Not much to say. Please just let me know if this is still holding anyone’s interest. I know that it’s not an easy thing to guess yet since it’s hardly developed, but I would love the constructive criticism. Even if there are a couple things I could improve to help you read it. You’re comments are appreciated. K

My Apartment

© KES

Chapter Three

I had been in an unbelievably good mood ever since my morning with Mike. Not just because an incredibly gorgeous, sweet, funny guy has asked me out, but because I finally felt ready to go out. I finally felt that I had let go of Trent.

Anna had called six times, waking me up out of a dead sleep. I ignored the first five calls, hoping she’d get the message and let me sleep. By the sixth call, half out of worry and half out of complete impatience, I answered the phone.

“What?” I grumbled.

“Oh, were you sleeping?”

“You know I was sleeping!” I exclaimed, “Stop playing innocent. I hate you.”

She laughed, “I thought you might have been up.”

“Yeah, you call six times assuming I’d be awake one of them, right?”

“I can let you get back to sleep if you’d really like.”

“Shut up and tell me what you want.”

“How can I shut up and te—“

“Anna.”

“You need a sense of humor,” she informed me. “Josh and I are in the area—we wanted to know if you wanted to meet for an early dinner.”

I sighed, “I still need to shower and stuff.”

“That’s fine. We’re shopping in uptown. You know I could spend hours here.”

“Please hurry,” I heard Josh, Anna’s boyfriend of over a year, say.

I chuckled, “Poor Josh… how’d you get him to go with you?”

“You don’t want to know,” she laughed. It sounded like her phone suddenly dropped.

“Anna?” I inquired.

“She’s letting me go to Sexworld!” Josh exclaimed proudly.

I roared with laughter. “She’s going to kill you for telling me that.”

“I don’t care. I’m too happy.”

I heard the phone being yanked out of Josh’s hands. “Ignore him,” Anna said, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Right,” I snickered, “Where do you want to eat?”

“I don’t know; I’ve been debating between Hard Rock and the Old Spaghetti Factory.”

“Who’s buying?”

“Josh,” Anna said sweetly. I could picture exactly the sugar sweet stare she was directing to her boyfriend.

“Spaghetti Factory it is,” I laughed. “So I’ll meet you there in an hour?”

“Alright, see ya then,” Anna replied. “Oh, and Al… try to look nice.”

“Anna!” I yelled. “This better not be another one of your stupid dates!”

“Don’t worry about it,” she ignored my yelling. “You know this one. I promise you won’t be mad.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” I grumbled, “I really do hate you.”

“Uh-huh. See ya in a bit.” She hung up before I could say anything else.

I went to my closet and pulled out my grungiest pair of jeans and an old Underoath shirt. If I didn’t have the balls to say I wasn’t going to go, I could at least rebel against her request of nice clothing.

I showed up at the Old Spaghetti Factory about an hour and a half later. If there’s one thing Anna hates, it’s when people are late.

“Sorry,” I smiled at her. “Traffic on Washington was a…” I trailed off, my eyes focused on the guy Anna has set me up with this time.

“Still love Underoath, I see,” he said quietly.

“Trent,” I couldn’t take my eyes off him. It had been quite a while since I had seen him last, but the only thing that was even remotely different was that he had pierced his lip, slightly off-center. His hair was still dyed black, swept across his face, making his deep blue eyes look incredibly intense. Dressed in his typical attire of some band tee shirt and dark jeans, looking at him almost made me feel like nothing had changed. “What are you doing here?” I finally asked.

“I transferred back home,” he told me. “New York just wasn’t the place for me.”

“Oh,” I said. I was speechless. What fucking timing, I thought. “I… uh…” and I walked away. I didn’t know what else to do.

I had walked to the bathroom without realizing it. My mind was racing. He was home? Why? I didn’t know how I felt.

“Al?” Anna said from the doorway.

“Never again,” I told her. “Never ever again will you try to ‘fix’ my love life.”

“But Alex…”

“Anna, I’m not kidding. You can’t keep doing this to me.”

“He came looking for you. As soon as he got home. He begged to see you.”

“You can’t… you don’t know what…”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Of course I know. I knew the whole time. Why do you think I’ve been setting you up on all these dates? I’ve been trying to get him out of your system!”

I didn’t respond. I had no idea that she knew about us.

“But that didn’t seem to be working,” she continued, “so when he showed up, I didn’t think it would hurt anything.”

“He cheated on me, Anna!” I exclaimed, “And didn’t bother to tell me until a month after the fact!” The look on her face made it evident that she didn’t know that. “Oh, you hadn’t figured that part out yet? He must’ve left it out when he gave you his sob story. She ‘gets’ him. She was better than me… at what, who knows? But this is not happening. I am going home. Tell him thanks but no thanks. He had his chance.”

“Alex, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

I sighed, feeling suddenly exhausted, extremely thankful that it was a Friday so I didn’t have to work. “Leave my love life alone.”

She nodded, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.” I wasn’t mad at her. I could never stay mad at her for very long for anything anyway. Part of me just wished that I had told her the whole story before so this mess of an encounter never would have happened, especially considering she already knew most of it anyway. Just goes to show it’s impossible to keep things from your best friend—especially when she’s your sister.

I was halfway to my car before I heard footsteps, then his voice.

“Alex…” he seemed to not know what else to say.

I turned around, against my own will. The last thing I wanted to do was have this conversation—any conversation—with him.

“I’m sorry,” he told me, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

I laughed harshly, “Yeah.” I turned to leave.

He reached for my arm. “Al, please…”

“Don’t touch me, Trent.”

“But—“

“I don’t give a damn how sorry you are. I don’t need you in my life anymore,” I snapped at him.

“I made a mistake, Al… we all do.”

“That’s right. We all do. That doesn’t have anything to do with me letting you back in.”

“You used to be more forgiving than this,” he told me, standing with his hands behind his head, something he only did when he was getting frustrated. I cursed myself for remembering that.

“Yeah, well, that was before you broke my heart.” I glared at him, “I don’t need you anymore. I haven’t for a long time.”

“Are you sure about that?” he inquired. He wasn’t trying to be rude or cruel; he was just asking me a question.

“Positive,” I met his eyes. I knew I sounded a lot more confident than I felt.

He put his hands up in surrender. “Fine. It was nice seeing you again, Alex. I wish things were different.”

So do I, I thought, then quickly added, It probably would be if you hadn’t cheated on me.

I took one last glance at him, then got in my car and left without another word.

I ended up at work without even thinking about it. It wasn’t until I unlocked the door and headed inside that I realized it was my night off. “What is wrong with me?” I grumbled, turning around to leave.

“I’d say a lot if you’re talking to yourself,” Erika spoke up. Things with us had been fine since our first tense night of work, but that didn’t mean I wanted to deal with her. I didn’t want to deal with anyone.

She glanced at me as I mumbled my excuses. It looked like she wanted to say something important, but decided against it. “Wanna stay and help me develop? Karen wants those ten rolls of wedding film done by Monday and I’ve been sorta slacking on them.”

I shrugged, appreciating that she didn’t ask me how I was. “I’m clocking in.”

“Go ahead. I think Karen would rather the prints get done than deal with a little overtime. We’ve pushed this date back once already,” Erika explained.

An hour or so into the first few rolls, my stomach started grumbling, reminding me I hadn’t had anything to eat since really early that morning.

“Damn, girl… you sound like you got a volcano in there,” Erika snickered. “Why don’t you go run for food before everything closes?”

I nodded, grabbing my purse. “You want anything?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I practically brought my whole kitchen with me tonight.”

I smiled and, craving sweet and sour pork, headed for the Chinese restaurant on the corner. I was glad that I showed up at work, even if it was accidental. Developing prints made me actually think about something other than my night. The last thing in the world I felt like dealing with was Trent.

I entered the nearly empty restaurant, my stomach rumbling appreciatively. I ordered quickly, wanting to head back to work, thoughts of Trent already filling my mind.

Someone called my name as I was paying. I spun around, surprised, and proceeded to dump my change all over the floor.

His honey colored eyes crinkled in amusement as he picked it up for me. Feeling totally flustered, I felt my face turn red.

“Thanks,” I smiled as he handed me my change.

“No prob,” he grinned back, leaning against the wall. “Eating Chinese by yourself on a Friday night? Sounds lonely.”

“I could say the same for you,” I said playfully.

“I’m not alone,” he said slyly.

“Oh, you got a date?” I snickered, “Well, if you bring her back to the apartment, do try to keep it down. The walls are way too thin.”

“Am I detecting a bit of jealously from you, miss Alex?”

“Ha. No. I’m actually working tonight. Trying to get a little overtime in.”

“Oh, sweet. That’s awesome. Do you think I could stop by for a bit tonight and watch you at work?”

“Don’t you think your date would object?”

He laughed, “Not on a date. With my cousin.”

“You were trying to make me jealous.”

“Too bad it didn’t work,” his eyes gleamed playfully.

I kissed his cheek quickly. “It did. Just a little.”

He beamed. “I’ll be by later. You care if my cousin comes with?”

I headed for the door, “Nah, that’s cool. See ya later.”

Feeling loads better, I walked slowly back to work. Thoughts of Mike beat out thoughts of Trent any day.

“Wow, you seem… a lot happier. What’d I miss?” Erika said after I bounced through the break room to the couch.

“Sweet and sour pork,” I held up the carton. “It works wonders.”

“Unless sweet and sour pork comes in the male form, you’re a liar.”

I giggled. “Shut up.”

She joined me on a quick break and we joked around for a while.

“So you guys are gonna go out sometime?” She sounded as excited as I felt after telling her about Mike.

“That’s the idea. He’s really, really sweet. I’m so excited.”

“Hope you’re talking about me,” I heard his voice from the doorway.

“Psh, yeah right.” I glanced up at him, smiling.

The smile disappeared from my face as quickly as it appeared. “Al, I’d like you to meet my cousin, Trent.”

I stood up, glaring past Mike right at Trent. “We’ve met.”

Okay, I know this was probably horribly predictable by the end of this chapter, but I honestly didn’t even come up with the idea until I was writing that part, but hey, you got to meet Trent… Please please leave a review and let me know what you think!

Sorry, no review responses this time just cuz fp is being a bitch.