Intrepid » n.h. au

Chapter 28

I squint my eyes, the bright light coming from the double window on my right almost blinding me, after I move my phone from my face. I only blink a few times to adjust to the light, not even complaining about it – the sound of the door opening has just made me too happy to concentrate on anything else.

"Well fucking finally," I say flatly, and loudly as the familiar face walks in. She has a smile on her face and a bit of a guilty expression – good, it's good that she feels guilty. "I almost grew a beard waiting for you."

"I'm sorry," Freya chuckles, leaving the paper bag that she'd brought with her against an end table, and then walks over to my bed. She puts her knees on the mattress, sitting on her heels as she gives me a kiss on the cheek. "Natasha had to wait for Ashton to return their car so she could make it to work. I'm sorry."

I can feel my lips curling upwards, but I refuse to smile. She still had me waiting for her for like half an hour. "It's okay. I had company anyway."

"Yeah? Who was here?"

"Leanne."

"Le-" She starts, but then cuts herself off, a frown appearing on her face. "Leanne? As in the blonde you used to date?"

Well, technically, we never dated. We almost dated. People would think that's a weird relationship to be in, but we're actually making this friendship thing work. "Yeah," I nod at her, "She was here for an hour, then had to go to work. It was good though, I would have died of boredom if she weren't here."

Freya nods, placing her hands on her knees. I shake my head at her when she keeps staring at me for another minute, as if trying to get into my brain and read my thoughts. "Freya? Babe?"

"Hm?" She raises her brows, no humor in her voice or her face. Well shit, we all know what that means.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. Um..." She starts as she gets off the bed, and takes her jacket off, revealing the black sweater she loves wearing so much, and walks to the bag she brought with her. "I got you the things you asked for, uh... two bacon sandwiches, two Slurpees... clean sweatpants... hair gel-"

"Yes," I cheer quietly, immediately taking the object from her hand as she pulls it out of the bag, and grin when I realize she'd brought me my old one from my apartment. I didn't mind having no hair product in my hair the past week, but since I'm being released from the hospital tonight, there's no way I'm leaving with this weird-ass fringe. "God bless you."

I hear Freya breathe out through her nose, and the smallest of smiles on her lips when I look at her; though it turns a bit sheepish when she slowly pulls out another rectangular object, wrapped in blue decorative paper from the bag. "And..." She starts, handing it over to me as I leave the tube of hair gel on an end table, with a sigh. "Merry late Christmas."

I raise my eyebrows, and keep looking at her as she keeps looking at the box in her hands. When I finally take it from her, her eyes drop to her hands, avoiding mine; I'm giving her a piece of my mind, but as soon as I open this present. I'm a sucker for presents. Speaking of which, I can't believe she actually bought me something for Christmas.

"Where'd you get this?" I ask, tilting my head to the side as I rip the sticky tape off, somewhat careful with the paper. My mum always worries about damaging the decorative paper while opening something, I must have gotten that from her.

"Banana Republic," Freya  replies slowly, just as I take off the blue paper off of a transparent plastic box, that holds a plaid shirt inside, blue and white. I scan what's visible of it, not knowing whether to feel happy or freaked out.