For The Camera

Seven

Nathan

The sound of someone repeatedly knocking on my door wakes me from my sleep. With a quiet groan, I crack one eye open to look at the display of my alarm clock. It's already half past twelve.

There's more knocking. "Nathan! Are you up?"

My voice is muffled by my pillow. "No."

Chuckling sounds through the wooden door. "Come on, open the door."

"Can't. 'M too tired."

"Dude, I won't leave until you open the door."

I groan again, but knowing that I'll have to get up sooner or later, I finally muster the energy to sit up and get out of bed. As I shuffle towards the door, I catch a short glimpse of myself in the large mirror on the wall. I look like hell, my hair sticking up in every direction and my eyes reddened.

Bracing a hand against the wall, I turn the key and open the door.

Naira is standing in front of me in her pajamas, grinning up at me. "Good morning."

"Morning," I murmur and step aside to let her in.

"You look awful. When did you get home last night?" Naira asks as she flops onto my bed.

I follow her and sink onto the mattress next to her. "Around two, but then I couldn't sleep."

She frowns and glances at the bottle of sleeping pills on my bedside table. "You still have trouble sleeping?"

"Yeah," I say and shut my eyes again. Even though I'm sitting up, I feel like I'm going to doze off any moment.

I know that Naira probably has more to say on the topic, but she knows I don't want to get into it, especially not when I just woke up. So instead she asks, "Why'd you lock the door? You never do that."

"'Cause of Elijah," I reply. "Adrian already gave me the Stranger Danger talk, so I figured I should lock it."

She snorts quietly and I crack my eyes open to look at her.

"What?" I ask. "Did you meet him yesterday? What is he like?"

Naira crosses her arms. "I think complete asshole describes him best."

I blink at her in surprise. "Why? Did he say anything?"

"He said a lot, and all of it was dumb," she answers. "When I came home, he was sitting in the entry area wearing nothing but a bathrobe. He stole a bottle of champagne from the bar and was petting Neela, and while I normally wouldn't mind all of that, his entire attitude just made him seem like a huge dick."

I don't really know how to reply to that. "Oh."

"Yeah." She shoots me a curious look. "But you met him, too, didn't you? What did you think of him?"

"I don't really know," I say, leaning back into the cushions. "I only talked to him for a minute or two. He seemed alright then."

Thinking back to that moment, I feel a wave of embarrassment washing over me. Elijah must think I'm stupid after that encounter; all I did was blush and stammer like an idiot while he was completely calm and collected and exuding an air of confidence that only made me feel even sillier.

Naira doesn't seem too happy with that answer, but she quickly changes to a different topic. Rolling onto her stomach and propping herself up on her elbows, she beams at me and asks, "So, what's the plan for today? I was thinking movies and popcorn? We haven't watched Notting Hill in a while, but if you want we can also watch one of your oldies... Do we still have Psycho on DVD? I'd love to re-watch that one, I can barely remember what happens in it..."