4 – Hanging out.
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It was the last period of the day, which for Nikki was a creative writing elective she'd picked on a whim. Her thoughts far away, she tapped at her phone, kept hidden in the big pocket of her oversized maroon hoodie. She was supposed to be working on an assignment - a collection of three poems, each in a different style - which was due by the end of the week. Nikki hadn't written a word, though.

After detention, her day had gone on pretty much the same as any other: she sat in place and waited for the bell to ring so she could move to a new room to sit in place in. Last period had been gym, which was fun - the girls and boys were split though, so she didn't see much of Randy. Soon enough they'd be starting the swimming unit, which lasted a month and wasn't very fun... the pool wasn't heated at all. She'd get to see Randy without a shirt on though...

Once again, she was thinking about that kid too much. But this time it was alright. She had to write an essay on the guy, so, it was a good thing. Y'know, getting invested in the subject matter.

"Hey," Staring down at her phone, she read the text over in her head for the third time, her finger hovering over the send button. "Want to come over today and start on the essay?"

Was that too long, she wondered? She didn't want to seem weird. She backspaced it quickly and typed it in again.

"Hey, wanna come over today?"

Perfect, she thought. Short and to the point. She hit send, and in about two minutes, she got a reply.

"Why?"

"Essay." she sent back.

"Alright. Let me ask my mom first. Will your parents be over?"

"No, but you don't have to tell your mom that."

Randy took a longer time to respond then before.

"Okay. Meet you at the buses?"

Nikki smiled just as the bell rang.


"Nice house." said Randy, stepping in through the front door and looking around. They were in the living room, and from that branched off a laundry room and kitchen, along with stairs that lead up to a second floor and down to a basement. It was certainly a much smaller place than his, and from what he could see, it was a lot older too. Nikki followed him inside, closing the door shut.

"Thanks." she said, a tinge of embarrassment in her voice. "I know it's nothing compared to yours."

"No, it's nice." Randy replied, walking around to take a look at the different decorations in the living room. There were a few pictures hung on the wall, and a bookshelf in one corner that had been repurposed to hold a movie collection. "It reminds me of my dad's house."

"Oh." Nikki said. "Your parents are split?"

He nodded, picking through the shelf to see what movies they had: a couple video game cases on the bottom row caught his attention.

"Mine are too." Nikki continued, fiddling with her hands and staring at the back of Randy's head. Having a conversation like this with him just felt strange... she'd never told anyone this stuff before, let alone the boy she picked on. "My mom lives in California."

"Oh, nice." Randy said, standing back up. Upon seeing Nikki's half-offended, half-confused reaction, he scrambled to clarify. "I mean, nice in that she lives in California! My dad lives in Nebraska, I hate going there."

"I never go see my mom." Nikki said tersely.

Randy nodded. "I'm sorry." he said, sensing that he'd put her on edge. "We can stop talking about this..."

"It's okay." she said, folding her arms. Despite it being "okay," she was clearly done with that conversation. "We should work in the basement."

"Why?" asked Randy.

Nikki shrugged. "I just like the basement."

"Well, alright..."

The girl wasn't the only one feeling strange here... he didn't think he'd ever get used to a casual conversation with his bully. But it was surprisingly easy to talk to her. Randy had a hard time keeping up friendships over the years, but Nikki was always a constant. 

She lead him downstairs. The basement of her house was spacious and had a musty smell in the air - which Randy guessed was from the wall to wall shag carpeting - with a big blue couch and a old TV set in the middle of the room. She jumped onto one of the cushions, patting the one next to her. Nervously, he took a seat, dropping his backpack down. Nikki had put hers on the floor too.

"So..." he unzipped his bag and reached for his laptop inside. "Did you get Winthrop's email with the rubric?"

"No." she said. "Hey, we have some time before my dad gets back. Wanna do something else for a little?"

Randy shook his head, confused. What was up with this girl? He slid his laptop back in his bag.

"Well, what do you have in mind?"


"Yeah, put it in like that."

"Okay... is it doing anything?"

"Not yet... jiggle it around a little or something."

"Okay... how's that?"

"Yes!"

The TV screen in the basement finally flashed on. Randy and Nikki had looked around for something to do, and Randy recalled the video games he had seen earlier. There was an old video console laying around and Randy was interested in trying it out, so they had decided to set it up - of course, those little red, white, and yellow cables never worked right without a lot of jiggering around.

"This is an N64." he said, climbing back onto her couch and passing her one of the controllers. "I used to have one of these when I was a kid, but my little sister stuffed a chocolate bar in it, so it stopped working."

"Oh, that sucks." said Nikki, pressing buttons and fumbling around with the joystick. "Yeah, this was my older brother's. He never let me play with it, he thought I'd break it... I probably would've, to be honest."

That made Randy laugh.

"You have an older brother?" he asked. There was a little plastic container full of games for the console, which he pulled into his lap and began to sort through.

"Yeah, he's like twenty five or twenty six or something." she said, looking over into the box. "Mario Kart, lets play that."

Randy took the game out of the box and got on the floor, bending over to slide it in the console. 

"I've played the, uh, Wii version." she said as he got back up and took a controller for himself. The game started up, the title screen playing. "At my cousin's."

"Oh, that's good, they're pretty similar." he sat down next to Nikki, closer than last time - the cushions were soft and pillowy and had very little support to them, so he kind of just slid up to her side by accident. He blushed, apologized, and moved himself to the other side of the couch.

For a while, they just played the game. Randy obviously knew what he was doing already, and Nikki was able to catch on pretty quick. It was nice to just have plain, simple fun together - Randy might've had more experience, but that didn't make him good. Nikki was able to lap him a few times, but then he kept managing to get the good power-ups and beat her a few more times.

"This is so unfair!" Nikki cried, leaning in and angling her body as if she was really behind the wheel of a car. She was spinning out as Randy ran past the finish line. "Fuck the stupid blue shell!"

"Better luck next time." he shrugged and smiled as his character went for a victory lap. "Hey, how long til your dad comes home?"

"Soon, probably." she said. "Want me to drive you home?"

"Wait, but... we haven't even worked on the paper at all."

Nikki blinked. Oh yeah, that's what she had invited over him for, wasn't it?


Decided to continue this story. I didn't like how I handled chapter 4 (I think they got together too fast), so I rewrote it. I also rewrote bits of all the previous chapters. I think going forward I'm going to focus more on the slice of life romance elements, but I'll still include smut scenes.

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