FicWad

I had to have imagined it, because Aiden started to babble again, as if he were completely oblivious to all of the horrid circumstances that had seemed to befallen us. If nothing else, I'm certain I'm at least going to get an ulcer out of this experience.

"Have you rested enough? C'mon, Aly. I can just feel the rain letting up!" Aiden spoke all too happily.

Frowning, I looked upwards, getting large drops directly on my eyes. This caused me to flinch and I scowled in his direction, only to find that he had already started to bound away. Suddenly panicky again, I hesitated for just a second, then proceeded to glumly follow suit, looking back several times with the distinct feeling of something watching me. As we walked, I try to keep my ears and eyes open as much as I possibly can, that creepy feeling of being followed just getting stronger. Especially after the way Aiden already tricked me, I decided to keep the feelings to myself, not anxious to give him more ammunition to tease me with.

He probably wouldn't believe me anyway. I thought, letting out an annoyed sound, once again wondering why I had such a careless boyfriend in the first place.

But my thoughts were quickly distracted by the distinct prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck.

"Are we ever going to pitch a tent or something?" I spoke, not being able to hold back the whine that I was sure lined my words. I was soaked to the bone, thoroughly creeped out, and ready to just go home. Well, I had been ready to go home since we even started this trek, but now more than ever, I wished that I could go home right this instant and not have to turn around and face whatever was causing the hair on the back of my neck to rise. I shuddered, feeling my mood worsen even as Aiden completely ignored me.

Right. I pick the winners. I thought sourly, almost jumping out of my skin as I heard another howl. "You heard that, didn't you!?"

I trotted up to meet Aiden's pace, he simply shook his head, giving me a weird look before brushing off the statement.

"You really need to learn to calm down, Aly! You'll never get anywhere in life if you're always worrying," He chuckled, flashing a grin that I didn't appreciate at all.

"I'm not kidding, I really heard -- " I started to say when Aiden suddenly cried out and fell over somewhere in front of me.

It was now dark, so I could hardly see in front of me. I gasped as I definitely heard something moving in the brush near to me, so without thinking I jumped toward the sound, hoping to scare away whatever animal probably made that noise. To my absolute shock, I bumped into something quite solid, and something that seemed to be about as tall as I was.

I cried out in surprise and I began to struggle with it with my eyes closed, since I was scared and didn't really want to see what I was facing. Whatever it was grunted in surprise and tried to defend itself. Before the struggle could continue, it seemed to have tripped and slammed us both into a tree trunk, causing my eyes to fly open and take in a sharp breath.

The fear in my eyes was replaced by confusion as the thing in front of me wasn't any sort of monster or animal, but another human being. A young man with blonde hair that looked to be about my age. His eyes had to be his most striking feature, dark and intense...something that I could even see in the dim light of our surroundings.

Before I could even utter a word, asking him who the heck he was, I heard Aiden trudging over to the two of us. I pushed myself off of this other person, blushing just a little, and turned to look in his direction. When he got close enough for me to see him, I couldn't stop myself from laughing. He had a grumpy expression on his mud covered face, and it looked like he was holding something in his arms. As he got even nearer, I could see it was an adorable and small dark brown weenie dog.

Shooting me irritated look, he held up the dog toward the mystery man and said in a dry tone, "Might this be yours?"

To make matters even more hilarious, the dog began to wag its little tail happily when it caught sight of its master.

I snorted quietly, amused by the irate look upon Aiden's face as he tried his best to wipe it clean. Defeated by a puppy - now why didn't that surprise me? Though, despite my sudden burst of happiness, my eyes couldn't help but stray away from the new male, a slight feeling of awkwardness spreading through me. Of course, the new person practically ignored this, and shifted slightly, before rushing out to grasp the canine.

"Yes! Ah - th-thank you so much!" He spoke in a rushed tone, tightly squeezing the small creature, which paid no attention to the stormy surroundings and merely burrowed within the grasp, apparently thankful for the warmth and comfort.

I couldn't help but frown in jealously - I wanted to be someplace warm and safe. My thoughts were interrupted by the newcomer blabbering. "Th-thank you, again. I couldn't thank you enough; a-actually, well, if - if you'd like, y-you could come stay a-at my place. That is until the storm lets up."

Now that sounded good. Nice, dry, and warm. I already felt a little better picturing the rain and cold wind unable to get to me while I was somewhere inside. Just as I was about to agree, Aiden suddenly spoke up, a suspicious look on his face.

“Who are you again?” his tone a little farther from friendly than I would have liked.

“Oh! Yes, my name is Zackary.” the new person replied, fidgeting slightly with the little dog in his arms.

Not about to let Aiden cheat the two of us out of some shelter over some stupid jealousy, I quickly cut in.

“My name is Alyssa, and this is Aiden. And, it really would be great to get out of the storm.”

Aiden shot me an annoyed look, but this time, I decided to just ignore him. It was his fault we were out here in the first place, so he just needed to deal with this.

I practically watched Zack's face light up, grinning nervously as he looked between Aiden and me. Apparently, he'd been able to notice the tension between the two of us - honestly, who couldn't - and was able to settle on an awkward pause.

"Well, let's go, shall we?" He said, starting to move and cover the small puppy with his arms.

After giving Aiden an impatient look, which he seemed to reply with a scowl, I trotted alongside Zack, starting up idle chatter. It was going well, pushing away the rain and thunder and aggravating boyfriend from my mind. Until, of course, I was lucky enough to get my foot caught in a root, successfully tripping forwards. Strangely enough, though, my face didn't collide with the soppy, dirty ground. Instead, I felt a pair of arms holding me up and lingering for just a little longer than was necessary for me to catch my balance. Much to my surprise, it wasn't Aiden, like I had expected, but Zack.

An odd look crossed my face as I watched Zack freeze and his face redden. Then he suddenly burst into a loud mixture of nervous babble and more chattering, chasing after the puppy he'd set down in order to catch me. A blinked stupidly, uncertain of what to do for a moment, then a loud grunt reached my ears, and I looked back to witness a hot-faced Aiden, storming past me in a way that could only be described as a four-year-old's temper tantrum.

After Zack scooped his puppy back up, he hurried to keep after Aiden, presumably to make sure he didn't get lost.

He has such a hot head...sometimes I wish he'd just grow up. I thought, shaking my head slightly, and hurrying after the two guys.

After all of us walking together awkwardly for a few minutes, mostly due to Aiden having a sour face the whole way, Zack said, "We're almost there."

When he said that, I looked ahead in the direction we were moving and I could see something that looked like a house in the distance. Unconsciously, I picked up my pace, wanting to get dry as soon as possible. I could slowly see a small and rustic looking house materializing in front of us as we neared it.

It really was adorable cottage - from the outside, at least. I had to wonder whether or not Zack lived here out on his own, but that couldn't be. He didn’t seem that much older than Aiden and me. Well, it was possible, but, it just seemed far too strange. No matter that, we entered the home, and I just barely caught myself. The place was huge - at least three times larger from what it had on the outside. Aiden, however, only became more pessimistic, scowling and shaking his head in order to flick little droplets everywhere. I promptly ignored him, hoping that Zack would ignore his horrid behavior. “This place...it's huge!” I spoke with an astonished look, staring in awe, almost weary to step off the welcome mat.

Zack mumbled incoherently with a bashful tone, swiftly motioning for us to come in further while he went to go get towels. I began to step forward as I was invited to do, but I noticed that Aiden wasn’t following and still had that annoying scowl on his face. With my lips pressed into a thin line, I reached back and pulled him forward with me, suddenly wishing that he wasn’t such a bad sport when he got jealous. At this time, Zack returned with two very white and very fluffy looking towels in his arms, speaking awkwardly after clearing his throat.

“You guys can wipe off a little bit and I’ll start up the fire so that you both can dry off more.”

With a last glance between the two of us, he quickly turned back around and went to the large fireplace in the room. Deciding to let Aiden be cold and wet if that’s what he wanted, I placed my bag down by the door and got closer to the fireplace. I wanted to feel the first burst of warmth when Zack set the fire and finally make me feel just a little less numb with the chill. As Zack worked on getting a good amount of wood inside, I noticed that the little puppy had comfortably curled itself up on a small rug in front of the hearth, and at this sight, I couldn’t help but smile.