Force of Nature ▸ House of Anubis [3]

chapter ten. house of movies

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Our movie date has not involved a lot of actually watching the movie.

About a quarter through the movie (some American comedy with Melissa McCarthy I haven't paid much attention to past opening it on a streaming service), Jerome had leaned over to kiss me and that kind of led to the whole cliché 'making out during a movie' thing. Difference was, those clichés usually took place in a theatre, whereas we're in my room. The movie's actually still playing on my laptop, even though it's been pushed away and quickly forgotten as he pulls me closer, now that we finally have more than thirty seconds to ourselves.

But, like always, we get interrupted.

It isn't Alfie like I would have expected. It's Mara, who knocks on the door before opening it and walking in quickly, greeting apologetically, "I know, I'm sorry, I said I wouldn't be in here, but I can't find Patricia and Joy and I just yelled at Atticus—actually yelled!"

I look at Jerome, who says, "At least it isn't Alfie."

Rolling my eyes at that, I sit up and ask her, "What do you mean you just yelled at Atticus? It's eight o'clock."

"He knocked on the door!" Mara exclaims, sitting on her bed. She seems proud of herself, if pretty shocked. Honestly, this is a much more welcome interruption than what Alfie's been doing lately, because Mara freakin' Jaffray yelled at Atticus freakin' Monroe, and that in itself is completely awesome. "And I just looked at my hand and there was all this confidence—"

"You looked at your hand and you gained confidence?" Jerome asks skeptically. "Did I miss something?"

"You did," I confirm, looking back at Mara. "So, you had all this confidence...?"

Mara nods. "And I just told him that I didn't appreciate him telling his friends about us when I explicitly said that I wasn't ready and hadn't even told my friends. And he apologized and said he wouldn't do it again. But I yelled at him! That's so unlike me." She takes a deep breath and looks at us with a smile, standing up. "I'll let you two get back to whatever you were doing."

She heads to the door but it opens before she can even touch the doorknob, and who else would it be but Alfie Lewis, here to ruin our love lives?

"Oh, hey, Mara," Alfie greets.

"Alfie," Mara responds, giving me a wide-eyed look as she holds up her hand and points to the hearts. I motion for her to leave.

"Hey, guys, my two best friends," Alfie says, walking further into the room and sitting at the end of my bed by my laptop. "I need some adv—I don't think I've seen this. Hm." He pauses the film, completely ignoring our narrowed-eyed looks. "Anyway, I need some advice. It's about Amber and the bad thing I did—"