Chapter 16

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"Sam?" Alex said softly, poking his head around the corner and glancing into the room that I was inhabiting.

I was lying in a weird position, back against the mattress as I rested my legs diagonally off of the wall. A book was held in my cramping hands, directly over my face. Which really wasn't a smart position to put myself in considering the fact that I jolted in surprise and immediately dropped the hard-back book onto my face.

"Yeah-huh?" I continued to grunt, rolling over and rubbing the offended area with the palm of my hand as I glanced over to Alex. He was standing there in little other than a tank top and a pair of boxers, his normal attire on a Saturday afternoon. It had been three weeks since the incident I referred to as 'the changed leaf'. The time that I noted a change with Alex and his attitude towards me.

Really, it started off with the looks that he would give Austin whenever he came over to visit. The little teasing remarks that he would make about the 'happy couple' or whatever. At first, I thought it was a private joke between us in reference to our slight heart-to-heart about my confused and undefined sexuality.

But he never mentioned it again.

Horror movies were on the agenda next, and that mainly ended up with me laughing at his terrified expression as we decided to munch on fruit and granola instead of the normal junk we had infused our bodies with previously.

That might have been because of my own paranoia that I was developing diabetes because of my need to get up in the middle of the night to pee at least four times, but a quick check up reassured me that it was all in my head.

The point of the matter was that... Alex wasn't as bad as I first thought. And I missed the rapport we had built up.

Of course I still grunted in distaste whenever he and Violet liplocked, or if they had to mull over some details about the wedding that was being pushed further and further ahead the more than I heard about it.

What about August?

Oh no, too soon. We'd never have the guest list sorted by then.

Okay, then how about January?

Too cold!

This time next year?

Do you want me to be dead?

It was a never ending battle between the two of them. Smiling a little at his entrance, and maybe a little bemused at how awkward he seemed to be standing there, I raised a brow as though to provoke him into saying more.

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

"The floor's yours," I responded, extending my hand in reference to the floor before me. Well, it wasn't exactly his. It was more like a mix of my bag, a pair of Kelly's shoes, and a hell of a lot of crayons.

But for hypothetical reasons, Alex was currently the boss of the floor.

Seemingly ignoring my statement about the floor, he took a seat beside me and rested his elbows on his knees before finally looking at me as though I wasn't some kind of hideous creature that it hurt to make eye contact with.

"You're worrying me now," I continued, a little more seriously at this point. We didn't really do a lot of serious talking, we didn't need to. The family that I had somehow invaded myself onto had a thing for avoiding deep and heartfelt topics. Austin, however, was the complete opposite. He had a habit for blurting out the most intimate details and then tell me about things I'm pretty sure no other human being is supposed to know about their friend.

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