Chapter 74 - The Departure
I must've been more tired than I thought, 'cause I didn't remember Nick getting up to leave for work and didn't recall hearing Shawn leave the house either. Sure enough though, both jocks were gone and it took me a while to realise that it was already 10 AM and that Nick would be home and ready to leave in less than two hours.
I still had some stuff to pack and get ready, but I was feeling sorta lazy and decided to stay in bed for just a short while longer. The packing could wait, I told myself.
I slumped down on the large bed and just stuffed my face deep inside Nick's lofty pillow.
Expanding my lungs and allowing my nostrils to flare open, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, relishing the fact that I could pick up my lover's scent, even though he wasn't in the room with me.
I have to admit, after our little talk last night, I definitely felt better and felt a little more secure about myself.
Nick didn't really come off as the intellectual type, but he was right about one thing.
I
did tend to overthink things too much, and often ended up seeing clouds where there were none.
I had to stop that.
Looking at my phone and using the wireless network connection Nick had setup, I quickly logged into my e-mail and checked my inbox to see whether or not Jeremy had responded to the short e-mail I'd sent him a few days ago.
Yes! He had!
I opened up the e-mail labeled as "Re: Hey", but my smile quickly dissipated as I started reading the words contained in the message he'd sent me.
It read:
"Steven,
Jeremy can't talk to you right now. He's being punished.
You'll see him on the weekend.
Brad"
WHAT...the fuck!?
Nick was by
definition "controlling and domineering", but he didn't stop me from talking to friends and certainly DIDN'T monitor my e-mails!
God! It must be total HELL living with a guy like Brad!
He was obviously some kind of control freak.
I didn't care what Nick or Jeremy had to say, something was wrong with that guy.
Having Shawn tag along for the weekend, REALLY wouldn't be such a bad thing after all, I thought to myself.
Scampering out of bed, I quickly jumped in the shower and started cleaning myself up.
I couldn't get the e-mail out of my head.
Why was Jeremy being punished? And why the hell was Brad checking his e-mails?!
I'd have to be careful from now on. With Brad checking Jeremy's e-mails, I'd have to make doubly sure I didn't write anything that could get me or my friend into trouble. Making Jeremy's life harder was the LAST thing I wanted to do. The little guy had enough on his plate without me adding to it.
Whatever he had done to deserve this punishment, I vowed to find out about it this evening.
The rest of the morning went by quickly, a little TOO quickly in fact.
I'd been preparing our stuff for days now, but when Nick arrived home at around 11:45 AM, I was still scrambling to get my things ready.
Thankfully, the blond Alpha was in a really good mood today.
He walked in, wearing his huge, puffy parka and his big, heavy work boots.
Of course, he was tracking dirt and mud all over the floor and acting as though he couldn't give a fuck...which he didn't! And why would he anyways? He knew I'd just get down on my hands and knees to wipe his mess up.
After all, this was HIS floor and he could track as much dirt onto it as he wanted to.
Sometimes he'd actually walk over and track mud
right on the spot I was cleaning.
When I first moved in, I actually thought he was doing so on purpose, to humiliate me.
But then it took me a few days to recall who I was dealing with. Nick wasn't intentionally trying to mess with me. Nick was just being...Nick.
I was usually pretty quick to greet him at the front door when he came in.
I'd often get there in time to stop him from walking all over the floor with his boots.
That basically involved rushing to the front door and quickly getting on my hands and knees to take his boots off, BEFORE he managed to step out of the entranceway.
If I didn't get there on time or if I didn't make myself available to take his boots off, he'd just walk around all over the place and dirty the floor up with dirt and mud.
This was one of those times.
I would've normally been annoyed at his carelessness, but when the handsome, blue eyed hunk walked in the dining room, where I was busy sorting my clothes out, and just wrapped his big puffy arms around me, my heart nearly melted.
"Morning, babe." he mumbled, planting a kiss on the top of my head as he stood real close behind me.
I smiled and allowed myself to sink back against his towering body.
"I want you to pack some warm clothes. It's gonna be cold this weekend." he told me, giving me a hard smack on the butt before pulling away and heading for the living room.
The big, blond hunk plopped himself down on the living room couch and put his dirty boots up on the coffee table before taking his phone out of his work jeans.
"How was your day, Sir?" I asked, quickly walking up to where he was sitting and getting down on my knees to pull his heavy boots off.
"Pretty good. Just gotta text Shawn to ask him if he's ready to leave." he answered, not bothering to look up from his phone as he answered my question.
The first boot came off, and a rancid cloud of nauseating stench immediately spilled out and starting filling up the air. I held my breath, but still had to turn away as the sickeningly warm musk rushed out to greet my face.
Placing my handsome King's heavy work boot down on the floor, I reached over to pull off his second boot and gagged as more of the strong funk spilled out.
"Ugghm." I groaned under my breathe, unable to stop myself from crinkling my face and nose up into a look of pure disgust. The stench was unbearable!
Nick's rotten stinkers..png
Nick didn't even care. He was wearing the same putrid pair of socks that he'd been wearing all week, and would probably be wearing them to the cottage this weekend, and to work next week as well.
The blond Alpha just crossed his huge, sock-clad feet back up on the coffee table and continued texting on his phone. I got up, grabbed his heavy boots with my fingertips, and banished them to the entryway closet for the weekend.
God, they stank!
"You ready to leave in a few minutes?" Nick asked, glancing my way as I walked back towards the living room.
"Yes, Sir." I answered. "I checked everything on our list, but I didn't pack your toothbrush or your shaving kit yet. I figured maybe you'd want to use those things before leaving. Everything else is downstairs." I explained, finishing off with a tired, out-of-breath sigh.
Nick raised an eyebrow as I spoke and ended up frowning before I even had time to finish.
"Relax." he scolded. "I'm not taking you to boot camp."
Once again, I was making a big thing out of nothing.
We were going up to a cottage for a few days, and here I was, stressing him out with my nonsense and rambling on about lists and whatnot.
I hate to say this, but sometimes I actually reminded myself of my mom.
She and I were alike in more ways than one.
Nick had a lot more to think about than I did. Yet, he didn't seem the least bit worried or stressed out about any of it. That was one of the things I'd always admired about him. He was confident, easy going and generally stress-free. He didn't weigh himself down with stupid thoughts and useless worrying.
In short, he knew how to have fun.
The muscular hunk had packed his clothes yesterday night, and I was just about finished packing my bags as well.
I'd brought the sleeping bags downstairs, sorted out the fishing gear, and made sure we had all our personal grooming accessories packed away as well.
"Alright. I'm gonna brush my teeth and change outta these clothes." the jock finally told me, quickly handing me the keys to his pickup. "Here. You go pack the truck. I'll be downstairs in a few minutes." he ordered.
I obeyed and immediately went downstairs to get started.
The pickup was big and very roomy.
It didn't require above-average organizational skills to get everything to fit in nicely.
Nick's sleeping bags, even rolled up, were bulky and took a LOT of space though. But apart from that, our luggage was relatively meager.
My handsome Master arrived in his basement garage about ten minutes later, by which time I was done packing and was sitting patiently in the pickup's passenger side seat.
The hunk walked into the garage, with his packsack slung over his shoulder, and quickly made his way towards the driver side door.
I could hardly take my eyes off him.
He was wearing his usual Reebok high-tops and his silky, dark blue nylon trackies.
His powerful torso was clad with a thick black hoodie, and he was wearing his super thick, super puffy The North Face parka on top of it.
He looked
damn sexy wearing that thing. It made him look even
more buff than he normally was.
Which, to put it simply, made him look absolutely HUGE!
The parka's exterior material was soft and shiny, which complimented his track pants almost a little too well.
And top that off with the fact that his puffy parka was dark blue in colour, creating a perfect match with his eyes.
Damn, he looked like a total jock!
Nick opened the driver side door and tossed his bag in the back, right behind my seat.
The inside of the pickup wasn't meant for storing a lot of stuff, but we still managed to fit a few things behind our seats. The rest was securely packed away in the roomy storage trunk at the rear end of the vehicle.
The pickup had three, or should I say, two front row seats. The third seat was just a much smaller folding seat in the middle of the two main ones. It was also equipped with a seatbelt, and could be popped open to connect both front seats together. When not in use, it was folded down and used as an armrest and beverage holder.
Between Nick's huge, parka-clad body, and Shawn's equally large stature, I had no idea how the three of us were gonna fit in here. But I had little doubt that I'd be the one that would end up squashed between the two once Shawn got in.
Nick sat down in his seat and closed the door. He looked at me, more precisely, at the long sleeved shirt I was wearing, and raised an eyebrow.
"I hope you packed some warmer clothes." he mumbled, frowning as he reached for his phone and started texting.
"Yeah, don't worry. I packed a sweater in case I get cold." I told him.
The jock was too busy texting to say anything, but from the way he was dressed, I couldn't help but scold myself for not bringing anything warmer than just a sweater.
I was either severely underdressed, or Nick was the one who was stupidly overdressed.
Not having checked the weather this morning, I came to the inevitable conclusion that it was probably the first of the two options.
The last two days had been so mild out! But I have to admit...since moving in with him, I hadn't been outdoors much, and as a result, hadn't been keeping track of the weather lately.
It was pretty chilly in the garage, but I'd be okay in the truck as long as the heat was turned on.
I got comfy in my seat, locked my door and buckled my seat belt up.
Nick was still texting.
"Want me to drive?" I smiled, trying to add some humour to the otherwise awkward moment of silence.
My offer to drive could've been interpreted as being impolite or sarcastic. But I was careful to keep my tone clean and kept the cheeky smile from disappearing off my face.
Nick didn't even bother looking at me though. "Tsk, yeah. That'll be the day..." he mumbled, brushing me off as though my offer to drive wasn't even worth considering.
I DID have a valid driver's license, but for some reason, Nick had always forbidden me to drive his truck, even in the past when we were just regular friends.
He had allowed Brad to drive it on plenty of occasions. But not me though. Never me.
It must've been another one of his
dumb macho ideas about subs not being allowed to drive, or something.
I dunno...
I decided to just lay my head back on the leather headrest and silently wait for Nick to start the truck.
He spent a few more seconds texting, before finally buckling up and starting the ignition.
The hunky stud activated the remote attached to his rear-view mirror, and the garage door immediately opened up, quickly flooding the dark room with bright sunlight.
My heart nearly skipped a beat when I watched him grab his thick, leather gloves from the one of the side compartments, and casually slip them on, over his large, powerful hands.
The leather creaked loudly as Nick put his thick gloves on and pulled them up to his wrists.
The sexy blond jock curled his big hands into fists, making certain that the black leather molded his fingers tightly.
Extending his gloved hands and reaching for the dash in front of the steering wheel, he picked up his black sports cap and his brown, aviator style glasses, slipped them on and turned his head towards me before flashing me a cocky smirk.
He was INCREDIBLY hot, and worst of all, he
knew it!
Nick took a few seconds to make sure I was okay before slowly driving out of the garage and using his remote to close it back up once we were clear of the driveway.
He turned the heat up to full, made sure the doors were locked, checked to see if I was properly buckled up and asked me whether or not I needed to stop somewhere to grab a bite.
Pretty soon, were on the road to adventure and making our way towards our first stop for the weekend; Shawn's place.