So Nick and
Lucas are now an item, surely nothing could jeopardise that. As usual don't forget to
donate to Nifty https://donate.nifty.org and feel free to send any messages to sithspawn78@yahoo.co.uk
Chapter 18
\\\ Nick ///
I stood in
the tiny room, looking around it for the last time. The hideous, flowery curtains still hung over
the window and I was tempted to take them down and burn them, but they came
with the house so they had to stay or we'd lose our deposit. I'd only lived in the room for a few months
since we'd fled from Brandon but it seemed like a lifetime ago. Even though I hated the house, this room and
everything that came with it, there were still a lot of mixed emotions
there. I was sad because it felt like I
was closing a chapter on my life but at the same time I was glad to be starting
a new life with a whole new family.
Getting used
to having Ben as my cousin was getting easier as well but it was still a little
weird. I'd started thinking of him as a
best friend before I found out we were related but since then it felt like our
bond was stronger than ever. Having an
aunt and uncle to call on was also strange but pretty cool at the same time. Uncle Sam was like a slightly nerdier version
of my dad so we got on great, and the fact that he spent a lot of time around
comics meant we had plenty to talk about.
I finally met my grandparents from my dad's side and they were unreal. They didn't know me at all but as soon as
they met me they instantly enveloped me in a hug and it was like I had always
been part of the family. For so long I'd
only had my mum and Brandon to think about, although I was trying to think
about him as little as possible now, but every day my support network increased.
"You ready
to go kiddo?" Dad asked, snapping me out
of my thoughts.
"Yeah, I
think I've got everything." I replied,
picking up the last box from the floor.
After a
final look around I left my old room for the last time and headed to the
car. The journey to the new house only
took a few minutes but it gave me time to think about everything that had
happened recently. It had been nearly
three weeks since Lucas and I had started dating and things were going
great. We hadn't spent as much time together
as I would've liked outside of school as I had been helping to pack up two
houses ready for the move. Dad got the
keys to the new house at the start of the week but we were waiting to
officially move in at the weekend. That
gave my parents time to sort out all the bills and mundane stuff like that as
well as doing any decorating or repairs.
That meant that my room was now freshly painted, ready for my stuff to
go in, and I was so excited to be getting all new furniture that was all mine,
rather than the second hand junk I'd had before.
When we
pulled up to the house I still almost had to pinch myself to make sure it was
real. We'd always lived in pretty small
houses so by comparison this one was a mansion.
It had four big bedrooms upstairs with mine being over the garage,
giving me a little extra space away from my parents in case I made a bit too
much noise. I even had my own bathroom,
which was bigger than my last bedroom, and a walk in wardrobe adjoining
it. Downstairs we had a big living room,
dining room, a small office and a huge, open plan kitchen, with a smaller
dining area and glass doors along one wall which opened out into a large
garden.
One of the
best things about the new house was it was in a much nicer neighbourhood, and
only two streets away from Danny and Ben, so it was no surprise to see them
waiting outside for us to arrive. As we
pulled up I could see Danny practically bouncing on the balls of his feet like
he was excited about something. I hadn't
actually been to the house since the day we got the keys, and even then I'd
only ad a brief look around. The main
thing I'd done though was to pick out the colours for my room so that it could
be decorated before I moved in, so I was hoping I'd made the right choices.
"Hey cuz, are you ready to check out your new room?" Ben asked as he opened my car door.
I could
hardly keep the smile from my face.
"Yeah, I can't wait. What's he
looking so happy about?" I asked,
nodding towards Danny.
"I've seen
your room and you're gonna love it." The
smaller boy replied.
Mum was
already at the house with Alex and Josh, who had been helping with the bigger
items of furniture. It really helped
having a guy like Josh there as he didn't seem to have any problems moving the
heavy looking furniture around, and Alex didn't seem to struggle helping him
with the bulkier items. I figured they
were probably just using this as an extra workout. I was a bit disappointed that Lucas wasn't
there but he was helping out at the comic shop to cover for my mum who was
obviously at the house. Sammie was also
covering for me at the music store as, with Christmas fast approaching, they
needed more help in there.
We each
grabbed a box from the car to take inside and as we climbed the stairs I
noticed all the bedroom doors were open, except mine. Alex greeted us from the top of the stairs
where he was hanging some pictures and, curiously, he offered to take the box
from me so I could open my door easily.
When I did my mouth just hung open.
I had asked for all the walls to just be painted teal, so I could cover
up bits and pieces with posters or anything else, but what I wasn't expecting
was to have my name in graffiti letters above my bed, with a little caricature
of me leaning against it. I recognised
Alex's handiwork anywhere and when I turned around he had the biggest grin on
his face.
"Hope you
like it, Lucas said you liked the one in the studio back at our place so your
dad let me in to paint that one." I
pulled him into a hug and couldn't thank him enough. "There's a couple more surprises yet, check
out your guitar."
I hadn't
noticed at first but in the corner of the room I saw my guitar propped up in a
stand, which I never had before, and I could see it had been painted as
well. I went to look at it and could
immediately see the `FF' from the Fleek Flow logo at the end of the headstock,
and on the body I saw the caricature of myself, but with all the other Fleeks done in the same style.
"This is
amazing!! Thank you so much." I gushed as I carefully put it back on the
stand.
He went back
to hanging the pictures and we put the boxes on my bed, ready to unload all my
stuff. Before we could though, Danny and
Ben said there was one more thing for me to see. They took me back downstairs into the kitchen
and then made me close my eyes. They
guided me into another room, which I was pretty sure was the garage, led me in
a little further and then told me to open my eyes. I was surprised to see the garage had changed
a little since the first time I'd seen it.
There was still plenty of room for the cars but a new wall had gone up
on one side where a new room had been built.
"Ok, it's
not finished yet, but this part is being made into a little studio for
you." Ben said and I was stunned. Nobody had mentioned anything about this to
me so I was absolutely floored by it.
"You like
it?" Dad asked from behind me but I was
too overwhelmed to answer. "We still
need to get the room soundproofed and all the electrics tidied away but that
should be done in a couple of days. Why
don't you go in and have a look."
I opened the
door and stepped in to see the room was nearly done. There was a space for the mixing desk and all
the cabling was there ready to hook it up, but like Dad said it just needed
tidying up. The flooring and painting
also needed to be done but I could definitely see myself in here, working on my
music.
"I can't
believe you never told me you were doing this."
I beamed as we walked back into the kitchen.
"Adrian also
said he'll help you kit it out as he can get a good price on all that
stuff. Just let me know what you want
and I'll give you the money for it." It
was so weird hearing Dad say that, for years we'd struggled to afford even the
basics but now that we were a part of the Anderson comic empire we didn't have
to worry any more.
"I already
know what the first thing I want to get."
I said.
"I think I
know what that'll be." Danny said as he
walked around the island counter in the middle of the kitchen. "It's this, isn't it?" He picked up the unmistakable guitar case
from where it had been stashed behind the island and placed it on the
worktop. I clicked open the clasps,
opened the case up and gazed longingly at my favourite Jackson PC1 guitar
staring back at me. I hadn't been at the
music store much over the last week so I hadn't even noticed it had gone
missing.
"Is
this...mine?" I asked in disbelief.
"Sure
is. All the guys chipped in so just call
it a housewarming present from all of us."
Ben said and I couldn't hold back the tears.
"You guys
are awesome." I blubbered pulling him
into a hug.
Ben and
Danny left soon after so I carried on sorting through all my belongings and
setting my room out how I wanted it. By
late afternoon I was nearly finished and as I was putting my clothes away in
the wardrobe I suddenly felt two arms wrap around my waist, followed by some
lips planting kisses up my neck.
"Oh Sammie
that feels so good." I cooed and was
quickly spun around to look into Lucas' shocked face.
"What the
fuck?" Lucas demanded.
"I'm kidding
dummy, I knew it was you. You should see
your face." I giggled and then threw my
arms around him to give him a proper kiss.
"What're you doing here anyway?"
His face
softened into that smile I loved so much.
"Ben took over at the comic shop so I thought I'd come up here to see
how things are going. Have you seen
everything downstairs?" I leaned back
and looked at his crotch.
"Not yet,
I'm still waiting for you to show me." I
replied cheekily.
"I meant in
the house you perv." He snickered.
"You mean
the new studio? Yeah, it's awesome. I can't wait to get all the equipment in
there." We went back into the bedroom
and I noticed there was a box on my bed that I'd left downstairs as it was too
heavy.
"Oh yeah,
your mum said that needed to come up here."
He said, pointing over to the box.
"I was
waiting for DJ to bring it up as I couldn't lift it." Lucas suddenly looked a little worried for
some reason. "Did you get your dad to
help you with it?"
"Uh...yeah...it
was a definite two man job. What's in it
anyway?"
A big smile
spread over my face. "I got a dumbbell
set and some extra weights, as well as some of Dad's old workout books in
there. Can't have you being the only one
trying to get a bit bigger, and I thought maybe we could work out together some
days." I gave him a playful poke in the
gut and felt his solid abs on the tip of my finger. "Whatever you're doing seems to be working
and I bet your dads could give us some tips."
Lucas had definitely put on a little more size since we first met and I
was worried that I'd end up lagging behind him pretty soon. I'd worked out a lot when I was younger due
to Brandon pushing me into it but that had made me hate it; hopefully with
Lucas encouraging me I could get back into it and maybe get a little stronger.
"I suppose
we could figure something out." He
replied dispassionately.
"Well don't
sound too enthusiastic to be spending more time with your boyfriend. I thought you'd want to see me as a hot,
sweaty mess."
Lucas broke
out into a big grin. "I didn't realise
moving house could make someone so horny."
"Not horny,
just...I dunno...I just feel really happy today."
I went over to the box and started emptying the weights out. I'd bought some cheap, adjustable dumbbells a
few weeks ago but didn't really have space in my old room to use them
effectively. I had planned on using the
space at the back of the garage as a little workout area but since that was
going to be my little studio now I'd have to rethink it.
"Are you
sure these are going to be enough?"
Lucas asked as he curled one of the empty dumbbell bars a few times.
"They'll do
for a start. I'd really like to see
where you and your dads work out though, I bet you've got a much better set up
than this."
"Uh yeah...I
guess maybe someday I could show you everything."
I'd been
with Lucas for nearly three weeks and we'd talked about all sorts of
things. I'd told him about many of the
good things from my life growing up, as well as talking about music, dance,
movies, books, comics, school and everything else under the sun, but one thing
he'd always shy away from was anything to do with his or his family's
bodies. I obviously knew about how well
built his dads were, I mean, who couldn't know?
And I knew Lucas had been trying to bulk up since school started back in
September, but he'd never let me see how he looked under his clothes. Sure he'd worn some tight shirts when he was
dancing, but the only time I got to see any skin under those shirts was when
he'd been dressed as a zombie at Halloween where there were little glimpses of
skin as he moved around. I could tell he
had a decent body under there, I mean, tight shirts don't hide a lot do
they? But it was like he was reluctant
to let me see what he was hiding. I was
beginning to think he had some scars or a birthmark he didn't like, maybe even
a third nipple or something like that.
All I knew was that I wanted to see what he was embarrassed about but
I'd have to wait until he was ready.
When
everything was finally put away I sank back onto the bed with Lucas by my side,
just enjoying being next to him. We
didn't say much but I could tell something was wrong as Lucas just seemed
really distracted.
"You
ok? You've gone really quiet all of a
sudden."
"Hmm? Oh...yeah...I was just thinking about something." He replied, looking away again.
"Was it
something to do with me?" I probed.
"No...just...something
I need to talk to my dads about. I'm
gonna go see what they're doing." He got
up from the bed and went downstairs; leaving me wondering what was going on. I joined everyone in the kitchen where our
parents were just talking about ideas for the garden and I noticed Lucas was
talking quietly to Alex off to one side.
After a few more minutes Josh and Alex announced it was time for them to
go and Alex told Lucas he was on horse duty tonight so he'd have to go along as
well. I actually didn't mind Lucas not
staying as I wanted to get used to the house on my own, but I couldn't help
thinking I'd done something to upset him.
I didn't have much time to think about it though as Dad had me helping
him get rid of the boxes as Mum got dinner ready.
I called Ben
later on that evening and told him how Lucas had been. He did his best to reassure me, telling me
he'd speak to Lucas and even Sammie to see if he could get to the bottom of it
all. He said he had an idea of what it
should be but it wasn't something for me to worry about. We were drawing closer to Christmas so maybe
he was thinking about what to get me and when I mentioned working out it
could've ruined a surprise or something like that. I didn't know to be sure but I had faith that
Ben would be able to help him figure it out.