'Who's your favorite?' I write, laughing silently as I turn it around.
"You are," he answers with a wink. "Truth or dare, Abbs."
"Truth," she picks with a sigh.
"How good are you with sharing?" he asks, keeping his voice casual. The innuendo isn't hard to read in his voice though and everyone freezes, glancing from them to me and back again.
"I'm good with it, I'm a nice person like that," she says, throwing a wink my way and laughing. "Truth or dare, Cole?"
"Truth," he answers quickly, locking his blue eyes on mine. His eyes are an odd mix of hope. I wonder if he’s hoping someone will ask him about me.
"Who's the most awkward person you've had a sexy dream about?" she asks before dissolving into giggles. He groans and leans back in his chair, breaking our intense staring contest.
"Give me a dare, I refuse to answer that," he finally replies, covering his eyes with his arm.
"Fine, I dare you t—" She's cut off when the doorbell rings.
Cole jumps up to help Sophia carry the food and gives Abby the middle finger with a sly grin.
Knowing how much food Sophia ordered, the other two guys join too. Once both places have delivered and the boxes are in the kitchen, she spreads the food out on the kitchen island. I'm not even shocked at the sheer amount of it all. If you’ve never watched a group of teenage boys eat, count yourself lucky. It
resembles something I saw on a documentary about animal feeding habits. I’ve seen them without shirts on too, so I'm shocked at the amount they manage to put away.
“Come on, I have one more surprise,” Sophia sings out, leading us to the living room after Adam took out the trash since it was way too much to go in our usual bin.
We all follow her in and she reaches behind the TV stand and pulls out a bag from the local electronic store.
“Okay, I’m going to get sappy super quick. But you guys have all kind of tumbled into my life. When I took in Charlie, I was lonely and miserable, then together we were a little happier, finding our place. Then you came along and literally filled this house with noise I hadn’t realized I’d needed. And I want you to feel comfortable coming back, in any capacity,” she says, giving me a sly smirk that clearly says she’s on to us. “So I bought you a thank you for being awesome, gift.”
With a flourish she pulls out a box for the newest Xbox.
“No way,” Trent whispers and she grins triumphantly.
“Way, and in that drawer are several controllers—the pink one is Charlie’s—and a gift card to the game store.” Startled laughter flows from her as Abby and Trent run up and squeeze her in a hug. I love that they’re so comfortable with her, and her spoiling my friends just says how much she loves and trusts them.
Cole walks me through setting up a gamertag and the guys argue about what games to play. I haven’t played in so long I’m not even sure how well I’ll do. But Trent finds some game that we easily take turns at and we lose time as we play.
As it gets closer to bedtime I start fidgeting, rubbing my sweaty palms on my pants and my breaths coming in quick bursts. Cole and Abby keep glancing at me, likely noticing my growing discomfort and eventual panic. Cole sets his controller down firmly, his face set with determination. Gently grasping my elbow, he tugs me up and guides me into the kitchen, his stare intense as he studies me.
“What’s wrong, Charlie?”
‘I don’t know what I was thinking, this is such a bad idea. I have nightmares. I wake up screaming. You guys are all going to freak out. This will be too much. This will be the other shoe dropping I’ve been waiting for. This’ll be it for us and I'll be alone again.’ I'm too panicky at this point to care if I'm being too honest or over sharing. My breath starts to come out in short pants, but soon I'm surrounded by the others. I can't tell who at first as my vision darkens and my body screams for air. When my knees start to buckle, a voice cuts through the bubble of panic.
"Charlie, stop!" Alice demands, not bothering with kindness and surprisingly, it works. It's such a shock that it brings me out. Slowly my senses come back to me, and I can feel Adam's hand rubbing my back, Abby squeezing my hand, Cole cupping my cheek in his hand and whispering to me, and Trent lifting my jaw to look up at him.
"Nobody said anything about leaving. Friends don't just leave, sweetheart," he soothes.
“We don’t care, Charlie. It’s okay,” Cole adds, using a calming voice and pulling me into a hug. “When are you going to stop pushing us away? You’re one of us now. We can handle it. I promise. We aren’t just going to abandon you because your life before us was bad or awful or whatever it was,” he promises.
I relax slightly, but I know it's too late to back out of this sleepover, and that scares me. I take a deep breath and give him a nod. For once I’m going to just have to let go and trust.
Once we’re all ready for bed, we push the couch out of the way so the air mattresses are in a row through the living room. Cole makes sure his bed is next to mine, and Abby takes the spot on my other side, much to Adam's protests. When we lie down, I force myself to stay awake as one by one the others finally give in to sleep. I roll over to my side, facing Cole, and study his face, committing it to memory as the sense of dread slowly builds. When I can’t take it anymore, I roll over and do the same to Abby. Eventually I can't fight it anymore and slowly fade into sleep.
When I wake up, my limbs feel confined. I try to turn over, but something heavy is thrown over my side. I blink a few times to clear the sleep away and realize that Cole is holding me, and Abby's snuggled right next to me with her hand loosely around mine. Slowly I slide my hand from Abby’s, then pick up Cole’s arm and drop it to his side. It’s easy to climb off the mattress once I’m free, and gingerly make my way upstairs, trying not to wake anyone. I take the time to go through my morning routine, using the bathroom and brushing my teeth, still groggy from being up so late and a bit confused.
When I come back down and look around, I have to laugh at the way they're all sleeping. Adam ended up on the floor and Alice is sideways with her head by Abby. Trent is the only one who looks like he didn’t move in the night… at all.
Since I'm already up, I decide to start some waffles for the group. The waffle iron is one of the few kitchen appliances I know how to use, so I go about making a huge bowl of batter.