Delaney

“Delaney! Help!” Vic shouted from the living room. I heard the bustling of boxes and the then an excessive amount of popping. “Dammit, Mike, put down the bubble wrap,” I heard Vic curse silently.

I chuckled to myself before entering the living room. My smile immediately faded when I saw the disaster that was unfolding on the floor - styrofoam bits were littering the carpet, shredded plastic was strewn about the room, and all of the pieces required for the assembly of Ashlynn’s new bookcase were scattered around the room in absolutely no order. Maybe inviting the boys over to help wasn’t the greatest idea. Mike was sitting in the corner of the room, his back facing away from everybody, as he worked on popping all of the bubbles on the bubble wrap that he had stolen from the box. Jaime was rubbing together two styrofoam cut-outs and laughing at Tony who was cringing at the horrible squeak it created. Vic was the only one actually trying; he was sitting on the edge of the couch holding the instructions manual in his right hand and a bag of screws in his left. He was looking at the manual as if he had never learned how to read.

“This is a disaster,” Ashlynn said as she entered the room. She stood beside me, each of us instinctually bringing our hands up to our hips as we stared at the boys. “I honestly could have already finished the damn thing by now.”

“Yeah, me too,” I muttered as I watched the circus in my living room. I didn’t even know where to start with them, so I figured I would just leave them be. One of them was bound to get it done, hopefully in our lifetimes. “When is the pizza going to get here?” I groaned as I dropped my hands from my hips.

“I just barely ordered it,” Ashlynn laughed. “So, like...forty-five minutes, maybe?” she said slowly, as she tried to sum up the time it would take.

I shook my head and began to talk about how exhausted I was from work, but I soon stopped my rambling when I realized that Ashlynn wasn’t paying much attention, instead she was staring at Jaime who was making his way over to where we were standing. I hadn’t talked to him much since I blew up on him, and I honestly didn’t really want to face him. I knew he was right about what he said - I always bottled things up, and I wanted to apologize to him so badly for that, but at the same time, I was too stubborn to admit to him being right in the first place. So I was going to -yet again- bottle it up and bite my tongue.

“Delly,” Jaime whispered. He gave Ashlynn a small smile, and she took that as her cue to leave. She went into the living room and began taking control of the boys - setting them in order so the shelves could get actually get assembled.

“What is it, Jaime?” I asked, my eyes never leaving the living room. If I looked him in the eyes I would lose it.

He sighed and I could see him fidgeting around from the corner of my eye - he was always fidgeting. But then again, I wasn’t much better. I was nervously tapping my fingers against the side of my thigh as I waited for Jaime to speak again. “Can we go talk in your room or something?” he asked. “Please?”

I was surprised when I didn’t hesitate to lead the way into my bedroom. I locked eyes with Ashlynn for a quick second as I turned the corner - her facial expression changed, but I didn’t know what to.

“Listen, I’m really sorry for blowing up on you like that yesterday,” Jaime began. “I just really care about you and I can see when your bottle is full of emotions, and I just really want to help you open up. But I really shouldn’t pry like that. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, immediately disregarding what he said. “You don’t need to apologize. I don’t deserve your apology.” I cracked a small smile, hoping that he would catch on to my very roundabout way of saying ‘You’re right, Jaime.’

He stood there for a moment, his eyes distant and his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to make sense of why I had denied his words. He looked at my expression, and then it seemed to click. His features immediately softened and a smirk broke out, curving his thin lips up so that his dimples were clearly visible, even in the poor lighting of my bedroom. His look made me smile even wider, but then his eyes changed a bit, and I knew what was going to happen next.

He took a step closer to me and trapped me between the closed door and his body. His breath hit my lips, and I couldn’t deny the goosebumps that plagued my skin as his warmth teased my senses. This was all wrong. I tried to think of Nathan. I tried to think about how Jaime tried to do this far too often and that I really needed to turn him away again, but this time it was so hard. This time I almost couldn’t do it.

I closed my eyes before I spoke, squeezing them tightly so I could avoid eye contact. “Jaime,” I said. “You do this way too much.” I let out a small chuckle, which I shouldn’t have done, because it was only encouraging the behavior. The seriousness that the intent of my words originally held vanished as soon as my laugh escaped my lips - leaving Jaime to believe that he would be allowed to try this again.

“I know,” he muttered.

“Why?” I breathed, hoping that maybe if I questioned his motives he would realize that I didn’t like it.

I could hear the fabric of Jaime’s shirt ruffling, and I assumed that he had shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t the response I was looking for, but it was all I was going to get.

“You can open your eyes now,” he said with a laugh.

I did what he said, but only after I had spun around so that I couldn’t see him. I opened the door quickly and slipped out of the room, nearly running into Mike and Tony as they carried Ashlynn’s new, and finally assembled, bookcase into her room. Ashlynn was following close behind, excitement making her steps appear as if she was bouncing down the hallway. I backed up a bit to get out of the way, but ended up pushing my back right into Jaime’s chest instead.

I felt his chest vibrate as he chuckled. He leaned down, and I shivered at the feeling of his breath against my neck. “You just can’t keep me away,” he muttered.

I froze up once again, but only for a quick second. I needed to sever the contact our bodies had, so I quickly moved forward and went straight into Ash’s room to watch as she tried to decide where to put the bookcase.

“Okay...there!” she called out, bouncing a bit on her toes. She stared at the location, tilting her head to the side for a moment before clicking her tongue. “Eh, actually, over there!” She pointed to the other side of the wall and giggled as Mike and Tony groaned. They lifted the bookcase once again and took a few steps to the right before setting it back down.

“How’s that?” Mike asked, stepping away from it.

I shook my head and decided to make things a little more complicated for the boys. “I think I liked it better where it was before,” I added in. I gave Ashlynn a wink when she turned around at the sound of my voice.

The boys moved the bookcase back.

“Well, maybe on this wall,” Ash suggested, pointing at the spot just below the window. “I think it’d look the best under the window.”

“Yeah, that’d look good,” I agreed.

The boys moved the bookcase once again.

Ashlynn opened her mouth, ready to redirect them once again, but was interrupted by Mike throwing his arms up in the air and shouting, “I quit!” He walked out of the room, Tony following closely behind him, silently snickering as he shook his head.

The pizza arrived just in time. Mike and Vic were starting to get grumpy from how hungry they were, and that usually resulted in a horrible sibling fight about every miniscule disagreement, which would then put everybody else in a bad mood as well, and then it was world war three all because we were hungry.

Vic’s phone went off just as everybody took a seat to eat. The vibration completely interrupted the conversation that was going on. All of the boys stopped to stare at Vic, almost as if they were waiting for someone to hit them up.

“We have to go,” Vic announced, sadness evident in his voice. “Casey’s home and says he’s ready for us to head over there.”

“Why?” I asked, feeling a bit hurt that they were leaving right after Ashlynn had just paid a fortune on all of the pizza. We originally were only going to get one large pizza with some breadsticks, but Ashlynn insisted on buying enough for everybody since they were going to be helping with her bookcase.

Vic scarfed down the rest of his pizza slice and stood up as he answered me. “Casey needs help with his new song for his little side project. And we might try to come up with some t-shirt designs while we’re at it.”

I pouted, making sure it was obvious and overly defined. I let out a few fake sniffles, but my mock-sadness faltered when Jaime started to laugh at me. Soon, all of the boys were cracking up, and at first I was confused, but then I turned to look at Ashlynn who was making the same exact face. We immediately joined in on the laughter.

“You guys are definitely related,” Mike said with a laugh.

The rest of the boys stood up and I followed suit so I could give them each a proper goodbye. “Hugs,” I said as I walked toward them. I always made it a point to try and hug the boys before they left because I needed to take advantage of the time I had with them - I had to get in as many hugs as possible since I didn’t get to see them for more than half of the year because they were always touring.

I gave Vic a hug first, then Tony, then Jaime, and when I came to Mike, I could see that he had something on his mind. As we hugged, he leaned over so his mouth was right beside my ear.

“I’m going to be calling you for a night out soon,” he whispered into my ear. “It’s way overdue.”

I sighed, feeling both excited and pained at Mike’s words - the only time Mike and I went out alone together was when one of us, or both of us, needed to drink our worries away. I wondered what was going on with Mike this time around. He hadn’t been in a relationship in a while, and when he was in a relationship, their fights were usually the reason for his need to escape, but now I was unsure of what was bothering him.

“Definitely overdue,” I agreed silently. As much as I wanted to worry about Mike’s problems, I knew that I also had my own that needed to be lost in a bottle of whiskey.

Ashlynn continued to sit at the table, awkwardly shifting in her seat as I hugged everybody. She offered a wave and said a measly goodbye. Vic immediately corrected that behavior by walking over to her seat and lifting her out of the chair, engulfing her in a large hug.

“Little people unite!” Jaime said while laughing and pointing at Vic and Ash as they hugged. Ashlynn flipped him off in response as a chuckle escaped her lips.

“You seriously thought that you weren’t going to get hugs?” Mike teased as he pulled her in next, Jaime swooping in soon after to get his hug.

Ashlynn blushed a bit. “I just didn’t know if we were on that level yet.”

Tony pulled her into a hug and whispered something into her ear that caused her to roll her eyes and push him away. Their playfulness brought a smile to my face - I liked to see that Ash was getting along with everybody. I knew that the guys would be accepting of her no matter what, but the way they interacted told me that they were bringing her in as part of the group.

-


I knocked on Ashlynn’s door a little bit before ten the next morning to wake her up. She mumbled something that sounded along the lines of “come in”, but I wasn’t sure because her words were muffled. I pushed open the door to see her body surrounded by her new purple comforter - her face buried in the pillows as she laid on her stomach. The only way I knew she was even in the mound of comfort was because of her dark hair that was fanned out on her pillow.

“Time to wake up!” I announced, pushing my palm onto the edge of the bed. I ended up pushing on her leg. “Sorry, I couldn’t even tell that your leg was there.”

“It’s okay,” she groaned. “But it’s not okay that you are waking me up. Why do I have to wake up?”

I laughed at how young she sounded, almost as if she was a child who didn’t want to go to school. I shook my head - I knew the feeling of not wanting to go to school all too much. I pushed the thoughts away, reminding myself that Mike was going to call soon and schedule one of our hangouts. I would save the thoughts and complaints for the night that I could vent to Mike.

“My mom called,” I said. Ashlynn’s attention was immediately piqued. She sat up and cocked her head backwards so she could see me.

“Does she know I’m here?” she asked. Her features wrinkled as worry seemed to plague her mind. “Please tell me she doesn’t.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I said, putting my hands up in defense. “She already knew!”

Ashlynn groaned loudly and flopped back down into the mattress. She let out a prolonged grunt, which peaked and almost turned into a yell. She stopped before she got too worked up, and although I understood the feeling of not wanting my mother to know everything, I was confused as to why this was such a horrible thing.

“How did she know?” Ashlynn asked, her voice being muffled by the pillows once again.

“She invited me over for lunch, and she told me to bring you with me,” I explained. “I didn’t even get the chance to respond before she started talking about you. I guess your mom really wants to see you.”

“I know, I know.” She sat up completely this time; turning her body around and kicking the blankets away from her. “I need to get this away from me or I’ll never get out of bed,” she muttered as she pushed around her bedding.

I didn’t know what else to say about the matter. I thought about maybe suggesting that we didn’t have to go, but I knew that there was really no escaping our mothers - they would find a way around whatever excuse we fed them, or would just insist on rescheduling and then we’d be trapped. “There’s no getting away from these women,” I admitted.

Ashlynn nodded and stood up. She wobbled a little bit as she steadied her still-groggy self before slowly making her way over to the closet where she had finally unpacked all of her clothes. “I’m going to shower and get dressed,” she said as she finished picking out her clothes.

I nodded and left the room, retreating to my own bedroom so I could get ready. I decided to look at this situation with the most positive mindset I could manage. I tried to mentally prepare myself for the conversations that my mother would start. Nathan would always be brought up, so I already knew that was going to happen, but with school starting up in a couple of months I knew that was going to be my mother’s topic of choice for this lunch date.

After my hair was dried and I was dressed, Ashlynn knocked on my bedroom door. I called for her to come on in, and a few minutes later she met my side in the bathroom. She stared around the countertop, eyeballing the makeup I had pulled out of my bag and my straightener that was heating up on the corner of the counter.

“What’s up?” I asked. I reached down and began to apply my concealer as I waited for her to answer me.

“I don’t know how to wear my hair and makeup,” she said. “I wanted to see what you were doing.”

I smiled a bit at her curiosity - I was glad that we were starting to act like friends again, wondering about how the other was going to dress. “I’m just going light with my makeup. I don’t want to give my mom another thing to complain about.” I ended my words with a dramatic eye-roll that made Ashlynn laugh.

“I hear that,” she agreed. “I think I might do the same.”

I leaned toward the mirror so I could apply my makeup with more precision as Ashlynn brought her own makeup into my bathroom so we could get ready together.

“So, what did Jaime want last night?” Ashlynn asked as she followed my actions. She leaned toward the mirror to try and get a better view of the eyeliner she was applying, but ended up sitting up on the counter and turning her body sideways so she could use the medicine cabinet mirror instead.

“What do you mean?” I asked, unsure of exactly she was getting at.

“When he wanted to talk to you. Is everything okay?”

I finished applying my eyeliner and slowly began to clean up my makeup as I mulled over the idea of opening up to Ashlynn. I knew that I could trust her not to tell anybody about any of my conversations with Jaime, but I didn’t know if I wanted to trust her in fear of her running away from our relationship again. I reminded myself that I was trying to spend the day thinking positive thoughts and decided that I would tell Ashlynn about what happened with Jaime.

“We had a small fight the other day. I have a bad habit of keeping things inside and he tries to get me to open up to him, but I just don’t. It makes him angry,” I explained. “He just needed to apologize to me for it.”

“Oh, that’s nice of him to apologize,” Ashlynn said. She didn’t have much else to say, and I was thankful for that.

“Yeah, it was. He always makes it a point to set things right again. I’m glad he does, too, because I’m too stubborn to ever admit that he’s right, and if he didn’t set things right, nobody would. And I can’t really live without him, so, yeah.” I started to feel a bit awkward with voicing my thoughts about Jaime. I never really had anybody to vent to except for Mike, but he usually didn’t remember it in the morning. This time, the person I was opening up to was sober and going to remember every single word.

“That’s good,” Ashlynn said, a smile clearly audible through her words. She didn’t say anything else, once again, and I smiled, too. I didn’t know if she just didn’t have much else to say, or if she holding back because she didn’t want to pry after I told her about how Jaime and I get into fights when he tries to pry.

I ran my straightener through my hair, and just as I finished, Ashlynn walked up behind me and gently ran her fingers through my hair. “It’s gotten so long!” she exclaimed. “Can I put a couple of braids in it?” she asked, peeking her head over my shoulder so she could make eye contact through the mirror.

“Sure,” I said.

She guided me over to the bed and had me sit down. She got up on the bed behind me and sat on her knees so she could be tall enough to reach the top of my head. She began to collect some hair from the sides of my head, right above my ears and pulled the sections back, securing one section with a clip while she worked with the other one.

“So, is that all Jaime did was apologize?” Ashlynn asked. Her voice nearly startled me. I had gotten so used to the silence and didn’t know that the conversation was still going.

I blushed as I remembered how Jaime had pinned me up against the door. Thank goodness Ash was sitting behind me so she couldn’t see how red my face probably was. I tried to push the images out of my head. I tried to ignore the memories of Jaime’s breath against my skin, but I just couldn’t shake him.

“Well…” I ended up blurting out, my embarrassment caught up to me and I stopped talking.

“What! You can’t do that and expect me to not question it further! Did something happen?” she asked. She finished with the first section of hair and pulled over the other one. “Something did happen, didn’t it?”

“Not really,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “I mean, kind of.” I couldn’t deny the excitement that was bubbling up within me - I wanted to gush out all of my feelings to Ashlynn in that moment, and I almost did. But I reeled in my excitement and decided to keep it vague. “Jaime just likes to get close to me, is all.”

“What does that even mean?” Ashlynn asked with a laugh. “What do you consider close? Like some people could consider a hug being close, and others might think his hand around your boob is close.”

I laughed out at her words and shook my head very carefully so I wouldn’t disturb whatever hairstyle she was creating. “No! He just literally got close to me. I was standing right there, by the door,” I paused to point at my bedroom door, “and he just kind of pushed my body up against it. He tries to get me to accept his moves, but-”

“Nathan,” Ashlynn finished for me. “But do you still have feelings for Jaime?”

I immediately shook my head, this time I wasn’t so careful and I pulled my hair right out of Ashlynn’s hands. “I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, placing my hands over my mouth in shock.

Ashlynn chuckled. “You’re lucky I was finished.” She brushed her hands over my head to smooth everything out and I turned around to face Ashlynn. “So, you don’t?” she clarified, bringing us back to our original conversation.

“Jaime’s my best friend,” I said as I shook my head. “We were made to be best friends.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t date, though. Best friends date all the time.”

“I know, but it doesn’t matter anyway because I have Nathan, and I love him.”

The conversation died after that, and it was a good thing it did, too, because we were on the verge of running late for my mother’s lunch. I reached my hands out and turned Ashlynn around.

“What are you doing?” she asked with a laugh.

“I’m going to do your hair,” I said. “But I’m warning you now, I’m not the best.”

Ashlynn waved her hand in the air and allowed me to start doing her hair. I didn’t admit out loud that I had no idea what I was doing, but instead just started going with it. I started with a dutch braid at her right ear and began to wrap it around the back of her head, but when I got toward the other side of her head, I realized that I really had no idea what the hell to do, so I tied it off into a messy bun, hoping that it didn’t look stupid or incomplete.

“I’m done,” I said after only a couple of minutes of actually doing her hair.

“That was fast,” she said as she stood up. We walked back into the bathroom and tried to see our hairstyles in the mirror, but it was too hard to see the backs of our own heads.

“Here,” I said, handing over my phone. “Take a picture of it.” I turned around and waited for her to give me the okay to turn back around. She handed me my phone and I stared at the beautiful fishtail braids that Ashlynn had done. She tied them off together so the remainder of hair that wasn't braided cascaded down and meshed into the rest of my straightened hair.

“Take a picture of mine,” Ashlynn said, handing her phone over to me as well. I stood behind her and made sure to center her head in the frame so I could snap the picture.

Just as I hit the shutter button, her phone vibrated in my hands and a small notification popped up on the top of the page.

“Oh,” I exclaimed, startled by the vibration. “You have a text message from...Nighthawk?” I had to peer my eyes to make sure that I had read the name correctly, and even then I wasn’t so sure.

Ashlynn whipped back around and held her hands out for her phone. “Oh, I’ll read it later,” she said with a slight laugh. She looked down at her phone and stared at the picture of her hair. “Wow! That’s awesome. I love it,” she said with a large smile.

I looked back down at my phone and stared at the picture of my hair. It looked amazing, and I was really proud of the two of us. So proud, that I wanted to show it off. “I think I might upload this to instagram,” I said as I clicked back over to my homepage. I searched around for the instagram app, but saw that I must have deleted it. “I’ll have to download it again,” I said, aloud.

“No,” Ashlynn said, taking a slight step toward me. I stopped what I was doing and looked up at her with a cocked eyebrow. She looked down at my phone and then looked back over to me. “We don’t have time.”

I looked at the time on the top of phone. “Aw, shit, you’re right, let’s go.”

Ashlynn offered to drive, which I gladly agreed to since my car was running on empty. We arrived quickly, and hopped out of the car in a hurry.

“I’m surprised I remembered exactly how to get here,” Ashlynn commented as we made our way up the walkway.

Before I could even respond, the front door was ripped open and two bodies were fighting their way out of the front door to meet us halfway. I heard their bickering voices, and I knew exactly who it was charging at us.

“My girls!” my mother shouted, her arms stretched wide open as she pulled us in for a hug. She kissed each of our cheeks and squeezed us even tighter. “I’m so glad to see you!”

“Okay, okay! My turn,” My Auntie Danette interjected, pulling on my mother’s arm. “Heidi, let me say hello to my daughter and niece!”

My mom pulled away, but allowed her hand to linger on my shoulder as Ashlynn’s mom pulled us in for a hug that was similar to my mom’s. She cut it short though, pulling away to give Ashlynn her own hug. My mom immediately copied her sister’s actions and wrapped me up in a hug, murmuring something in my ear about how she wishes that she could see me more often.

“Come, come!” Auntie said, breaking the sappy hugfest. “The food is in the back.”

My mom wrapped her arm around my shoulders, keeping me close to her as we followed Ashlynn and her mother through the house.

“Did you get more tattoos?” my mother asked, squinting her eyes as she inspected the ink on my arm. “I don’t think I’ve seen this before,” she said as she poked one of the elements to my half-sleeve.

I looked down to see what she was talking about. She pointed at one of the oldest tattoos I had, but just to humor her, I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen you, Mom.”

“It sure as hell feels like it,” she muttered. “How’s Nathan?”

Ashlynn turned around when my mother mentioned his name, clearly interested in what I had to say about it. She knew hardly anything about my relationship, and although I felt bad for not telling her anything about him, I preferred it to be that way. Nobody really approved of my relationship with him, except for the people who knew nothing about it. Hence my mother’s mentioning of him.

“He’s good. Still traveling,” I answered, hoping that she would leave it at that.

Instead, my Aunt decided to chime in. “Where’s Jaime? Why didn’t you bring him along?”

Ashlynn looked between me and her mother, confusion written all over her face. I gave her a lopsided grin that explained to her that I was just as confused.

“I like that Jaime boy,” my aunt added. She wiggled her eyebrows at me and then turned back around to say something to Ashlynn.

“This is going to be a long day,” I muttered as we stepped through the sliding glass door to enter the backyard.

Ashlynn seemed to be the only one that heard me. “You’re tellin’ me.”

Notes

Delaney's Outfit
Ashlynn's Outfit

Hey guys! Elise here. Sorry it's been a while since I've updated. School has been hectic lately and life itself hasn't been too grand either. But I'm hanging in there.

Let me know what you guys think about this chapter! We love to hear your feedback and predictions. Thanks so much for all of the support. We love you all so very very much!