Hey! I'm not dead, just suffered the dreaded writers block! Thankfully, it seems to have gone, so there'll be new chapters ALL THE TIME! Should be fun! :DCody woke slowly, his hand instinctively reaching for his cell lying next to his pillow, to check for messages. But he didn't have any. Brow furrowing, he double-checked the time, and his frown deepened. His cell clearly displayed the time as 7:20 am, which meant Bailey would've been awake for ten minutes... and she hadn't sent her usual cheery good morning text yet, which was highly unusual her. Shrugging, and mentally blaming Zack, he tapped out his own message:
"Morning Hay Bale, hope you slept well. I'll miss you in class today, and I'll email you the homework later :) Hope Zack didn't annoy you too much! We'll talk when class is over, miss you already.
-Your Codykins xx
On the other side of the ship, Bailey realised all too late that she'd left her phone on her nightstand.
In the same room as Zack.
She groaned, sinking down the door to sit on the floor, where she buried her head in her hands. It was unbelievable that one moment had changed so much, so quickly, and she lifted her head in order to assess the bathroom in terms of how long she could stay in it before she would need to leave. With a grimace, and a mental curse to her slowly-awakening brain, she realised that it wasn't long at all. An almost silent whimper escaped her throat as she thought of how Zack would react when she eventually left and, eager to distract herself, she hoisted herself of the floor and walked towards the mirror. Her breath came out in a drawn-out sigh as she examined her familiar reflection; her honey coloured hair was tangled and flattened on one side where she'd been lying (on Zack's chest, she remembered, her blood turning to ice momentarily), her skin was overly pale in the bright morning sunshine, and her hazel-hued eyes shone, glazed as they were with undefined tears. Bringing a hand up to attempt to flatten her hair, a random thought flitted through Bailey's mind:
'I wonder if Zack thinks I'm pretty...'
The buttery yellow harvest moon hung suspended high in the sky, nestled in a bed of clouds, and causing a natural spotlight to fall onto an already self-conscious girl. Bailey Pickett was twelve years old, and her doting, overly-protective daddy had finally deemed it acceptable for her to go to the harvest festival dance in a dress, rather than her customary jeans.
And she hated the dress already.
Not the dress itself, a knee-length red number, but the attention it commandeered.
Bailey, being a remarkably bright young girl, understood the changes that were happening to her body and she knew they were uncontrollable, but that still didn't make her comfortable with being leered at by men almost twice her age!
There was only one opinion she cared about –that of her best friend, and long-time crush, Moose.
She hadn't had to wait long to find it out, either as the minute she'd stepped into the barn, his eyes grew wider then she'd ever seen them before, and her nerves had doubled.
"Hot damn girl, you clean up good!" He'd muttered, awe-struck
And she'd blushed so hard at the unexpected compliment, she'd almost missed his next comment;
"See what happens when you spend less time with your nose in a book? See here, you could almost be as pretty as Sue-Ellen if you did this every day"
Stunned, Bailey had from that day made herself a vow that she would never be the type of girl to doll herself up every day, just for the sake of impressing a boy.
With a newly hardened resolve, Bailey brushed all meaningless worries and thoughts out of her mind and grabbed her toothbrush.
'What was I thinking' she mentally chided herself 'You've got Cody, perfect Cody... Why should you care about his idiot of a brother?'
But despite her mental commentary, part of her mind kept replaying the five seconds that Zack's lips had been on hers, reminding her of just how soft and warm they'd been... With a sigh, she silently prayed that her resolve would be enough to stop from acting like a dork in front of Zack when she eventually left.
Well, it's taken me weeks, but it's finally up!
I'm sorry for making you wait, and SO thankful to everyone who's stayed – seriously, I love you guys :')
So, yeah, here it is, and I really hope you enjoy it!
Lots of love, snuggles, and other warm-and-fluffy things,
-Amy xx