Alright by Supergrass

We are young, we are free.

I slept that night, barely. A strange uneasy feeling sat in my stomach. I wouldn't say I'm scared about photos getting out but I'm not exactly thrilled. I suppose if photos are released it's somewhat of a good thing, at least that would mean that I don't have a stalker. Regardless, I need to look around before I kiss someone from now on. 

The thought of Jameson echoed in the back of my mind. Kissing him felt so right but can I get back with him? Fuck knows. 

I contemplated getting up several times however due to my laziness, that resulted in me staring at the ceiling for an hour. All I know is it is now 8.19am and I'm starving.

I creep out of bed, tiptoeing past Max's bed, then Rebecca's, then Thea's until I reach the door. I cringe at the loud creaking of the door.

The door opens slowly and I jump five feet in the air when I see Kennedy standing with his arms crossed by the door. The mid 20's man may be fairly young but he's a very tall and intimidating guy.

"Fuck" I mutter under my breath. "Finally decided to show up to your fucking job then I see?" I joke after his inconvenient absence last night when Jameson and I were stranded alone in the hot tub.

"Heard all about it, are you doing okay?" He replies. I don't think he's ever spoke to me in all the months he's been my bodyguard. "Yeah, I'm splendid." I smile sarcastically. 

"You're up early." He observes, "I struggled to sleep." I sigh, shutting the bedroom door as quietly as possible. 

I walk down the staircase, trying to be quiet as I make my way to the kitchen. 

Kennedy waits at the staircase as I enter the kitchen area, he's not close enough to hear anything but he is able to see. 

I jump -yet again- at the sight of Xander Hawthorne sitting cross legged on the island munching on a box of cereal. 

"You scared the shit out of me." I say, walking around the counter until I'm in front of him. "What are you doing up at this time?" He asks, equally as startled. 

"I couldn't sleep. I'm starving." I complain. He scoots over and gestures for me to join him on the counter. I sit crosslegged as he swallows some cereal he is eating out of the box, "Well you're in luck, because I can't either and I am too." He says, passing me the box of lucky charms he is enjoying. 

I take out a small hand full and start eating, I pass him back the box and he takes another handful "I never thought the richest family in Texas would eat lucky charms." I laugh. "It was the old man's favourite. He considered buying the whole franchise at one point." Xander laughs.

"What stopped him?" I ask with a grin, putting the last of my handful in my mouth. "Nan." He replies with a laugh. He passes me the box back and keeps eating his handful. I take a second scoop of cereal and place the box on the counter.

He takes one of the marshmallows from his score and tosses it at me. I scoff with a smile and toss one of mine back at him. He leans forward and catches it in his mouth, "this isn't you first rodeo." I determine. 

"I'm just a natural." He shrugs arrogantly, I laugh at him and pelt at least five more at him which all hit him, "If that's the standard for natural then I'd hate to see unnatural." I joke. "Just look in the mirror." He smiles innocently, pelting more at me. I stand up and throw the rest of my handful at him, "Oh you went there" he laughs. "I went there." I nod. He grabs the whole box of cereal and jumps down from the counter, I immediately start running. 

I run around the counter a few times, him following closely throwing small amounts and mostly missing. "So close." I tease, he starts running significantly faster and I speed up. I make it out of the kitchen and run outside into the snow. He follows me out and I quickly grab a small snowball, throwing it and hitting him perfecting on the shoulder. 

"Oh really?" He laughs, completely dropping the box of cereal and starting to form snow balls. Which he pelts at me. I'm clearly at a disadvantage due to his ability to throw with more pressure. 

Somewhere throughout the morning, cereal eating turned to cereal throwing which then turned into a snowball fight. He has his back turned and I take the chance to throw one at the back of his head, "Not the hair!" He yells as he turns back around with three new snowballs. He throws one, "Not the boob!" I yell.

He throws the second which lands right on my forehead and slowly melts down my face, another hits my upper leg. 

I open my mouth wide in shock, "Sorry, you can have a free shot on me." He allows, with his eyes closed standing still. I make up a snowball and throw it at his face, we now have matching snow ball prints. 

We both laugh and he comes towards me, he picks me up and throws me back down on the fluffy white snow. He then cannonballs next to me into the thick coat. 

We both just lay there laughing for a little longer. "So you and Jameson?" He asks, "So you and Max?" I reply. 

"I wish" he mutters. I immediately sit up. "I fucking heard that!" I yell excitedly. He sits up now too just as urgently as me. "You cannot tell anyone!" He warns, "Xander love M-" I scream before being tackled by his hand covering my mouth. 

"I did not say I love her. I barely even like her." He lies, "You love her." I laugh muffled due to his hand. "No i don't." He denies. 

"I'm gonna take my hand away now. If I do, you have to promise me you'll drop it?" He warns. I nod innocently, he thinks for a moment and releases me. 

"If you just asked her, I'm sure she would say yes." I speak quickly before he can stop me. "What did I just say?" He scolds, "Sorry, had to get it out my system." I sigh.

"Xan Xan?- Can I call you Xan Xan?" I say philosophically. "No you may not." He replies, "Great. Xan Xan, you are a kind, intelligent, beautiful, funny man who any girl would be lucky to have a relationship with. Maximilian would be thrilled if she knew you liked her. Mostly because your family is super rich but also because of all those other things I said." I joke. He scoffs jokingly at me and throws sprinkles of snow on my face. 

"In all seriousness though, she hasn't had a great history of relationships and you would turn that back around." I smile genuinely. 

"Yeah well now we've done that, you need to talk about Jameson." Xander insists. "What about him?" I groan. "I don't know, maybe the whole almost faxing him in a hot tub? He hints, "Faxing?" I laugh, "I've been spending too much time with Max" he determines. 

"I don't know what happened, in the moment I really wanted him but now.. I just don't know if it's a good idea right now. I think if we don't get back together things'll be awkward, but if we do then will it just cause more drama?" I express.

"Don't think about the drama it'll cause. Think about if it's what you want." Xander comforts. "Drama is always going to follow you around." He says, "Gee, thanks Xan" I scoff. "You know that's not what I mean. They're always going to find some reason to hate you. That's just how it is, and before you showed up it was always me. The death threats you get are the same ones I used to get, the articles published about any little thing that you do used to be about me. It's the youngest sibling curse." He frowns. We went from bonding over lucky charms to death threats we both receive.

"We need to stick together. We're the underdogs, the youngest and most importantly the favourites. Well clearly not everyone's favourites.." Xander smiles, playfully punching my shoulder. 

It's weird to think last night during spin the bottle we were intensely making out now like 10 hours later here we are talking about each other's partners. 

Xander speaks up and I almost think he read my mind, "Jameson would be lucky to be with you. I mean after that kiss last night I want to be with you." He laughs. "Maybe we should. You and me, just run away together, away from it all." I joke. "Too easy. We should fake our own deaths. We can get away without fear of anyone looking for us." He suggests. 

"You've thought about this before." I smile slightly. "You haven't?" He asks. 

I suppose when I think about it I have thought about just leaving it all, running and never coming back. Would they even care? Would I become just another phantom haunting the Hawthorne House? 

Would I become Emily?

"Who hasn't?" I say, staring down at the snow in thought. Xander frowns in somewhat of a response. 

"C'mere" he sighs with open arms. I lean over into his arms and hug him, it's only when our skin meets that I realise how cold we both are. We are in the snow and have been for about half an hour I suppose. 

I subconsciously look around when hugging him, making sure nobody is watching. There is a figure watching us. However that figure is not what I suspected. I quickly jolt my eyes up at the figure in the doorway. 

Alisa watches us begrudgingly. "We have a stalker." I whisper in a joking voice. Xander pulls away and turns away confused and smirks when he sees Alisa. 

"I hate to interrupt this special moment however I'm afraid everyone is awake." Alisa informs us. Xander jumps to his feet and puts his hand out for me, I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet.

We both walk inside together and make our way to the kitchen where everyone seems to be gathering. 

We are both wearing snow covered pj's and wide grins. Xander and I both simultaneously pull ourselves up onto the kitchen counter and sit there observing others walk around doing there own things. 

Max, Thea and Nash crowd around the glass coffee pot desperately waiting for it to finish producing coffee. Rebecca and Libby clean up some of the mess the others left behind. Avery is buttering four slices of toast, whilst Grayson watches her closely, I assume two of those four are for him. Jameson scours the cabinets eagerly.

"What you lookin' for there Jameson?" Xander asks curiously, "Lucky charms, could've sworn I saw some yesterday." Jameson replies, continuing to search some of the cabinets he has already searched previously.

"Hmm, that's strange." Xander says thoughtfully. We share a glance and smirk at each other.

Everyone seems to finish what they're doing at the same time. Max sits down at the island with her coffee, Thea passes a mug to Rebecca and sits down with her to enjoy their coffee, Nash passes Libby one and has one for himself. Grayson picks up his toast from Avery's plate and doesn't hesitate to sit down and eat it. Eventually everyone is sitting and eating/drinking something except Jameson who is still searching around. Xander and I both spin around on the counter so we are facing everyone.

"This has been an eventful stay." Avery states, "Eventful how?" Libby asks. 

"Well first of all, Xander and Paris made out for like 3 minutes straight. Then Jameson and Paris almost fucked. Now either Paris or Jameson has a stalker. Then Paris wakes up before 12pm." Avery explains.

"Sorry back to that first one real quick?" Nash almost chokes on his coffee. "It was platonic." Xander and I say at the exact same time. "It was terrifying. I thought you would rip your clothes off and fuck right there in front of us." Jameson interjects. "It was just the game." I say with a laugh. 

"It was a scene straight out of fifty shades of grey." Avery shivers at the thought. "Hilarious." Xander says deadpan.

"It wasn't hilarious, you looked like you were competing to see who could eat the others face quicker." Thea speaks up disgustedly. 

I grab Xander's chin and pull it towards me, pressing our lips together. I pull back, "See? Nothing. Just the game." I say. Everyone kind of drops it and goes back to eating.

"Strange.. You taste like lucky charms." Xander smirks. "What?" Jameson's head almost snaps at the speed he turns it towards us. 

"Let me try." Jameson begs, he runs towards me like a dog tempted with a treat. "Go outside in the snow, there's a surprise out there waiting for you." I treat him like the dog he's acting like.

He raises his brow and slowly starts walking outside sceptically. 

"So what you were saying Avery, is that Paris has had an eventful week." Libby corrects. 

"It's the universe telling me I'm the main character." I say confidently. 

"That what you told yourself when you were shot?" Grayson smirks looking down trying to hide his amusement at his own joke.

"Or when Avery inherited the money instead of you?" Thea joins. "Or when you found out your boyfriend was faxing your best friend?" Max adds. "Or when you got drunk on the Fourth of July and spoke about your fake relationship?" Avery includes. "What about when you-" Max starts. 

"I get the point." I smile sarcastically. 

"What the fuck kind of surprise is that?" Jameson asks angrily when he comes back in. "Sorry Jamie." Xander laughs. "You've seen it? That's not fucking funny Xander." He raises his voice. 

Xander and I share a look, our smiles dropping. "It's just cereal Jameson.." Xander says calmly. "What?" Jameson asks confused.

"The lucky charms?" I speak up worriedly. "What are you talking about?" Jameson asks. "I said go outside for a surprise where we left the lucky charms that we took out." I explain. "You haven't seen it then?" He asks seriously. "Seen what?" I ask, jumping off the countertop and rounding until I'm in front of him. 

"Don't go outside Paris." Jameson warns placing his hands firmly on my shoulders, "What's out there?" I ask desperately. "Paris. Please." He begs.

"Jameson." I warn firmly. His eyes flicker between mine quickly. I escape his grasp and walk passed him and make my way to the door outside, everyone following me eagerly. 

I walk out into the crunching snow. In the bright white snow is a large printed photo of Jameson and I in the hot tub, my bra very clearly about to be removed. Written next to it in a maroon colour is the phrase:

This'll be your blood next if you don't watch your back.

Written in blood. 

I take a deep breath. 

All I can think to say is, "You really need to get better security."