Maya: Hey, did I leave my charger at your place?
Mike: Hey! I will go look for you.
Mike: Found it! It was on the couch.
Maya: Oh, is it okay if I come pick it up in a few minutes?
Mike: Sure! Maybe you can help me packing for the trip.
Maya: Yeah! Just packing, nothing else!
Mike: Of course! Why would we do anything else?
Maya: I guess I’ll be heading out then. We’ve got lots of innocent packing to do!
Mike: Sounds great!

Maya’s POV
“Ouch!” Mike called out after we had just driven over a bump in the road. “Jesus Vic, I’m happy you no longer drive the tour bus. I wouldn’t get any sleep.” he said as he rubbed the top of his head with his hand.
Vic let out a small groan. “Can you please stop complaining?” he asked as he switched lanes. We were driving down a highway somewhere in California, I think it was somewhere in between San Diego and Long Beach. The summer sun was shining through the car window and I felt the heat through it.
“Well I’ll think about it when you stop driving over bumps going 120 miles per hour!” Mike said, grabbing onto the headrest on Naira’s seat.
“Is this how it goes on tour as well?” Naira asks, more surprised than annoyed. These guys could be annoying, but try sitting in a car with them for a while and you would discover the true meaning of the word ‘irritating’. “I would go nuts.”
“You understand me, Naira.” Mike said, letting out a deep breath. “You’re right, I’m going insane.” He said as he put a hand on Naira’s shoulder.
Naira turned around towards the back of the car. “It’s not just him. You guys are both annoying.” She said matter-of-factly. “You are incredibly whiny and your brother drives over bumps like he is Maya after drinking lots of beers”
“Hey!” I yelled out offended.
“I thought we were friends now!” Mike yelled as he pointed a finger at Naira.
“Well, you can forget about sex tonight.” Vic said, like he had just found the ultimate tool to win this fight.
Naira turned away from us towards Vic and crossed her arms over each other. She proceeded to look at him with the stern look she always gave her students if they did something bad.
Vic frighteningly switched his eyes between the road and Naira. Eventually he sighed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, you’re right. Maybe I can slow down on the bumps.”
“I think you're the one who can forget about having sex tonight, bro.” Mike said and he petted Vic on his shoulder. “Look at who has got the pants on in your relationship.” He said grinning.
Vic shook off Mike’s hand and looked at him through the rear mirror. “Look who's talking. Aren’t you like super single?”
Mike leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head. “You don't have to worry about me, brother. I’m good.” He said smirking.
My heart stopped when I realized he was talking about me. Luckily for me Vic didn't seem to have figured out anything. It seemed like he thought it was one of Mike’s usual cocky remarks. Naira on the other hand, was shooting me meaningful looks through the mirror. A blush rushed to my cheeks and I broke our eye contact by looking out the window at the dry sandy lands of California.
I thought back to yesterday evening when I went over to Mike's to help him pack. I went knowing pretty damn well that we wouldn't do much packing, but it was my plan to keep it as innocent as possible. But taking things slowly with Mike seemed to be an impossible task. Somehow I ended up on the kitchen sink making out with him. How was I supposed to think things over if we couldn't keep our hands of each other. This wasn't the first time something like this happened, you see. Ever since we kissed in my garden that night, we pretty much ended up making out every time we hung out alone. We hadn't gone too far, though. I mean, I wanted too, but I just figured it would make everything too complicated. So for the first time in my life I decided to be the responsible adult and wait until I was sure I was ready to get serious with him. I was so proud of me. The fact that regular make out sessions couldn't be the the smartest thing to do either, was beside the point.
I looked over to my right and saw that Mike was silently staring out of the window too. His snapback was a crooked on his head and it kind of looked like he hadn't shaved in a while. The fact that I thought he looked cute scared me a little. It was so weird that I had never looked at him like that before.
Before I knew it I had laid my hand down on his hand that was placed on the car seat next to him. He turned his head around at the sudden contact. His surprised expression faded to an adorable smile and he shot me a playful wink.
I rolled my eyes and focused my attention on the sandy roads outside the car again while my hand still lingered on his as we drove through the next minutes in silence.

*

We spent the rest of the day in the car. Except for the occasional tank station and rest room of course. The trip took 13 hours, but we left that morning at 1 pm. Around 8 we would stop at a hotel to get some dinner and we would spend the night there. According to our planning we would leave the hotel in Bakersfield around 10 so we would be in Ashland around 4 pm.
We could've easily taken a flight to an airport in Oregon, but Vic and Naira figured out that it would be fun to make it into a road trip. I must say that, except for the occasional bickering from the Fuentes brothers, we actually did have a great time. We did a lot of corny car games like ‘twenty questions’ that got boring after while, but then after half an hour of sitting in silence someone would come up with another cheesy car game.
Oh, and then there was the glorious hour when we were stuck in traffic around Los Angeles. A few minutes beforehand Naira had already noted that she had to go to the bathroom, so the plan was to stop at the next public restroom. Of course we didn’t know that the next one would be a few miles north of LA. This resulted in Naira bumping up and down in her seat for the entire hour we were stuck and her yelling out ‘Thank god!’ when we were moving again and ‘Are you freaking kidding me?!’ when the cars in front of us slowed down. I felt bad for her, but I gotta admit that it was very amusing to watch. Of course Mike needed to make fun of her by making peeing sounds with his mound and making lots of puns about water. I shot him a few glares, but kinda hoped he wouldn’t stop since it was just too funny.
As soon as we finally stopped at the next restroom, Naira sprinted out of the car and almost tripped over her laces doing so. I had decided to look around the little store that was near the gas station and restrooms and found a very tiny version of Monopoly. I looked inside the pockets of my jeans and found ten dollars. I decided to buy it, both because it was adorable and because roadtrips wouldn’t be complete without board games. I chose to ignore the fact that I always got crazy competitive when it came to Monopoly. I didn’t know what it was about that game, but I always got attached the streets I bought somehow.
As we were back on the road again, Mike and me had tried to play a game of Monopoly, but pretty much didn’t get any further than two turns because all the pawns slipped of the board every time the car made a turn. We decided it was time to store the tiny boardgame away when one of the houses bumped of the board and glided under Naira’s chair. We spent twenty minutes searching it and it has been lost since that day.
We arrived at our hotel in Bakersfield around nine o'clock in the evening, only an hour later as planned. We checked in and put our stuff in our room and then we immediately went out to get dinner. Of course we had enough to eat in the car and it wasn’t like we had done anything active all day, but we were still all extremely hungry somehow. Luckily we had seen a Wendy’s by the side of the road only a few minutes away from our hotel. It had been a very long time since I had been in a fastfood restaurant due to the fact that I could probably eat my entire fridge and still have eaten less calories as when I would eat one french fry at Mcdonalds. But it really seemed like I wasn’t going to get out of it this time since the boys didn’t feel like eating at a fancy place and Naira would kill me if I didn’t eat anything. Eventually I just ordered a small portion of fries that I only finished half, but she seemed to be satisfied with it. Probably because I also ate a few chocolate chip cookies in the car.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel and we decided to hang around in Vic and Naira’s room for a while before going to sleep. “So, let’s raid the minibar!” Mike said first thing as he entered the room and headed straight for the little fridge underneath the wooden desk.
Vic grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him away from the minibar. “How about no. You’re not going to empty out my bank account by drinking those extremely overpriced bottles. Besides, you have to drive tomorrow morning, so I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to get wasted now.” he said sternly.
Mike rolled his eyes and pulled his shirt out of Vic’s grip. “Please, it’s not like you don’t have the money. Besides, I wasn’t really planning on getting hammered. What do you take me for? Some guy who drinks his ass off at every possibility?” he said as he took a small bottle of wine out of the minibar.
“Yes.” Vic, Naira and I said at exactly the same time.
I grinned looking at Mike’s fake insulted face. He put his hand on his heart. “Ouch, that hurts almost as much as sitting in a car driven by Vic.” he said sarcastically as he closed the fridge door and took a wine glass out of the cupboard above the desk. “Anyone else?” he asked us nodging to the bottle of wine.
Vic, Naira and I looked at each other and shrugged. It wasn’t like we were much more responsible than Mike when it came to this. And so we ended up sitting on Naira and Vic’s bed with four glasses of wine talking about we were all going to do in Ashland. I didn’t really know what to expect since it had been a long time since I had been in such a small town. When I went on holiday with my family we usually went to very populated areas. I had seen quite a lot of places: I regularly went to LA and I had also been to New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami and lots of other big cities. I had even been to Europe where I had visited London, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam and Istanbul. But I pretty much hadn’t been to non-urban area since I was three years old and my parents had taken me and Tyler to Canada. So I pretty much didn’t know what to expect.
Naira had told us that Ashland was pretty much known for its beautiful nature and most tourists visited it to enjoy the silence and to visit the parks and lakes. I’m not going to lie, it did sound very good. I lived only a few blocks away from one of the busiest streets of San Diego, so I pretty much didn’t know what silence was anymore.
After an hour of listening to Naira’s childhood stories and all the memories she had in Ashland, it was already around midnight and Mike and I decided to go to our own rooms. We still had quite a drive ahead of us and even though I had only had two glasses of wine, I still felt myself dozing off a bit. I was very much looking forward to crawling into the bed in my hotel room.
As soon as the door of Naira and Vic’s room closed behind us I again realized the tension between me and Mike. We awkwardly smiled to each other as we headed to our own rooms further down the hall. There was a room between my room and Vic and Naira’s, but Mike’s room was right next to mine. After I had opened the door to my room, I lingered in the opening a little bit longer, hoping he would break the awkward silence. I don’t really know why things were suddenly weird. Even though you’d think it would be, things had hardly been awkward between us yet since that kiss in my garden.
“Maybe you can come in? We can hang out a bit more?” he asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. I looked at him and saw that he was awkwardly shuffling his feet in the opening of the door to his room.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…” I said, more to myself than to him.
He nodded and broke eye contact with me. “I understand.” he said as casual as he could in this situation.
“I mean...like…I’m very tired and we have to get up early.” I said, trying desperately to make the situation better. I didn't succeed.
“Yes. You're so right. It was a long day. I actually want to go to bed too.” He said, the casualness slowly dripping out of his voice.
“So... good night then.” I said, not realizing that I was looking at him expectantly.
“Yeah, good night.”
Not really knowing what to do, I leaned in to give him a kiss on the lips, but changed my mind midway and gave him a kiss on the cheek instead.
He awkwardly chuckled as I leaned back. “Well, that's a step back from yesterday.” He said, his voice accidently slipping through some of the disappointment he felt.
“Mike…” I said sighing. I didn't need him to make this any worse than it was.
“It's okay.” He said still grinning. “We’ll finish this another time.”
I rolled my eyes and walked back towards my door. “Good night, Mike.”
“Sweet dreams, Maya” he said just before I heard him close the door to his room. I closed my door too when I realized he was actually gone now and dragged my hands over my face. It was a good thing nothing happened today. It definitely would've gone further than just kissing if it did and I really needed to stay clear from that for now. I also went that fast with Jaime and it only made things more complicated.
I walked over to the bag on my bed and pulled out the oversized shirt that I always slept in. I changed into it and tied my hair in bun. By the time I was laying in bed my head wondered back to the moment in the hallway. Why didn’t I just kiss him? Then I wouldn't think about it the entire time now. I clicked out the light on my bed stand, but stared at the ceiling for a while. After a minute or ten I could already conclude that I wasn't going to be able to sleep. I sat up straight and looked towards the door, doubting my next move.
Eventually I shut off my mind and leaped over to the door. I opened it only to see Mike standing in the hallway facing the other way and holding his forehead with one hand. Not expecting to see him there my first reflex was to quickly shut the door, making a louder bang than I wanted to.
“Maya?” I heard him say from the otherside of the door. I didn’t say anything and waited with one hand on the door. My breath slowed down after a while and then I heard the door in the room next to me close. He was gone now. Why did I do that? Why did I freak out like that?
I slowly opened the door and saw that the hall was indeed empty. I let out the breath I was holding in and slowly walked over to Mike’s room. I raised my hand to knock on the door, but then lowered it again. Would it be very weird to knock after I had just closed the door on him?
I had just decided to turn around and return to my room when the door slowly opened. Mike appeared in the door opening dressed in sweats and an old shirt.
We looked at each other in silence for a few seconds before I swung my arms around his neck and let my lips meet his. He pulled me in closer by laying his hands on my back and I deepened the kiss. For what felt like too short, we stood there, making out. My hands travelled from his neck to his hair and I let my fingers trace them.
Eventually I moved my lips from his, but our foreheads remained in contact. I knew I had to go back to my room now, but I had to admit that I was quite comfortable in his arms.
“Well, good night then… for real this time.” I said.
He sighed and tightened the grip on my back as if he didn’t want to let me go. “Okay then. Good night.” He said and he put a kiss on my forehead. He then let me go and turned around to go to his room. Still a little bit shaken up by the kiss, I went back to my room.

Notes

Guess who's back, back again, we are back, tell a friend!

Sorry for the long wait! I hope it will be worth it!

xxxxx

Nicky