Don't Make This Easy, I Want You to Mean It

I giggled loudly as Alex’s breath hit the back of my neck. I was hung over to hell from the night before and had had hardly any sleep, but Alex had easily woken me up. I knew he’d adjusted his position from his breathing now suddenly waking me, but it was still mildly amusing. It didn’t take long for my girlish giggling to wake Alex, who groggily pulled me closer, asking for the time.
“Midday,” I told him, squirming in his grip to get comfortable again.
“Well, I’m hungover and your giggling does not help,” he whined.
“I wouldn’t have been giggling if you weren’t breathing all over my neck.” There was a brief silence before Alex pushed himself away from me, coming back to hover over me with a mischievous grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“Are you telling me I’ve found another ticklish spot?” I nodded warily. “Oh, I do love doing that.”
“Stay away from me, Gaskarth,” I told him, narrowing my eyes suspiciously.
“Or what? You’ll squint at me?” I scowled at him, unhappy that my suspicious look was going completely over his head. I mean, I know he was very rarely on the receiving end of it (unlike Jack, who knew that look like the back of his hand), but it was still a very obvious look. He grinned at me, pressing a kiss to my lips quickly to stop my scowl. “Come on. Painkillers and food are calling me!”
“Okay, let me go get pretty,” I smiled, pushing him off me and running to the bathroom to get dressed, grabbing my clothes along the way.
“Don’t tone yourself down, sweetheart,” he called after me. I laughed lightly, turning the shower on and letting it warm up.
“Cheesy!” I heard Alex laughing through the door too and smiled to myself as I began to get ready for the day.
“Oh my God! Can we? Can we? Can we?!” Jack squealed, pleading with Marissa to allow him to go on The Big Shot and all out begging her to come with. I had, of course, already made up my mind that I was going on it. Alex was less enthusiastic, but had still agreed. Marissa was the only one holding out, having some vague notion that she wasn’t going to enjoy it, but we could see Jack’s pleading was wearing her down already. She knew if it had just been she and I, I would have left her down here with a request for fries and a ‘see you in 10’. Jack, however, wasn’t budging. It was one of those things that both infuriated you and made you laugh all at the same time.
“I don’t like heights,” she whined, pouting. I rolled my eyes.
“Liar,” I scoffed. “You hang out of top floor windows that I won’t even go near.” She shot me a glare as Jack frowned.
“Fine, okay, I’ll come! But if I vom, I’m aiming at you,” she told Jack, still glaring at us both. Jack grinned widely, ignoring the 75% chance he was going to be covered in sick by the end of the day, grabbing Marissa’s hand and heading straight for the queue in front of the ride. Alex and I followed behind, not nearly as fast as he had made his way over, but still at a somewhat reasonable pace.
“Man, this sucks ass,” Jack groaned two hours later as we wandered the streets around the city. We’d exhausted all of his intense thrill seeking and had long since gotten bored of the views. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was still gorgeous and I was still loving it, but there were only so many times you could look at a casino in awe and there was no way we could afford to do any of the real thrill seeking activities most other tourists opted for. “It’s too warm. I’m bored. I need entertaining.”
“Fuck off, it’s February. It’s gorgeous and I love it,” I snapped, jokingly.
“For someone as dark and twisted as you, you’re sure do love the fucking sun.”
“Bite me. I’d love to live here.”
“And leave me?” He pouted.
“Frankly, you’re tempting me more.”
“Harsh.” I snorted softly, knowing he wasn’t taking it to heart. “Why would you want to live in Satan’s ballsack anyway? This is the coldest it gets. You’ll burn alive.”
“’Satan’s ballsack’, really? Gross.”
“The more disgusting I say it the less likely you are to run away and move here.”
“Okay, okay, not Vegas. What about… Phoenix?”
“Literally where a Phoenix rises. Fire. Almost the same as Satan’s ballsack.” I rolled my eyes as Alex laughed lightly next to me. I knew he got a kick out of Jack and I bickering. He’d told me before that none of his other girlfriends had really clicked with the rest of the guys, so he adored that Jack and I were friends before he and I met.
“Shame. I suppose when you visit Jasey in college, you’ll burn to ashes too,” Marissa told him, laughing also. I shot her a glare and her eyes widened briefly. I hadn’t told either of the guys I’d been accepted to Arizona State, and had been hoping to keep it quiet until I’d heard back from Towson so I could make my decision. The boys stopped in their tracks, both staring at Marissa, having figured out what she had said.
“What do you mean ‘when I visit Jasey in college?’ Why would Jasey apply for a school across the country and not tell me?” I cringed a little, thankful the boys were focusing their attention on Marissa and her very deer-in-headlights look as she tried to not give anything more away. I sighed, seeing that I should probably bail her out before she got me into even more trouble.
“I applied for a lot of colleges, Jack. ASU sent me an acceptance the other day,” I shrugged, trying not to make it a big deal.
“You mean you were going to move to Arizona and not tell us?” Alex looked dumfounded and I felt a flash of guilt. It had, in truth, been more than a couple of days that I’d been sitting on this, my fingers firmly crossed that I would get an acceptance to one of the colleges I knew I had no chance of getting into but were closer to home. Towson was not one of these, but it had always been my ‘well, it’s close to home’ institution and my parents had insisted I apply ‘just in case’.
“Hardly,” I scoffed, maintaining my nonchalance. “I was going to wait for responses to a few places and make my decision accordingly. I wasn’t going to up and leave one day like a bitch.”
“Okay, but you didn’t tell us,” Alex reiterated. I felt the guilt return and start eating at my insides. He looked so upset that I hadn’t filled him in on this.
“I didn’t think I’d get in,” I groaned, seeing the conversation falling quickly from my hands. This wasn’t going at all to plan. “I mean, my grades aren’t amazing or anything, so I don’t have my pick of every school, but… ugh. What does it even matter? You guys will be gone half the year anyway.”
“Yeah, and when we’re back you’ll be in fucking Arizona,” Jack scoffed.
“Wait, this suddenly turned from ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell us’ to ‘I’m furious with you for even thinking about this’. What the fuck?” I did, honestly, feel guilty about not having told either of them, but the more annoyed Jack got with me for thinking about doing something for me, the more annoyed I was getting.
“Look, we get it,” Alex interjected, stopping Jack before he could respond and piss me off even more. “You’re looking at shit everywhere, and you’re doing what’s best for you. Jack will always support that, I will always support that, we’re just bummed you didn’t tell us what you were thinking.” I smiled weakly, nodding before allowing him to take my hand again.

Notes

How has it been a month since I updated this? Time is absolutely flying.
Sorry guys!