"Do your parents know about what happened?" Javier's father asked, his voice deep. "Should we call them and let them know you’re here?"
Javier shifted uncomfortably next to me. He looked between me and his parents sheepishly. "Uh, his parents are..."
Javier gave me a look, one that I could tell was him asking for approval. I wasn’t planning on telling the truth, I was going to make up some excuse and save myself the uncomfortableness. Unfortunately, Javier had put me on the spot, so I said what I thought was best
"You can call them but I’m not sure how great the cell reception is six feet under…" I joked lamely.
I regretted it when I was met with their wide eyes and dropped jaws. Bad joke, bad time. It took them a beat to conjure up their useless apologies, the same ones that everyone gave me. I did not want nor need theirs or anyone else's apologies. It wasn't anyone else's fault that both of my parents had passed before my first birthday.
They asked me a few more questions that I merely shrugged to. They eventually left Javier and I alone for the night, but not before ensuring me that their home was always welcome to me whenever I needed. They also said that they were always available to talk if I ever wanted to. I looked distressed and in need of help, otherwise they wouldn’t have repeated themselves as many times as they did. It was sweet of them, but I couldn’t see myself ever coming to their son's home again.
Javier took me up to his room—which was huge, by the way. He took some blankets out of his closet and dropped them on the couch that was in the corner of his room and facing his flat screen tv.
"You sleep in the bed, I'll take the couch," he said as he laid down.
I would have protested and insisted that I take the couch, but I was genuinely too tired to do so. I mumbled a sincere ‘thanks’ before laying down and falling asleep surprisingly fast.
Normally it took me a lot of twisting and turning along with a couple of shots before I would fall asleep. It must have been because of the intensity of the past couple of hours that sent me to sleep so quickly. Not to mention, his bed was incredibly soft. It felt like sleeping on a pile of clouds.
While I did fall asleep pretty quickly, the sleep did not last long. I was up again in under two hours, sweaty and panting.
I didn’t have anything to help me sleep, but I was craving it. I was not at my house, I was at Javier's. Practically a stranger. I was not going to steal anything from his parent’s liquor cabinets because I was better than that. Not to mention they had so much money that they probably had alarm systems set up everywhere in their home. Oh, and I was not a thief.
"You up?" asked the groggy voice of Javier.
"Yeah," I muttered as I rubbed my eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Javier sat up with a big yawn. "Can I come sit next to you?"
I didn’t know if it was because I was extremely tired or if I genuinely wanted his company, but I didn’t mind if he came next to me or not.
"It's your bed," I replied. Who was I to tell him no to being in his own bed?
The better question was why was I in his bed? His house was large, surely they had, like, three spare bedrooms. Alright, three was an exaggeration, but still. They had at least one, so they could have put me in there with no problem. I couldn't deny that his bed was comfortable as shit, though, so no complaints on my part.
Next thing I knew, Javier was lying down right beside me.
It was the craziest thing to me. I, Elias Richardson, was sleeping in Javier Cortez's house. My rival, my enemy. The guy I was supposed to hate and who was supposed to hate me. The guy who should have laughed when he found me walking alone at night, not stop and take me home.
Who knew he had that much kindness in his heart? It wasn’t like I made it easy for him to be so caring toward me. He didn't even know me, so he probably just felt bad for me. I hated that because I did not want anyone's pity.
As if on cue, he said, "I honestly thought you were going to beat me this year."
I scoffed. "Sure you did."
"I'm serious," he insisted. "I was shocked when they called my name and not yours. You made a good campaign."
I rolled my eyes even though it was too dark for him to see it. "The entire school knew that you were going to win just like you do every year. It was stupid of me to think I could even come close."
Javier didn't reply, his head cocked up toward the ceiling. It was back to silence between us, the only sound the faint creakingof the bed anytime one of us would shift. I noticed how close he was lying to me. If I moved my hand two more inches, our hands would be touching. If I rolled over I would be on top of him. For some inexplicable reason, I wanted to reach my hand out and touch his.
When I realized what I was doing I retracted my hand.
"Why did you want me to stay here?" I asked him, sitting up and folded my legs into a pretzel position.
He sat up as well and faced me. It was dark in the room, but I could see him a little better since we were directly facing each other.
"I didn't want you to stay here,” Javier stated.
