Healed by Rebecca Brooke

eyes every so often. Knowing Nick, they’d probably already slept together, but for some reason there was something different about the way he treated her.
    Whatever. That was a problem for another day.
    Once everyone left, Andrew and I cleaned up the trash. Nick had taken Morgan home and without Lauren there, we were pretty confident that he planned on spending the night. Andrew took the bottles down to the recycling bin at the end of the stairs and while he was doing that, I went down to our room to get ready for bed.
    It was weird to think of it as our room, but I guess that’s what it was now. From here on out, I would fall asleep and wake up every day next to Andrew. There was something so right about that. It also gave me the opportunity to worry less about where I was staying for the night, and what I would need to bring with me. If Dad was okay with it, I’d be able to get much more work done, something I was going to need to do during my senior year.
    Even though I’d had such a long nap earlier, I was still tired from all the sleepless nights. Grabbing a brush, I pulled it through my hair. Looking in the mirror, I realized how long it had gotten. It was more than halfway down my back and the color of dark chocolate. I needed to get a trim soon or before I knew it, it would be past my ass.
    There was a tank top and a pair of shorts, I’d left at the end of the bed earlier, that I threw on and climbed under the covers. Curling up so that my knees were pulled up a bit closer to my chest, I leaned into Andrew’s pillow, taking in the smell of the cologne that covered it. The scent of his pillow was always so comforting to me—a reminder that he wasn’t too far away. There had been a lot of nights when he was up studying that I’d buried my face in his pillow to go to sleep. He always accused me of being a bed hog. Not that I wasn’t, but had he been in bed with me I would have covered myself with him, instead of his pillow.
    “Hogging the bed again I see,” came a voice from the doorway. I opened my eyes a crack.
    “Nope, just waiting for you to come to bed so I could snuggle with you.”
    “Well we can’t leave you waiting too long.” I closed my eyes again but heard his clothes as they hit the floor in his rush to get down to just his boxers.
    First it was his shoes. They made a clunking sound as the dropped near the end of the bed. Next came his clothes. They sailed over my head on their way to end up in the laundry basket. Finally, he crawled into bed next to me and when he’d gotten comfortable on his back, I lay my head against his chest and he wrapped his arm around me. The gesture was warm and comforting. His hand slid up to my hair, where he played with it. I let myself just lie there, enjoying the calm and the quiet.
    “I’m so happy you agreed to move in with me,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it.
    “Me too. And I’m glad Nick’s okay with it. I’m not sure I would’ve said yes if he wasn’t.”
    “He would have survived.”
    “Except he’s your best friend. Whether you guys like admitting it or not.” Usually the two fools spent more time busting each other’s balls than talking, except when it was just them. They were really close, almost like brothers. It was one of the things I got to see when I spent time with them here in the apartment. When they had an audience, especially Caleb and Josh, they acted like complete idiots.
    “Yeah, he is. I would have told him first, but he can’t keep a secret to save his life. He’s probably worse than you.”
    “Hey!” I said, slapping him lightly on the chest. “I’m not that bad.”
    “Oh yes, you are.”
    Rolling my eyes, I giggled. He was right, though. I was horrible at keeping secrets, but only the good ones. Anything personal that someone didn’t want everyone to know, I was great at those. It was just, when I got excited, I found it harder to keep my mouth shut. Nick couldn’t keep any secret, making him