Enigma

The Trunk

"I'm apologising in advance if we turn a sharp corner and I crush you." said Julian. "And I'm sorry I reek of pot."

Nico inhaled through her nose and was quite confused as she did so, because yeah, he smelt quite strongly of weed and cigarettes and whatever else guys smell like...but she didn't mind it. In fact, she kinda liked it.

"You smell fine." she found herself saying aloud.

"Are you smelling me?"

"Well...it's kinda hard not to. Your hair is practically in my mouth right now—you're so close!"

"I could say the same for you!" he made a spitting noise. "I'm pulling some of yours out of my mouth as we speak."

"What a lovely bonding activity—eating eachothers' hair." she giggled once more. The car turned a corner, slowly, but still had enough impact to cause Julian to lean closer into Nico, which resulted in a crunching sound from beside her.

"What was that?" Julian asked as he tried to give her some space.

"Uh oh." Nico gulped. "I forgot we put the chips in here."

Julian started to laugh much harder than he probably should've, and that resulted in Nico beginning to laugh too. She didn't know if she was laughing at the fact that she'd just crushed a bag of chips, or if she was laughing at how hard Julian was laughing. "How stoned are you?" she managed to ask in between spouts of laughter.

"Too stoned." Julian replied once he'd calmed down and caught his breath.

"We should probably keep it down. We don't want anyone else finding out we're in here, 'cause I'm pretty sure it's illegal."

"Okay." he said in a low whispery tone. "So you can't scream if I accidentally crush you?"

Nico could feel his breath on her neck, and it oddly sent tingles down her spine. She hadn't been so physically close to a guy since she was with her ex-boyfriend, 2 years prior.

She tensed up when his hand planted itself on her thigh and she couldn't help but gasp.

Julian immediately retracted his hand. "Was that your leg?! Fuck, I'm sorry! I can't see anything!"

She was glad it was dark and he couldn't see anything, because her face had flushed a bright red color. "I-It's okay." She ended up laughing it off, which was the only thing she really could do.

They shortly felt the car come to a stop and both sighed relievedly, Julian more than Nico. He was still cringing at himself for his slight fuckup.

"Still alive in there?" Nick asked, before popping open the trunk.

"Barely." Julian bent out a kink in his neck as he waited for Nico to jump out.

"So what were you two doing in there?" Tracie asked, looking at her skeptically.

Nico rolled her eyes. "T, we had absolutely no room to move at all, so get your mind out of the gutter."

"Well, we'll be inside." said Nick, pointing to the apartment building with his thumb. Fab, Nikolai, Albert and Julian followed him in, and Nico was about to, but Tracie pulled her back.

"What even is all this?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Questioningly, Nico raised a brow.

"Why are you suddenly hanging around a bunch of guys?"

Nico shrugged. "I dunno...they're cool."

"Whatever," Tracie shook her head. "...as long as you don't forget about little ol' me!"

"Never!" Nico put her arm around her friend and pulled her in a side hug.

"Good!" Tracie squeezed her back. "But before we go in...are you gonna be drinking? 'Cause I know how you get when you do, and it won't help that you suddenly have a bunch of male friends now."

"That's mostly why I invited you. Because if something were to happen, I know you'd keep me in line."

"Okay, of course I'd be looking out for you, but I'll be drinking so I can't really make any promises."

Fab poked his head out the door. "You girls coming in, or..?"

"Be right there!" The girls called back in unison.

Once inside, everyone began helping set up for the party. Nico and Tracie were setting out plastic cups as they gossiped about random things, Nikolai and Fab were on snack arrangement duty, and who knows what the other bunch were doing.

It soon hit 7PM and people started pouring in, and that's when everyone started drinking.

Nico started off with a glass of wine, hoping to remain a light drinker for the rest of the night, but she knew she'd eventually let loose and start downing vodka. She wanted to prolong that for at least another few hours, so she occupied herself by talking to Nikolai, who was drinking a beer all by himself on a balcony.

"Hey, Nikolai." she greeted him with a warm smile and sipped from her glass. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Yeah! Just came out here for some air." he said softly as he looked out at the city skyline.

Nico walked over to lean against the railing beside him as her hair was gently blown around by the cool breeze. She downed the rest of the liquid in her glass and winced.

Nikolai felt a little awkward and uncomfortable. He thought Nico was cool and he wanted to talk to her, but he just couldn't think of anything interesting to talk about because he barely knew her, and with every passing moment of silence, the atmosphere only grew more awkward.

"Uhh...I saw Julian in one of the bedrooms." he managed to say. "He was all by himself."

"Oh..?" Nico turned to him. "Is he okay?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. He looked kinda sad."

"I guess I'll go find him then." she said. "Thanks, Nikolai."

Nikolai watched her walk away and mentally scolded himself for saying something that would cause her to leave. But it was true—Julian did look kinda forlorn.

Before Nico went to find Julian, she made a quick stop in the kitchen to refill her glass, but Nick and Fab, who were already very drunk, lightly peer pressured her into doing shots, so by the time she remembered she had to find Julian, she was already pretty wasted.