Jaime: I’m I still lucky enough to be allowed to join you?
Naira: Of course! I mean, I need somebody to drive me around ;P
Jaime: Ouch… Hime-Time Chauffeur at your services.
Naira: Oh, shut up.
Jaime: Beg me.
Naira: Oh, wonderful Jaime, please will you join me on my amazing journey. You are the best person ever and all the girls adore you.
Jaime: Only because you said it so nicely.

Naira’s POV

Maya’s brother was basically what I expected him to be: a rich, stuck up, blackmailing guy, who probably was still nice underneath the hard shell the outside got to see. Maya told me about how close they used to be, I mean, they were twins and all, but overtime that bond just didn’t stay strong anymore. And I understood. They were complete opposites. Maya was carefree and awesome, and Tyler was, well, not. I didn’t know how else to say it. However, I did wonder what it was like having siblings…

At least I had Maya: a friend who was basically my sister, with a bond that would never falter. We were basically and power couple that wasn’t even a couple. Or, in a more cliche way, the apple to my pie. Even though we had only known each other in real life for a couple of days, we were inseparable. And that was that. Nothing could change it.

And those friends she had, you know, the Mexican guys, really weren’t half as bad as I first thought they were. No, I was not racist and judged them for their race, I was only afraid that they would make fun of me being drunk, because that’s what most people did. But they didn’t at all. They were actually nice and pretty interesting as well. Their constant touring had left them with many stories to tell, making my desire to travel the world even larger. I always wanted to go around and explore different cultures, maybe have some awesome adventures and not only visit the most touristy places. But, back to the guys, and not my stupid dreams that would never come true, Jaime’s flirting was no longer annoying me as much. I had actually gotten used to it, and I was just rolling with it, occasionally returning a witty comment. Oh, and the other guys were pretty cool as well. Vic and I just got along well, in a friendly way, Tony was quiet, but once he opened his mouth, he had the best sense of humour ever, and then there was Mike. I hadn’t gotten to know him that much… he was around Maya, a lot… maybe he had a crush on her or something, maybe he didn’t. But they did seem to have many heartfelt and deep conversations.

But now, things were slowly starting to quiet down. There wasn’t that much to talk about anymore, and we were all just sitting there in Maya’s living room -- we had returned back inside after the attack of the mosquitoes had started. Mosquitoes were my archemesis; they always liked biting me, giving me horrible mosquito bites. So, as soon as I saw them, I rushed inside, getting some laughs from the friends sitting outside with me. But there was no way I was going back outside. Lucky for me, everybody decided it was getting pretty bad a couple of minutes later, and joined me inside. But yeah…

And then my dad sent me a text. He was wondering if I had found any nice houses yet. Oops… I totally forgot about that. I had told my dad I would start looking as soon as I got here, but that didn’t really happen. Sure, I would think about it all the time, but I never actually started looking, whether it be on the internet or by looking around. But that was going to change now. Even though I wasn’t sure if I was or wasn’t going to get the job, apartment hunting was pretty fun… if I had a friend with me… hint, hint, wink, wink.

I quickly texted my dad back, saying I didn’t look yet, before announcing my plan to the group of people sitting here with me, “I want to go check out some apartments in a couple of days, anybody want to join me?”

“I will,” Jaime took advantage of the of the situation, of course, “might be nice to get a head start and see where I’ll be spending most of my time.”

Maya shuffled awkwardly, making me think she was probably uncomfortable with one of her friends knowing where I was going to live before she knew. But, then again she could have also volunteered herself to come with me, but nothing came out of her. Maybe she just wasn’t feeling well. And when nobody else raised their hand, I just told Jaime it would be fun to have him along.

----

I was already waiting when Jaime texted me he was outside. Unlike most people, I actually made sure that I got ready on time. I mean, you just couldn’t afford being late if you worked at a school. Sure, I didn’t work there, but, since my internship, I was always on time for things. Everything would go horribly wrong if the teacher was late, so I just made it a habit; it’s better to be early than to be late. Jaime, on the other hand, was not this way. With me being early, and him being late, I had a lot of time to spare. And what better way was there to do this than just sit on the couch, staring at the wall, checking the time every ten seconds, wishing you could time travel. But he was here now, so I no longer needed to do that.

“Maya!” I shouted through the house, no clue where my best friend was, “I’m going apartment hunting with Jaime! I’ll be back in a couple of hours!”

“Ok, have fun,” I heard being said back to me somewhere from upstairs.

That confirming that Maya knew I was gone, I hopped outside, making sure I closed the front door properly, and found Jaime sitting in his car. He grinned when he saw me walking up to him, so I opened the passenger door and got in. This car wasn’t too shabby, but then again he was in a fairly successful band that allowed him to pay for this type of stuff. All I would be able to afford, if lucky, was some second hand car from the early 2000’s.

“Hey, Naira,” Jaime smiled one last time before starting the engine, “you look good today.”

“Thank you,” I beamed and looked at the clothes I was wearing. These definitely weren’t the best clothes I could wear, but I could wear basically anything and Jaime would still say I looked good. “And, because I feel like I have to say this, you also look pretty good.”

“Thank god,” he chuckled and used his phone as a navigator -- I had given him all the addresses beforehand, “this outfit is actually the reason why I was late. You know, I can’t turn up looking like some homeless person. People will think you are way out of my league!”

“Hey, if anybody here is out of someone’s league, it’s you out of mine,” I told him with a laugh.

Jaime shook his head while taking a right turn, “nope. Don’t say that. That it not true at all! The only reason why guys aren’t chasing after you, is because you are way out of their league, not the other way around.”

“So, you’re saying that I’m not out of your league?” I joked, happy that I caught him in his own joke, “well, aren’t you full of yourself.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled and pouted before breaking out in his, what I already knew to be, famous smile.

We were only going to open houses, since it was just the easiest way to go now. Plus, the apartments probably weren’t going to be sold very easily, it was the middle of a workday, and people who went to these events often wanted bigger houses, not small apartments. And, yes, the prices of these places were pretty high, but they were still in my budget. If it would ever all go wrong, I’m sure Maya would let me sleep on her couch before I could get back up on my feet, right? Oh, and she managed to pay rent, so why wouldn’t I?

“We have arrived at the first place, m’lady,” Jaime parked the car and unlocked the doors so we could get out.

“Well, thanks,” I smiled and started joking again, “you can stay in the car, I won’t be needed you anymore.”

“Oh, well, I’m guessing you can find your own way home, then,” he winked and put his seatbelt back on.

“Oh, no, please don’t leave me!” I started panicking, not understanding that he was continuing the joke. For some reason I could sometimes use sarcasm, but I would rarely get it when other people used it. And, no, I wasn’t oblivious or anything, I just wasn’t good at it.

Jaime shook his head, letting out a chuckle, before getting out the car with me, “you’re so gullible, it’s so cute.”

“Well, I don’t consider it cute,” I pouted and started walking towards the apartment building. This area seemed pretty nice so far. Of course it wasn’t anything like the neighbourhood where Maya lived, or her friends, for that matter, but it was still pretty close. A big advantage was that I could still walk to the school. It would be nice to have daily walk. And the building itself didn’t look shabby at all. Now all this place still had to do was actually have a nice apartment and not be way too expensive for me.

----

We had gone through all the apartments, only having one left. Things were a bit boring, everything was pretty formal and the tours around the place were so boring. I didn’t care about every single little detail, I just wanted to know if I liked the place or not. It really wasn’t that difficult. Could I imagine living there? Yes, then great; no, then go to the next one. Seriously, boring tours are boring!... obviously…

And this one was going to be exactly the same. This is the kitchen, bla, bla, bla, counter, bla, bla, bla, living room… yeah, you get it. But that was only how I expected it to be. However, it wasn’t what I got. I just had to learn to expect the unexpected. Jaime wasn’t going to let this one be as dull as the others.


“Welcome,” the man working in real estate greeted us, “I’ll show you two around. Are you looking for a place to move in together?”

I was about to correct him, but Jaime, just like I said before, had other plans, “yes, my fiancee and I are looking for an apartment to move in. We thought it would be a nice change.”

I saw the guy’s eyes quickly flicker to my left ring finger, which didn’t have a ring on it. He looked back up at us, judging and wondering if we were lying or not. Even though he didn’t say anything about it, I thought I’d make our terrible lie more believable, “yeah, I know, I don’t have an engagement ring on. We thought it would be better to spend money on getting a new place and then have nice wedding rings, rather than spend it on another ring.”

“Oh,” the guy nodded in understanding, slightly embarrassed by the weird looks he gave us before, “so, should we start looking around then?”

“Oh, no, don’t bother,” Jaime waved him off and started pulling on my arm, “I think we’d like to look by ourselves instead. If we have any questions we will make sure to ask you. Right, darling?”

“Yes,” I nodded, glad with Jaime’s suggestion.

“Ok, well, I’ll be right here,” the guy went back into the kitchen and Jaime took my hand and pulled me into the next room.

We basically spend the rest of the time still pretending to be the couple. Every room was being judged very ‘critically’, or more made fun of a bit, while we made stories for the lives our alter egos would have together. Now, we were in the bathroom acting like we were brushing our teeth, because why the fuck not? Everything just made us laugh, and we were actually having fun in a place I would never have expected us to have fun like this. Jaime really wasn’t bad to hang out with. He was actually a very nice and funny guy. I didn’t know why I despised him so much in the beginning.

We went back to the bedroom, laughing our asses off, when Jaime broke his character.

“Naira,” he suddenly went serious and looked me dead in the eye, “I really really like you. And I know this might sound straightforward, you’re probably used to big romantic gestures, but I just want to ask you out.”

I froze up. What did he just ask me? I should have known it was going to happen, but it still shocked me. Was he actually being serious? Did he actually like me that much? It wasn’t just a joke? But nobody ever did that. And what did he mean with big romantic gestures? I didn’t seem like one of those girls, right? Because if I did, I was going to have to change. I literally hated stuff like that, it was the small things that counted in my book.

“Jaime,” I sighed and thought of a good way to formulate my words without sounding weird, “you’re very funny and nice, and you really do seem like an amazing person-”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” he squinted, like he was bracing for my answer.

I nodded and continued, “but I don’t even know if I can actually stay here for as long as I want. It is very possible that I won’t get the job, and that I’ll probably have to go back to Ashland. Nothing is sure enough for me to make any big life decisions! And yes, sure, ‘it might be just one date’, but I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“Ok… umm…” Jaime still seemed shocked by my answer, however still managed to turn back into his confident self, “but does that still mean that you will say yes as soon as you get that job?”

“Maybe. Probably not, though” I gave him a sympathetic smile.

At that moment, I thought I had made the right decision, but as soon as Jaime dropped me back off at Maya’s house, I started doubting myself. Maybe rejecting him wasn’t such a good idea. Whenever somebody came up to me, I’d refuse them; maybe it was time to change my ways. And then the school contacted me saying that I had gotten the job. They were desperate for a new teacher, and said they were lucky to have found me. And I was very happy and excited about it. However, Maya had gone out, and there was nobody to celebrate it with. I was left alone with my thoughts and I just couldn’t stop thinking that I had made the wrong choice. So, I texted Jaime, saying that I would go out with him.

I mean, what harm could it do?

Notes

Things are going to go down! I repeat thing are going to go down!

Be prepared!

- awierdkindofyellow

I have warned you!