The Middle - Volume Three ✔️

Chapter 10

Jamie

I pull up in the driveway and shut my engine off. Patrick hands me his beanie to protect my hair from the rain a little. We both get out of the car quickly, let Benji out too, then run up the porch steps out of the rain. I unlock the front door and we step inside. We both know what's coming.

"Oh, look, they are alive!" Erin appears in the kitchen doorway, her arms folded across her chest. She doesn't look very impressed, but I know she's not actually mad.

"Hey, Er." I say, pulling Patrick's beanie off of my head and shaking the ends of my hair out a little. Patrick's beside me shaking his own hair out and unzipping his wet hoodie. Benji has ran up to Erin, he's excited to see her. I move to unzip my own (well, Patrick's) hoodie, but I stop myself. Fuck, the hickeys. I'm still wearing my scarf, so I'm good. But Patrick has now taken his hoodie off, revealing about five hickeys along the bottom of his neck. Shit, shit, shit! He's been with me the past couple of nights. Erin knows that!

I try to throw Patrick some warning eye contact, but he's already moving towards the kitchen door. Fuck! Erin is distracted, petting Benji and shaking some of the water out of his coat. I follow Patrick into the kitchen quickly, and find Jay sitting at the table drinking a soda. The TV's on. How long have they been here?

"What the fuck happened to you two in South Bridge?" Jay asks casually, without looking away from the TV.

"Yeah, I mean, we weren't exactly worried, but you could have told us before you just fucked off back to North Bridge. You guys were both wasted." Erin says. She smiles at me. I know she doesn't really care, she's too happy about her new relationship with Jay.

"How did you guys get in here?" I ask. I left my key inside the lock to the garage door.

"Patio doors were open." Jay says, before taking a sip from his soda.

I look at Patrick. He shrugs at me then walks over to the fridge and opens it. Damn it boy, look back at me! Pick up the eye contact! Cover those fucking hickeys before someone notices!

"So, why did you guys leave the hotel on New Years Eve?" Erin asks, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

"We didn't wanna listen to you two fucking." Patrick says from inside the refrigerator.

Erin giggles, and Jay rolls his eyes. He finally looks away from the TV. "Yeah, well I've had to listen to you plenty of times in the past, so fuck off."

Patrick closes the refrigerator door, soda in hand, and looks over at me. I didn't laugh. This is normal banter for us, and I didn't laugh. I'm acting weird. Fuck. Save it, save it!

"When have we ever had to listen to Patrick... doing that?" I ask, desperately trying to sound casual.

"Doing that?" Erin raises an eyebrow at me. "Fucking, Jame. The word is fucking."

"You maybe haven't, but I have." Jay says to me. Then, to Patrick he says, "So what if you might have heard me and Erin? We had separate rooms in the hotel suite for Christ sake, you guys didn't need to leave."

"Aw, forget about it, babe." Erin says, before walking over to Jay and wrapping her arms around his neck from behind. It's weird hearing her call him 'babe', but I like it. "We had fun fucking, that's all that matters." She kisses him on the cheek and he smiles. Those two are so perfect together. It's a shame it took so long for them to get here. But I'm so happy for them.

Patrick pulls up a chair at the kitchen table across from Jay, and I realise I'm still just standing in the doorway like a spare part in my own home. I need to relax. This is fine. Besides the revelation that Jay has heard Patrick having sex 'plenty of times in the past'... That shouldn't bother me, it wouldn't normally bother me. But still, I can't seem to meet Patrick's eyes right now.

"I took your bag home, you left it at the hotel. Your phone was dead, but I charged it. Figured you'd be here." Jay hands Patrick his phone across the kitchen table, and I walk over and flick the kettle on. I need more coffee, my head is spinning a little.

"Thanks, dude." Patrick unlocks his phone. He must have so many messages.

"So what did you guys do yesterday?" Erin asks.

"Yeah, what was with the silent treatment, Jame?" Jay calls over to me.

"Sorry, I didn't look at my phone much. I was really hungover, just lay around watching movies and sleeping most of the day." I say. I eye my phone on the counter where I left it earlier. I really should plug it in to charge. "My phone's dead again actually."

I pick it up and leave the room. I'm just running upstairs to plug it in to charge, but I hear Jay questioning Patrick about his day yesterday. I never even asked Patrick what he did when he left here yesterday afternoon. I just assumed he'd gone over to see his mom, Dave, Pete and Steph to wish them a Happy New Year.

I hear him tell Jay he crashed here (thank god he used the word 'crashed') and we both got up pretty late. He says he went over to his mom's after that. He tried to have dinner with them but couldn't eat because he felt so hungover. He played video games with Pete for a while, listened to Steph complain about her latest crush, then decided it was time to leave when Pete wanted to start drumming. He says his hangover couldn't handle it. So he went back to his apartment after that.

It's a good summary of events. And now he's here, hanging with me, like usual. Nothing suspicious whatsoever happened. Awesome.

"So when did you get all the hickeys?" I hear Erin ask.

Shit! Fuck, shit, fuck! I run back down the stairs, I need to hear how Patrick will answer this. I practically slide into the kitchen, just as he says, "Last night."

"You never cease to amaze me, Patrick, you know that?" Erin says, with a laugh. She's sitting next to Jay at the table now. I guess I should sit down too and participate in this conversation, but I don't want to. I go back over to the kettle and stare at it, waiting for it to boil, standing with my back to my friends.

"So who was your first lay of the year? Anyone we know?" Erin asks. She doesn't get it like Jay, Joel and I do. You don't ask Patrick too many questions about this stuff. Just make fun of him, call him a man whore, and move on.

"I don't think so, no." I hear Patrick say.

"So how did you meet her? Is it someone you've been dating?" Erin asks. She needs to stop.

"Erin, what does it matter?" Patrick says.

"Yeah, he doesn't go into much detail about this stuff." Jay explains. "Was it that girl Amanda, though?"

Amanda? That girl Amanda?

Who the fuck is Amanda?