Our lips crashed against eachother. His lips were warm and soft, just like the last time we kissed. Our kiss was full of meaning, and full of memories, as well as passion. It felt like there hadn't been a four-year separation between the two of us, as we still remembered exactly how we used to kiss, the dances our tongues used to make, and our fights for dominance. "You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that," Jordan said breathlessly, "the amount of times I felt like driving to Cambridge and doing just that."

"Why didn't you?" I asked, also breathless.

"I didn't want to be rejected," he sighed.

I pulled him in for another kiss, pouring as much passion and meaning into it as I could, "you can kiss me whenever you'd like, I won't reject you," I smiled up at him, and he beamed down at me.

"Fuck, Avery, you're amazing."

"You're amazing too," I giggled at him. "Was there anything you actually wanted to talk about, or did you just want to kiss me?"

"Well, now that you ask, I have plans all week that include you in them."

"Oh really, what might they be," I flirted.

"Coffee on Monday, movie on Tuesday, after work, lunch Wednesday, drinks Thursday after work, dinner Friday," he cheekily smirked at me.

"You want me to clear my whole schedule for you?" I put my hands on my hips and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Avery, you and I both know you have no plans," he stated.

"You are so cocky," I laughed at him.

"You love it."

"I do." He pulled me in for another mind-blowing kiss.

After an insanely amazing make-out session with my ex, which sounds really weird when you say it like that, we headed back to the group around the fire pit. This time, Tabs and Noah were with the guys, and Grace was there too. Tabs and Grace looked like they were still ignoring eachother, as Grace stared daggers at Tabs, who was sitting on the lap of a guy I didn't know the name of.

There were a couple of other guys around, laughing and joking with the others, who I also didn't know the name of, as well as a couple of very pretty girls. "Jordy-boo, there you are," one of the girls with bleach blonde hair in beach waves, who was gorgeous, came over to Jordan, dragging him over to the firepit.

"Dahlia, I said there is nothing between us," Jordan pulled his arm out of her grasp.

"Is it her? This high school sweetheart that the tabloids keep talking about?"

"You knew that I didn't want to date you from the start, please don't make a scene," Jordan tried to reason with her, but she stormed off in a huff, as I went and took a seat in between Max and Dylan, who pulled up a chair for me.

"Ignore her Berry, that's just one of Jordan's flings who caught feelings, she's harmless really," Max informed me. I nodded my head, but I couldn't help but compare myself to the stick-thin, mostly leg, stunning woman that stood before me, and towering above me. Maybe I should have sorted out all of the baggage that comes along with Jordan before jumping into things with him, or at least ask him what baggage he did come with...

We spent the rest of the evening around the firepit, which was quite fun. I was introduced to all of the other guys and girls, the guys being Jordan's friends that he met through his job, be they boxers or trainers etc, some of the girls were trainers, some were female boxers, and some were just models. The two main ones that I came to know, who spoke the most and were clearly the closest with Jordan were Kyle, a boxer in a different weight division to Jordan, and Ryan, a personal trainer at the gym that Jordan works out at. The other one was Oli, the fighter, not Oli who was nicknamed 'Smoli'. They nicknamed 'boxer Oli' as 'big dick Oli', which really was not a nickname at all, but it's what they referred to him as. I, however, did not feel like calling this guy 'big dick Oli', so I just decided to call him 'tall Oli', because he did tower over basically everyone, including Jordan.

Tall Oli was also the one that Tabs had been sitting on for the past hour, and had been making out with for the past five minutes, as Grace continued to stare daggers at her. I wasn't sure exactly what had happened there, but I was sure if Tabs wanted to tell me, she would, and if she didn't want to tell me, I would make her, just like she always makes me tell her things.

At some point, someone brought out marshmallows, chocolate digestives and wooden skewers, and we all sat around the campfire making smores, and arguing about which was the best way to make them, well, at least Tabs and I were arguing, and everyone was laughing, and throwing in their opinion at points. I think it is best if you set the marshmallow on fire, then blow it out, take off the crispy bit around the marshmallow and eat it, then do it again and stick it in between the biscuits, but Tabs thinks it should just be 'lightly toasted' and not burnt. We have a very heated discussion before Dylan broke it up, as tall Oli and Jordan were too busy laughing at us.

Max and Oli started singing campfire songs, very, very loudly, and eventually everyone joined in, as we were all drunk out of our minds and had not a single care in the world. Then we played never have I ever, and some of the digs that Grace gave to Tabs were... interesting. "Never have I ever had a threesome and focused more on one person than the other and then completely forgotten about the other person and gone to dinner with the first person," Grace said. There were a couple of awkward glances, and when Tabs didn't take a sip of her drink, Grace just stormed off.

"We are so talking about this later," I whispered to Tabs. She nodded her head, looking at me with wide eyes.

"Never have I ever only had sex with one person," Oli said. Shit. I had to drink but... God, this was awkward. I took a sip of my drink.

"WHAT?!" Oli looked at me with wide eyes. "You're fit Berry, how have you not slept with anyone else?"

"Um," God, I didn't know what to bloody say, I saw Jordan tense up next to me, I don't know what was running through his head, but I kind of wanted to know.

"Aves here is hopeless when it comes to all things guys, trust me on that, you don't even want to hear about Joel," Tabs butted in, saving my ass. I'll thank her for that later.

"Who's Joel?" asked Dylan, now very curious about guys from the last 4 years.

"Didn't I just say, you don't wanna know!"

"I wanna know!" complained Max.

"Shut it Maxine," I scolded him.

"Hey!" he pouted. Joel was my asshole medic boyfriend who kept telling me I was going to get fat and so he put me on like a hundred different diets. That's the story I told Tabs and Noah anyway, and although that is true, I didn't tell them everything because I knew they would hunt him down and kill him. In reality, he sat me on top of the washing machine, and anything that jiggled he told me I needed to lose. I was in a bad place when I was with him, I became very self-conscious about my body and how I looked, even though I was only with him for three months, he preyed on the fact I was 'weak' to get me to stay with him because I 'needed' him. I gained my confidence back mostly though, and got rid of his sorry ass, helped by my dear roommates. I guess I did lose weight, the weight of an asshole boyfriend.

I could tell that Jordan was looking at me for the rest of the game, but I didn't want to lift my eyes to look at him, because firstly, I knew I'd be trapped in his gaze, and secondly, I didn't want to see what emotion lay in his eyes, not right now anyway. It was about 4am when the party gradually ended, and people trickled out of the huge house, and soon there were very few people around. "Aren't you going to go home?" I asked the guys.

"Um, well, this is kinda our home," Dylan answered.

"What?!" Tabs exclaimed.

"Yeah, it's our version of the playboy mansion," laughed Max, before Oli elbowed him in the ribs, "Ow."

"How many of you live here?" I asked.

"Well, there's myself, Smoli, Dildo, Jord, then Kyle, Ryan and big dick Oli," Max answered. "We have a load of space though, there are so many spare bedrooms." That makes a lot of sense now how Jordan just knew his way around the house so easily. I wondered if it was his bedroom that he took me into when we kissed earlier...

"You staying the night?" Dylan asked.

"Um," I looked around the group, at all of the guys looking at Tabs and I, avoiding Jordan's intense gaze. "Shit, where's Noah?" I turned to Tabs.

"Fucks sake," Tabs muttered, pulling out her phone and dialling his number. They talked for a couple of seconds on the phone, before she hung up. "We need to go," Tabs said. I could hear the urgency in her voice, so I just got up and followed her. "See you guys around," she said, as she yanked me away. I couldn't say bye, so I kind of waved awkwardly.

We headed through the house to the front gates, where Noah was sprawled out in a bush, cutlass broken in half, and hat scattered somewhere else. "Hey hun, what's up?" I asked, crouching down next to his head and brushing some of the hair out of his face.

"Jonty," was all he said. Tabs and I both gave eachother a knowing look, and grabbed an arm of his each, pulling him up. I called an uber, and we hopped into it. Luckily, there was an elevator in our apartment building, so we got him up and into his bed fairly easily. He fell asleep almost instantly, and we just left him.

"I wonder what happened," I spoke to Tabs as we sat at the island in our kitchen munching away at some popcorn.

"Whenever Jonty is involved, nothing is good." Jonty is Noah's asshole ex. They dated for a bit in high school, but he was very far in the closet, and so the only place they could meet up was in Jonty's room. Noah wanted more than being hidden away, and although he cried a lot over Jonty, he did eventually find a guy who treated him the way he wanted, and dated him the way he wanted. Jonty never gave up though, but not in a cute way, he would bombard Noah with messages, somehow always pulling him back in, using whatever toxic means necessary. Every single time he came back into Noah's life over the last four years, he went off the rails slightly, and Tabs and I always had to pull him back on. It was clear that tonight he had tried to drown his sorrows in alcohol, which is why he was absolutely fucked off his face.

***

1917 words

07/01/2021