ending – when he decided to make himself useful and start breakfast for everyone.

Not that it had worked though.

He somehow managed to set the fire alarm off, drop the margarine all over the floor and crush an egg in his hand in the span of about five minutes. "Sorry," he said ashamed, making it sound almost like a question.