Countdown

ana barton

This is an original story that’s based on an idea that’s been playing about in my head for a while since a trip of mine some time ago. I’ll be borrowing the characters from my other original story called Illusion. Other characters are based on personal friends of mine. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental.

Rated PG-16 for language and content.

Chapter 5

Faye decided she’d rather tag along and be a third wheel than stay at the house with two hung-over men who needed babying. So after breakfast, the three of them left a note for the other two but snuck into check on them first before leaving.

The stench of beer and alcohol could have rendered any small creatures unconscious in a hurry. But she found herself guffawing in hilarity at the sight that greeted them. Russell and David were a tangle of limbs on one bed, but that wasn’t all. Both were shirtless and only wearing boxer shorts (she wished they weren’t as it would have made for a more interesting image), AND they were face to feet with each other. Russell was close to making out with David’s toes while the latter was gripping the former’s legs like a child would a well-loved teddy bear.

The flash of the camera woke her up from her self-induced near state of catatonic amusement. She looked to Anna who’d taken another picture.

“I have to take it,” she said in a whisper. “How could I not take that? Think of the wonderful blackmail opportunities this opens up…!”

Maybe she hadn’t been paying complete attention to them in the past few days, wrapped up as she was in her so-called boyfriend who didn’t think anything at all about flirting with another woman while his girlfriend was in the vicinity, but she had resolved not to think about that today. With the span of – she mentally counted out the days as they walked out of the house – four days, James and Anna had gone from complete strangers to completely at ease flirting partners.

She wasn’t sure if it could be called flirting. There were coy smiles, of course, and a bit of handholding at times, but nothing too serious. There weren’t any of the full body contact and roaming hands and suggestive language she’d come to know as flirting with Russell.

Nope, not going to think about that.

They ended up in church of all places. They went to this place of a relatively well-known order of nuns and they were just in time to hear Mass.

Now Faye was from a deeply religious family – Sunday Mass, feasts of all known Saints, and all that – but on her own, she wasn’t as devout as other people would like to believe; Anna as well, for that matter. She knew both their mothers would have a conniption if they ever heard of their daughters attending Mass without anyone twisting their collective arms.

But there they were, sitting on the pew and hearing Mass like it was the most natural thing in the whole world to do. She sighed and just decided to make the most of the situation. The nuns in their pink habits really had wonderful singing voices though so that was a bonus.

James looked at her as covertly as he could, considering that they were next to each other, it was a fairly easy task to accomplish. They were at the Order’s bookstore and Anna was picking out some stationery with Faye to bring back to their mothers; they’d already gotten some wonderful cookies the nuns were famous for.

“I never understood what Mom sees in the color pink,” Anna was saying as she looked through an assortment of pink paper. “It’s so…” she shrugged.

“Pink,” Faye finished for her. “I know what you mean though.”

“I thought all girls liked pink,” he wondered out loud.

Faye just rolled her eyes at him and went to another table of stationery.

“There’s pink and there’s pink,” replied Anna. “Just as there’s blue and then there’s blue.”

“Huh?”

“Different shades of color, my good man,” she clarified for him, holding up two pieces of pink paper. “This,” she shook the one in her right hand, “is something that I don’t particularly favor while this,” she waved the one in her left hand, “is perfectly acceptable.”

They were both pink to him but upon some closer inspection and an eyestrain or two, James saw that the one in her left was lighter in color than the other one.

“Oh.”

“Revelation in a word,” she said as she shook her head at him.

“So that’s why your pink dress in your eighteenth birthday party was almost white,” he continued almost absently in a low voice.

Anna inclined her head at him in question. “Excuse me?”

He flushed. “Oh. Uhm, well, Russell had that picture of you from your eighteenth birthday party inside a book and he showed it to me once.” Which was true, up to a point: Russell did show him the picture once, but only because he’d claimed it as his own after that.

“My debut?” she asked with a frown. “That was years ago. I haven’t even thought about it in a long time.”

“Oh.”

“Which one was it?”

“Uhm, he said it was at the end of the party. You were sitting on the stairs,” he replied.

She smiled as she remembered that night. “Oh, that picture… Mom had a hard time convincing me to go up to my room.” She chuckled lightly. “I must have fallen asleep on the stairs and Dad had to carry me.”

“Speaking of pictures,” Faye interjected with a wickedly innocent smile. “I just realized that you’ve run out of film and we should get this one developed and get another roll. What do you think?”

Anna smiled in just the same way. “I think you’re right.”

James suppressed a shudder as they went to the cashier to pay for their purchases. These two women together were scary sometimes.

They left the film at the one-hour photo-developing kiosk and they headed for the market. And wouldn’t you know it, the two headed for the clothes stalls.

“Women and clothes,” James muttered to himself as he followed them around carrying their purchases.

The place wasn’t even a mall, but more of a second-hand clothes retail stalls. The clothes were cheap, very affordable, but were of good quality. One just had to dig in and shuffle through the lot of them. He found himself, aside from carrying their packages, to be an impromptu fashion adviser.

Several of the males who were there with their girlfriends or wives shared looks of sympathy with him. Some he could see had been there all morning while some like him were just starting off their day. He had reconciled with himself that they’d probably be there most of the morning and some of the afternoon so he was pleasantly surprised when Anna and Faye came out of there with just three bags

each and ready to go after only a couple of hours.

“We’re going?” he asked, looking at them both with surprise as he automatically took the bags from them. “We’re really going?”

“Oh honestly James,” Anna replied as she tugged at his arm. “Don’t tell me you want to stay here for the whole day.”

“No I don’t,” he said immediately. He couldn’t help but smirk at the other guys as they left.

“Lucky bloke,” he heard someone mutter but he didn’t pay them much attention anymore.

“It’s not like we can go through everything in one go,” Faye added. “There’s only so much time that we’d burrow through several piles of clothes. It can get boring and tiring, you know.”

He just made the appropriate sound responses as they made their way to the photo kiosk and picked up the photos.

“Let’s not wait to get to the house to see them,” Anna suggested as she looked at the envelope of pictures with something close to evil glee.

Faye nodded. “I second that.”

They made their way to a vacant bench at a nearby park and sat down, all bags and purchases going to him as Faye and Anna ripped open the envelope. On top of the pile were the several shots Anna had taken of their drunken friends. No wonder the guy at the kiosk was looking at them in a weird way. In one picture, Russell and David’s shorts weren’t that visible and they looked like two men who’d had a ‘wonderful’ night with each other.

“Oh this is wonderful,” Faye cackled.

Anna couldn’t reply because she was laughing too much. She handed him the rest of the pictures as she and Faye focused on the other shots of the unfortunate David and Russell.

James just shook his head at them and starting looking through the rest of the photos. There were the ones of their first day in, some taken at the Academy at the visitor’s parking lot, some by the landed helicopter, and some inside the house.

Shots of Russell and Faye he separated from the rest of the pictures, as he knew they’d want them. There were Russell and Faye in each other’s arms as they posed in front of the mist.

He and Anna managed to snag some pictures of just themselves, most of them taken without them knowing. There was one of the two of them cooking the kitchen – he didn’t know which dish they were making and which day it was but it looked… comfortable was the word that came to mind. And he was just able to make out the details of the next picture before it was taken from his hands forcibly.

“Oi!” James couldn’t help it, the blush rose on his face.

Faye looked at him weirdly before she saw which picture it was he looking at. “Oohh… this one. I’d completely forgotten about this.”

“What?” Anna grabbed the picture and went flame-red when she saw it.

The angle was off, and they were more towards the left of the photo with the coffee table becoming more of the centerpiece for the shot than they were. It was of the night they spent together in the living room, when she fell asleep on the couch. He was also asleep but sitting on the floor with his back to the couch and she was holding him to her. His head was at the crook of her neck, he noticed, and that was what was so embarrassing. He hadn’t really noticed it before.

“Russell told me he took a picture of you when he came back to bed that night,” Faye remarked absently.

“I’m going to—what the hell do you mean came back to bed?!” Anna was staring daggers at her friend.

“Oops.” Faye stood up as if branded by a hot iron. “Will you look at the time? It’s close to lunch and the drunken ones really should be tended to. I’ll just take these…” and she proceeded to take everything they’d gotten in her hands, including the pictures, as she backed away. “And I’ll see you at the house later. Bye now!” She ran off. “And behave!”

“Oi! You come back here…!” Anna made as if to go after her but James held onto her hand and tugged her back onto the bench.

He shook his head slightly at the pouting and embarrassed frown on her face. “Hey…” He gently nudged her shoulders with his. “We already talked about it, remember?”

She blushed. “I know but still…”

“I know.” James chuckled. “I didn’t notice either.”

“Which one? That Russ took a picture of us or that they’d probably slept together?”

He shrugged. “Both I guess.”

“Hmph. I just hope I don’t have to talk to them about the consequences as that is one talk I do not want to have with either of them.”

Faye hurried the house. She’d been lucky that the first cab she’d flagged down was vacant and quite fast and efficient that she was in the house in minutes. She entered the house and dumped the shopping on the couch before she sat down on the carpeted floor heavily.

She placed her hands on her cheeks. She hadn’t really meant to say that out loud. They’d decided that discretion was the better part of valor and that they wouldn’t say anything to anyone. Faye grinned at remembrance of that night. He’d been wonderful and considerate – as wonderful and considerate a guy can be allowing for the drunken condition they were both in – and it hadn’t been that they were both drunk that they decided to jump into bed together; Lord knows drunks make the worst bed partners in the whole universe. They’d slept the worst off and had only decided to have sex after he’d come back to her room after taking that picture of their two housemates.

“Okay, all this blood going to my head is not good,” Faye thought to herself as details of that night entered her mind.

It wasn’t as though Russell was her first lover much in the same sense that she wasn’t his first. She knew she’d rather not think of that awkward and uncomfortable first time with her then boyfriend, who happened to be a real life sports jock, with an added dollop of the attitude.

“You’re back…”

She turned around in surprise. She hadn’t expected either of them to be up just yet. “You sound terrible,” she said as she stood up.

“I feel it too.”

“C’mon.” Faye approached him and pulled him along to the kitchen. “I know a wonderful cure for a hang-over.”

“You’re a goddess,” David croaked out.

She grinned. “I know.”

James held her hand as they walked around the park. He didn’t let the awkwardness come back and had immediately pulled her up and they went for a boat ride. He rowed and she navigated; it was a lot of fun and he was relieved when she looked to have forgotten about the picture. It would do well for them to just get over it and go forward.

So now they were walking around, talking about anything and everything that caught their fancy.

“I’m hungry,” Anna said. “Can we eat now?”

“What do you want for lunch?” he asked, looking around for a suitable place for them to eat.

“Pizza!”

He spotted the pizzeria the same time she did and they made their way to it. “We don’t order the whole pizza, okay?”

“But I’m hungry…!”

“Two slices,” he said firmly. He opened the door for her and they entered. “No more because I know we won’t be able to finish the whole thing without the others.”

Anna pouted as they sat down. She held up the menu and covered her face. “Hmph.”

“Anna…” He pulled the menu down and looked at her pouting face.

She looked away. “Hmph.”

“How about a compromise?” James waited until she looked at him before continuing. “Two slices of pizza each – different toppings, I know – and we get the Buffalo wings as well?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Mashed potatoes.”

He grinned. “Deal.”

“Ready to order then?” asked the amused waiter.

“Yes.” James kept the eye contact with her. “Four pizza slices, pepperoni and cheese, Hawaiian, seafood, and all-meat toppings; one order of the Buffalo wings; mashed potatoes; orange juice; and cola.”

“Gotcha, anything else?”

“That’s all, thanks.” Anna was grinning into their staring contest.

“Alrighty, ten minutes.” The waiter left, shaking his head.

“First one to blink gets the bill?” she asked.

“You’re going down, Flores.”

She snorted. “Not before you do, Benedicto.”

David cradled his head in his hands as he strove to keep his surroundings from going out from under him. “I shouldn’t have drunk too much.”

“Nope.”

He was actually feeling a bit better, after drinking the rust red concoction of Faye’s and he didn’t want to know what went in that. David rolled his shoulders and opened his eyes a bit. The glare of the sun wasn’t that bad and he found he could open his eyes fully without squinting as much.

“You actually know your remedies,” he remarked.

“Of course.” Faye flashed him a smile from across the counter where she was at the stove making lunch for them. “I’ve been there and I had to know how to get out of it, eh?”

He grinned back at her. “I suppose you’re right. So what’re you doing back here? Where’re James and Anna?”

“Still out,” she replied with a shrug. “I left them at one of the parks.”

“What’d they do? Told you to leave them alone?” he asked in a teasing tone.

“Sort of.” She approached him with a plate of burgers and chips along with a dish of salad. “I sort of deserted them.” Faye took a bite of her burger and chewed thoughtfully.

“Is that food I smell?”

They looked to the rumpled looking Russell emerge from the bedroom, rubbing his eyes like a child and yawning loudly.

“Oh man… I haven’t slept that good in a long while…”

Faye struggled to keep the food in her mouth and not spew anything out in laughter.

“Faye, you all right?” David asked in concern.

She waved her hand around vaguely and just concentrated in breathing. If only they knew how they looked earlier…

Anna knew they were drawing amused stares from the staff and some of the customers in the pizzeria, but she didn’t rightly care. She was having fun and that was the foremost thing in her mind right now. She smeared her pepperoni and cheese pizza with the mashed potato and placed some strips of meat from the Buffalo wings on top.

“You have weird tastes,” James stated as he stared at the made up pizza.

She raised an eyebrow at him as she took a bite. She’d be hard-pressed to tell him that he was right in restricting the amount of food they ordered. As it was, after the seafood pizza slice and just a couple of pieces of the Buffalo wings, she was almost full. James was actually waiting for her to finish eating, having finished his own portion earlier than her.

“Want to try?”

He made a face but he did lean towards her and took a bite. Anna chuckled as he chewed thoughtfully; he really was quite nice, and he had some mashed potato on the side of his mouth. She grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the spot.

“Well?” she asked.

James had frozen for a fraction of a second when her hand touched his face but he continued chewing. It felt… nice and electric. He looked at her and grinned.

“Quite good, actually,” he replied. “Needs a bit of gravy and hot sauce though.”

She smiled at him, and her smile didn’t falter even when he was staring at her with something else in his eyes. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen that look on him before, and she found that she quite liked it when he looked at her like that.

“You’re good.”

“I know.”

David had left them to themselves after he’d eaten half of his burger to get a much needed shower. Beer can really stink up one’s hair, and as he recalled Russell having dumped a mug of it on him, he really needed to shower. He did feel the tension between Russell and Faye when he left, yes, but he thought they ought to be adults about it and talk.

That and he stank to high heaven.

So he took a leisurely shower, spending twenty minutes on washing his hair alone, and he let his thoughts drift. It had been a long time since he’d had this type of time off. The house was quite comfortable and the people were friendly… when they weren’t embroiled in uncomfortable silences and shy glances.

David actually stepped out of the shower feeling refreshed and revitalized. “Nothing like a night of drunkenness to make you appreciate sobriety.” He dressed quickly and efficiently. It was one thing to dawdle in the shower but a completely different thing to spend more than five minutes getting dressed.

After all, he knew he looked good in whatever he was wearing.

Anna glanced up at him as they walked hand-in-hand in another park. This park was actually the one near the Cathedral where they had played hide and seek. The pine trees were numerous all around them and there were family groups all around them.

She swung their joined hands as they walked, just to see how that would feel. And it felt wonderful. While he had a firm grip on her hand, his arm was loose enough to let her swing their arms together. Anna bit her lip to keep from chuckling.

“Something funny?” he asked, pulling her to him.

She shook her head.

“You’re lying.” James looped his arm around her shoulders, their joint hands ending up on top of her shoulder. “I can tell.”

“Oh do shut up.”

“No way.”

Anna poked his side.

“Oi!”

She stopped and he followed suit. “You’re ticklish?” she asked in surprise.

“No,” James retorted.

“Right…” She disentangled their hands. “So you won’t mind if I do… this!” She’d placed both her hands on his waist and ran her fingers down his down.

“Told you so.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh really…?” She stepped closer to him with a grin.

James started to feel just a teeny bit nervous at her proximity. One more step and they’d be flush against the other and he didn’t know if he could control his body’s reaction to her anymore. It was time that he turned the tables on her.

“I could ask the same of you,” he said. He placed his hands on her hips, and grinned when Anna shuddered as he kept his touch light and just teasing. “Hah.”

“Hah yourself, mister.”

“I’m so scared.”

She frowned up at him and pushed at his chest.

James snickered but let her push him back, though he did bring her with him. He almost tripped and was quite thankful that there was a tree immediately behind him. He grinned down at her.

“Oh shut up.” She did snuggle up to him though, placing her head on his chest.

He was surprised at her action but he wasn’t going to complain. So instead, he wrapped both arms around her back and held her. He felt her release a breath, and James immediately loosened his hold on her, thinking that she wanted him to let go.

But Anna just laughed softly and turned her head the other way to look at the sunset. She placed her hands on his upper arms, stroking him gently. When she didn’t do anything else, he placed his hand on the top of her head then ran his fingers through her hair. He repeated the action several times as they stood there quietly.

Meanwhile back in the house, Russell had just decided that there must have been something decidedly wrong with his face because every time Faye would look at him, she would burst into giggles and outright laughter. He had looked at the mirror several times already – at all the different mirrors in the whole house – but he hadn’t seen anything at all.

He wanted to ask her but he couldn’t because… well, Russell didn’t know how she would react. He didn’t know if she was still angry with him for that incident at the Strawberry Fields, and he didn’t know if she would just bust a gut if she laughed at him again.

Even David was starting to give her weird looks after he got out of the shower. If it was any consolation, she’d been laughing at David as well.

Russell knocked on her open bedroom door. “Erh, Faye…?”

She grunted in reply. She was sitting on the bed sorting through some clothes.

“Can I ask you something?”

Faye looked up. “Yeah?”

He leaned negligently against the doorway. “Why’ve you been laughing at David and me the whole day?”

She spluttered and almost choked on air.

“Oi!” Now he was getting plain annoyed. What the hell was the joke and why wasn’t he in on it?

She laughed suddenly and collapsed on her side on the bed, laughing still every time she looked at him. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God… Oh dear God…!”

David peered in. “Everything alright in here?”

If it was even possible, she laughed harder.

“Alright, that’s it!” Russell exclaimed. “I want to know what’s going on and I want to know it right now!”

She waved towards a pile of photos on the nearby table but she did scoot up the bed. “Just…” she guffawed.

He and David made for the table and picked up the photos. They looked through it curiously until they came upon the fifth of the stack. They looked at each other in surprise, blushed, and literally jumped apart. Faye laughed louder.

“Oh my God…” she gasped out. “The look on your faces… Priceless!”

David recovered faster. Indeed he even got a mischievous look in his eyes as he looked Russell over. “Why dear Sir Adjutant,” he began. “I didn’t know you liked me that way…”

Russell backed away in a major hurry. “Eep.”

“If you’d like we could—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish his statement because Russell had already beaten a hasty retreat. Faye was rolling on the bed laughing by this time.

“Nice… David…” she wheezed out.

He smirked. “I know.”

Night had already fallen by the time James and Anna made it back to the house. They were holding hands and looking at each other every now and again, blushing and smiling when one catches the other’s eye.

“You think anybody made dinner?” James asked as he opened the front door for her.

“Faye might. Does David know how to cook?”

He shrugged. “I think boiling water is the extent of his culinary abilities.” They entered the quiet house, automatically linking hands again after they’d taken off their jackets.

“At least he can make instant noodles.”

James chuckled. They placed their jackets on the couch in the living room then headed for the kitchen. Only, they weren’t the only ones it seemed who had the intention of making dinner.

“Looking cozy,” Anna remarked.

David just grunted as he bent over his task of peeling vegetables. Faye looked up at them and grinned. “Hey you two. Had fun?”

“As a matter of fact,” James replied with a glance at Anna. “We did.”

“That’s good.”

They approached the counter. “So what’re we making?”

“Good ole fashioned soup.”

Anna looked around. “Where’s Russ?”

“Probably locked in his room,” David replied with a snigger. He looked up at Anna. “I think I traumatized him.”

“Why?”

“I showed them the pictures,” Faye put in. They all looked at one another then burst into laughter.

They continued making dinner, chatting amicably. If anyone noticed the closeness between James and Anna, none commented on it.

Russell only emerged from his room when his cousin called him to dinner, and even then, he made sure that he sat far away from David.

After dinner and after everyone was in bed, Anna crept out of her bedroom silently. She re-lit the fire in the fireplace and sat on the couch. A number of things had happened in just the few short days she’d been here and she needed to think. As it was, she couldn’t get to sleep because a certain someone’s face kept intruding.

“Figured it’d be you out here.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard that voice. She looked behind her with a frown. “Are you trying to put me in an early grave?!” she hissed out.

“Sorry.” James sat down next to her on the couch. “Are you alright?”

She sighed deeply then leaned her head on his shoulder. “Just thinking.”

“Okay… Want to tell me about it?” he asked as he placed his arm around her shoulders.

Anna shook her head then straightened up as she looked at him. “Want to go to the roof deck with me? I want to look at the night sky tonight.”

“Sure.” He stood and pulled her up with him. Before they left, they placed the grate in front of the fireplace and grabbed some blankets off the couch.

Soon enough they were ensconced on the outdoor couch up in the roof deck, and practically smothered with thick blankets, some of which they took from her real bedroom. Anna leaned onto his chest as she looked up the sky.

“I like clear skies like tonight,” she breathed out. “It’s so vast out there, and it makes you feel small, doesn’t it?”

James murmured an affirmative sound and continued running his fingers through her loose hair.

She sighed. “What’s happening to us James?”

To be continued…