19 February 2020

Score: Barely Legal - The Strokes

Mark

When we reach the chalet, I'm faced with yet another issue...

"You have got to be kidding me!" I bang on the door to the so-called boys' room, which is still locked. "Didn't you come already?" I hear stifled giggles behind the door, but it remains locked.

"You can shower in our bathroom." Lydia says, standing in the doorway to the girls' room in a t-shirt and her snowboarding pants.

Heat washes over my body, as I stand there, looking at her. I guess it's the log fire. It has been burning the entire time we were outside.

Yet, I feel a little uneasy, looking at one of my two oldest friends. How come I haven't noticed before that her body's changed? She has curves now, that are highlighted by the way her snowboarding pants are hanging low on her waist and the plain black t-shirt she's wearing is hugging her chest a little too snug...

I shake the unwelcome thoughts away, my annoyance at the Universe, growing stronger by the minute.

Lydia does not have curves. She has not grown fucking breasts over last summer. The fucking Baby Lord, whom I'm still to teach a lesson for the little show he put up on the slopes, isn't drooling down his chin, checking her ass out from behind her back...

And I do not have a place to shower right now, which fucking sucks!

I let a loud breath out, before heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" Lydia calls from behind my back.

"To the bar." I say, resignation ringing in my voice. "I need a drink! This whole trip is a nightmare! You kids are a pain in my ass! I never should have agreed to this!" I slam the door behind my back and stomp to the elevators.

The bar is on the second floor of the hotel and is currently packed. I glide into a stool at the bar and order a vodka coke.

The first sip slightly burns a sweet trail down my throat, dissolving my tension on its way. I look around, taking in my surroundings.

A group of boys about my age are sitting at the far end of the bar, drinking beer. Five middle-aged ladies are sitting in one of the brown-leather booths by the door, sipping on wine and laughing a little too loudly. Colin is standing by the door to the terrace, a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He sees me and lifts his glass in my direction.

Great.

I raise my vodka coke in the air for a brief return of his greeting and turn my gaze away just in time to notice the killer blonde with mile-long legs, slipping into the barstool next to mine, grinning as if she has won the lottery.

"Heya, lovely! Care for some company?" She says in what must be the most annoying voice since Janice from Friends. "I'm Jane", she says, lifting her hand in the air between us.

"I'm not interested." I say, leaving her hand to hang in the air. She hesitates for a beat, but then lowers it.

"Grumpy, eh? Don't worry, I don't want to talk, either." She says, her smug smile holding a hint of all the stuff she'd prefer to be doing right now, instead of talking.

I sigh deeply, shaking my head. My eyes catch Colin briefly, who still hasn't gone out to smoke his freaking cigarette. He gives me a wicked grin and the thumbs up, cocking his head towards the bar.

Oh, for fuck's sake!

"How long are you staying here, Grumpy?" Jane asks, slipping her hand on my knee under the bar.

That's it!

I call the bartender and order a bottle of vodka and six cans of coke on the room. Jane's grin widens, as she wrongly interprets my actions. When the vodka and the cans materialize in a bag with the hotel's logo on it, she straightens from her stool, but I push her by the shoulder back into her seat.

"Don't bother." I say, lowering my head to level with her ear. "I said I was not interested." Her eyes widen with shock, as I remove my hand from her shoulder and start walking. She stares at me, her mouth wide open, anger twisting her face.

Uh-oh! Someone's not used to rejection.

"Good night, Jane!" I wave, as I exit the bar.

Her face was priceless!  I can't help, but laugh on my way back to the chalet.

Annoying as these kids are, I'm way too tired to stay in that bar and socialize.

I swipe my keycard and the door opens and I walk inside the seating area/hallway. It is deserted, with the exception of a room service cart, parked near the door to the girls' room. I decide not to bother knocking on the door of what was supposed to be partially my room for the weekend, and head straight for the girls'.

Some sort of pop music is coming through the closed door, as well as low voices and laughter. I open the door, clutching the bag with the booze in front of my chest.

Lydia's eyes shoot up from across the room and meet mine, as I walk in. She is sitting on the sofa in the girls' seating area, dressed in a plain white T-shirt and fuzzy shorts and socks. Her hair is wet and she's thrown it over one shoulder and it's left a wet trail on her T-shirt there. Her legs are crossed and there's a plate with a half-eaten burger and chips perched on her thighs.

I don't know if it's the way she's sitting, but her legs could make Jane from the bar turn green with envy. And, even though I definitely don't want to go there, I can't help but notice she's not wearing a bra. Her nipples are poking through the white cotton of her T-shirt, the one on the side of her wet hair practically visible through the soaked fabric, clutching onto her skin.

Suddenly, I feel something warm and unfamiliar swell in my chest, and, at the same time, something hot and very familiar swell in my pants...

No! I cannot be turned on by my best friend. This is simply impossible...I've known her and Gloria since they were two and I was four...I've known her all my life...We've bathed naked together when we were very young, we've had fucking sleepovers together till they turned ten. I would have known, for the fourteen years we've known each other, if I was attracted to Lydia...

Yet, here I am, standing like an idiot in the doorway, staring at her with an aching crotch and  a dry mouth...Thank God I'm still in my snowboarding pants, they are wide enough to hide my embarrassing visceral reaction to a single fucking nipple...

Oh, no! Does this mean I'll get hard if I see Gloria half-naked, as well?...

"Alright, mate?" A familiar, annoying voice crashes with my eardrum from my left.

Hundreds of icy pinpricks stick in my spine. I turn in the direction of the voice, my teeth gritted and my pulse ringing in my ears.

The fucking Baby Lord!

I suddenly feel weirdly possessive of Lydia. He can't be looking at her, while she's this exposed. I am aware she's wearing clothes, but she might as well be naked, and her body isn't for his eyes to see. He doesn't fucking deserve it.

He doesn't deserve seeing her every day, when they go to school, either. I'm leaving this year and I don't see her and Gloria at school anyway, them being two years below me, and the nightmare of A Levels breathing down my neck.

"Yeah, why?" I just answer harshly.

"Because you've been standing there for nearly a minute, without saying anything." He's sitting in one of the armchairs, a half-eaten plate of food resting on the coffee table in front of him.

"Would you like something to eat? I ordered plenty. I didn't know whether you, or Gloria, or the Love Birds would like any." Lydia says, pointing to the plates on the dresser behind her.

I shake my head, laying the bottle of vodka and the cans of coke on the table next to the Baby Lord's plate. His and Lydia's eyes widen.

"Figured you'd like some" I say, opening the bottle. "If you are allowed to drink at all, that is."

"Yeah, of course, mate, we're sixteen, not six." Patrick says.

My eyes register movement in the doorway. I left the door open and now, there's Gloria standing in the door frame. She must have come back from dinner with the parents. She's wearing a scanty blue dress, hugging her body a tad too tightly. Knowing Aunty Dee, she probably bought it for her. I look at Gloria, cautiously, almost fearing whether the newly discovered fact that my two best friends have turned into women in the blink of an eye and I haven't freakin noticed, will make my body react the same way it did, when I saw Lydia in her t-shirt and fuzzy pajama shorts.

Nope. Nothing. Nada.

Even the skin on my body sighs with relief.

Great! One less to worry about!