Ketchum, ID

ch 44 - alex

I woke up the next morning to the noise of the shower running and voices talking in the kitchen. I looked to my left and saw that Katie, Phoebe, and Naomi were still fast asleep sprawled out around our living room. I finally mustered up the strength to get up from the floor and stumble to the kitchen.

"Good morning, sleepy head," Lucy's voice sang to me.

"Coffee," I managed to mumble out. "Please."

"Already made and in the fridge, angel," Jo said as she opened the fridge to hand me the cup of coffee she had made for me. I took a sip and closed my eyes for a second before replying.

"You know me so well," I said as I raised the cup to my lips to take another sip and hummed content noises.

"Julien's in the shower because I told her you'd probably want to shower again before your big date," Jo said with a wink.

"I don't know if I should go," I said as I awkwardly looked down at the floor beneath me.

"Oh, you're going," Jo said as she stepped closer to me. "You're only nervous because you don't want them to hurt you, and I can tell you right now that they're entirely too interested in you at this point in time to hurt you. And plus, if they hurt you, you already know I'd fuck them up," she said while crossing her arms across her chest.

"I don't know what to wear," I groaned, struggling to make a case against Jo who knew me entirely too well.

"Well isn't it just your lucky day that you have seven people here way too involved in your life that can help you decide on an outfit?"

"I would say I am entirely too invested in this to try to come up with a lame excuse to not go," Lucy said as they raised their mug to their lips to take a sip of their tea.

"And I may have just met you, but consider me invested, baby," Josette chimed in.

"Good morning beautiful people," Katie said as she waltzed into the kitchen.

Behind her, Naomi was rubbing their eyes and Phoebe was mumbling something unintelligible with her eyes still half closed. The sight of the three of them caused me to forget about the conversation at hand for a split second and I let out a small laugh.

"Alex here is trying to get out of their date today by saying they don't know what to wear," Jo said with a roll of her eyes.

"There's literally no way," Phoebe said, instantly snapping awake. "You have a whole team here!" she exclaimed, causing my cheeks to heat up.

"What'd I miss?" Julien said as she rounded the corner with a towel in her hand, attempting to dry her hair.

"Perfect! You're out, so now Alex can go get in the shower and we can migrate to their room to pick out an outfit for their date," Jo said before turning around to face Julien.

I watched as Jo's eyes darkened at the sight of Julien and took that as my cue to leave the room.

"If you guys insist, then I will go get in the shower," I reluctantly said.

"Go get clean, baby!" Katie said, causing everyone in the room to laugh.

I went to the bathroom and went to start playing music for my shower. I shuffled my most recently listened to playlist and got in the shower. I washed my hair and sang along to a couple songs before I got out and started to dry off. I was still singing along without a care in the world before I heard a quiet giggle outside of the bathroom door in between songs. I brushed it off and wrapped myself in a towel before picking up my phone to pause my music before I walked to my room. When I looked at the song that was playing I immediately realized why someone would be laughing outside of the bathroom. I pressed pause on Number One Fan and sighed loudly. I closed my eyes in embarrassment when the laughter in the hallway tripled in volume.