“Hey Axel,” a few girls giggled as I handed them bracelets and let them in. I nodded, ushering them onward so I could get the next group in.
“Back so soon?” I greeted Lloyd and the guys. I hadn’t expected them back until next week, after they had all left the night before with a girl on their arm.
“Yeah, we are hoping for better tonight,” Mathers chuckled.
“Those girls were sloppy,” Lloyd confirmed, scrunching his nose in distaste. I had known they would be just by looking at them.
“Well, good luck men, happy hunting,” I joked, getting a round of laughs.
“Always is.” Rhodes grinned. They entered the bar, on the prowl for fresh meat tonight and a good time. I looked forward to having a good night out with my boys. It had been a while and I wanted to tell them that I had seen Leah and she was here. They all knew about my mystery woman but no one knew I’d seen her again; it was something I wanted to tell them in person and not through a text. Some of them still had doubts about this mythical woman’s existence.
EXAMS WERE FINALLY SLOWING DOWN and I had finished up all my papers and now there was nothing to distract me from thoughts of Axel and our magnificent night in Munich. I hadn’t seen him since that night at Duke’s over two weeks ago and I was going crazy. His number still lay tucked away, burning a hole through my night table. But there was nothing I could do; I was with Chris after all. The only thing between Axel and I was one earth shattering night of passionate sex, and that hadn’t even lasted that long. I was probably just hyping it up in my head because I was so sexually frustrated, it had been almost a month since Chris and I had last had sex and I was slowly dying inside, especially with naughty dreams of Axel plaguing me every night.
I decided to head home for the weekend to escape and distance myself from any ideas of going back to see Axel. Chris was fine with me skipping out on our Saturday night sleepover, he’d skipped out the week before because he wanted to go out and party and I’d needed to study. With me gone this weekend he got to party some more. I didn’t mind that he liked to party, he told me he needed to get it out of his system before we settled down and eventually got married. I would rather him have his fun now than ten years down the line. I took the train to my parents, it only took forty-five minutes and then a short ten-minute walk to my family home.
I loved coming back home, no matter how long I was away, everything was always the same at home. I could smell Mom’s home cooking as I opened the door. She was a fantastic cook and her home cooked meals were always my favorite part about being home. I walked into the kitchen where Mom was stirring a pot of tomato sauce, while Dad sat at the kitchen table reading the paper. Just like always, they were never far from each other.
“Hi!” I called out and gave them both hugs. They hugged me back warmly, taking their time. I loved my parents and we were pretty close.
“I’m so happy you decided to come by,” Mom gushed. It had been a month since I’d been back home. I really did miss my parents but what with school, clinical and Chris, I didn’t have much time to visit.
“Me too,” I told them, taking a spoon and sampling Mom’s homemade sauce. Amazing as always.
“Hey Little One,” Jackie said, walking into the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said back, we weren’t close and often I wished we were. We used to be super close until Jackie turned fifteen and didn’t want anything to do with her eleven-year old little sister, tagging along with her everywhere. Jackie was very popular in high school and became a real girly girl, whereas I kept mostly to myself with few exceptions and got really into sports and sciences. I hung out with the nerds or the jocks, not the kind of groups Jackie would hang out with or even consider cool. We had next to nothing in common besides the blood running in our veins. She called me Little One as a nickname, because for a very long time I was really small for my age but now I’d caught up and was only an inch shorter than her, when she wasn’t wearing her heels which wasn’t often.
“How’s it going?” she asked, as we all sat down at the table to eat dinner together, something we did every night growing up, dinner was family time.
“Good, I’ve just about finished all my midterms and I’ve done all my papers for the meantime,” I told them.
“And how’s Chris?” Mom asked brightly. “It’s a shame he couldn’t make it tonight.” They didn’t know what had happened
