They both lay closely together on the soft gray carpet with pencils, crayons, scissors and paper all scattered around. Little bits of pieces of garbage were all around, making a huge mess in Nick's classic and well conformed four wall bedroom, not what you typically see in a usual 17 year old teenage boy's room. There were no posters on his wall, just light creamy white walls with a neatly made bed and absolutely no clothes on the floor.
"Okay, we're almost done," Miley squealed with excitement as she bent over slightly to reach the solid blue bristol board. It was the last piece to their exhausting biology project that had kept them on their toes for four whole days.
She stuck the small strange shaped construction piece of paper onto the bristol board with a smile glistening on both Nick and Miley's youthful faces. It took them a couple of days after school in a row to be able to finish this hefty and meticulous project that forced them to create a detailed 2D model of a frog's organ system, as well as a full report about their reproductive system, digestive system and all those extra fun facts about frogs. They both knew it took a lot of work to finish, but they never complained.
"Finally!" Miley exclaimed out loudly with a breathe of relief, but also with reluctance, knowing that it meant their after school get togethers were officially over.
She shifted herself to Nick who was smiling softly at her. Nick had the sweetest smile that Miley had ever seen before. When she first saw it, she was left speechless at how adorable it was and the only other person who could make her feel that way about their smile was the infamous Zac Efron. Of course, like every girl, Miley had the hugest celebrity crush on Zac ever since his hit movie that hit the theater. For a while, Miley juggled between who had the better smile, Zac, the famous actor that every girl gushes over, or Nick, the totally normal schoolboy. She had secretly chosen Nick.
Seeing Nick smile at her like that, unexpectedly, she could literally feel her cheeks get warm and she quickly looked away from him, hoping that he didn't see her blush.
She cleared her throat from embarrassment, knowing that Nick probably saw her cheeks turn a warm shade of pink.
"Umm...sorry for making a mess," she mumbled nervously under her breath with her head dropped down, trying her best not to make eye contact. She did not need to humiliate herself in front of him again.
He chuckled softly at her, making Miley even more nervous. "Shit," she thought to herself, "he saw me blush at him...".
"It's fine, I'll clean it up later," Nick said reassuringly to her.
"No," Miley began to get up from the floor, "I'll help you clean up now".
Nick's eyes followed Miley upward as she got up and watched her long sleek legs bend over to begin picking up scrap pieces of paper off the carpet.
He groaned, "thanks," he mumbled softly at her kind gesture. He couldn't believe how different Miley was. She was really like no other girl in the school, or any girl he ever met in that matter. She was beautiful; stunning actually, without even trying at all unlike other girls who cover up their faces with a heep of makeup that make them look like clowns to him. Miley was simply gorgeous with very light make up to none and simple, casual and comfortable clothing.
When he noticed that he was staring at her stunning features, he quickly shook himself out of it and stood up to help clean up the mess in his room. He couldn't help it though, many times he would catch himself glancing at her unconsciously, without him even knowing in the first place.
"Where's the garbage can?" Miley asked him sweetly making him melt for a second.
"Ohhh...uhh...," he managed to blurt out, "over there," he said, pointing over to the right at his large shelf that stretched to the ceiling where the small bin was set beside.
She went on to dump out the scraps of garbage as Nick continued to gather up his stationary as well as trying his best to tell himself to keep his cool and just act natural.
"Oh my gosh!" Miley suddenly squealed out with excitement like a little girl.
He turned his body to face the beautiful brunette who was looking at this storage shelf.
"What?" Nick asked her nervously as he made his way over to her, hoping everything was okay.
"You have Elvis Costello's limited edition album?" she answered him eagerly. He watched as her face glistened like an angel from heaven and no it wasn't because the light was peeking through the ripples of the curtain, it was much more than that.
"Yeah, you like him?" Nick questioned her with shock in his expression.
"Why do you sound so surprised?" she giggled softly, "I know I might sound like a dork, but I love old rock legends, they're amazing".
"What? NO." Nick said nervously, "I-I didn't mean anything...I was just surprised because not a lot of people like the same music as me," he said shyly, trying to save himself from his ignorance.
"Relax, I was just kidding," Miley laughed at Nick all jittery.
Instantly, Nick relaxed and was brought back to his regular heart beat.
"May I?" he said to her. She handed him his special album and popped it into the CD player. He turned up the volume when he heard Miley instantly begin to sing along to the song that was playing out of the rectangular speakers.
He watched as she managed to continue to clean up and sing and dance at the same time. She had a huge smile plastered on her perfectly symmetrical face, like a model. Her noticeably sweet curves swerved smoothly and in sync with the music that was blasting out. Miley was absolutely perfect to Nick. She had a bit of a quirk in her that made her so unique and adorable in her own way.
Deciding to join in, Nick went in and grabbed Miley's soft hand, making her jump slightly at his action. For a quick second, sparks flew, sending electric shocks through both of them, but it was sent to a distracting halt when Nick twirled her gracefully.
Words could barely describe the energy in the room as they both had the biggest smiles on their faces as they rocked out to unlikely music. They were laughing uncontrollably, showing their shining pearly whites as Miley began to wildly break out into the air guitar. The mess on the floor had seemed to suddenly disappear in their minds that they totally forgot that they were suppose to be cleaning up because they were having way too much fun together.
Nick watched Miley as she bobbed her hair up and down, making the most hilarious facial expressions. Her short, brown curls bounced up and down and in front of her face. It was a tangled mess, but she didn't even care.
How admirable this was to Nick. She was crazy and wild and she didn't care if she looked like a dork doing it. As a finishing end move, she spinned in a full circle all while still playing the air guitar, but it was clearly all way too much for her that she lost her balance and coincidentally landed into the strong hold of Nick's muscular, but comforting arms.
Immediately, both hearts began to speed up to a million kilometers per hour simultaneously as one. Miley was suddenly no longer ditsy and crazy, but was quiet and contained. With Nick, he just stood there, holding her, not really sure what to do or what to say. In his mind, he debated whether or not he should make his move now. His mind said yes, but his body didn't seem to listen and move.
The touch of each other gave each other shivers and caused them to both nervously want to let go but not at the same time. They stood there silently and awkwardly for a moment, never letting each other go because they were both waiting for the other to let go first.
Suddenly, breaking the silence was a muffled ring tune playfully coming from Miley's bag. Finally, an excuse to break off the awkwardness.
Miley cleared her throat, "I should..." she trailed while pointing over to her bag where her phone was in.
"Ohh...yeah," Nick replied nervously, finally making the first move of letting her go. They glanced at each other for a quick moment but Miley quickly adverted her attention back to her ringing call and made her way to her bag.
Nick finally let out a silent breath of air because secretly, the whole time he couldn't even breathe. He didn't understand why he was nervous with her. It was the perfect opportunity to kiss her. He should've, he could've, but he didn't for some reason.
He sighed and ran his stubby fingers through his chocolate brown busheled curls.
"It's my mom...she's outside right now," Miley said aloud to Nick as she began to pack her things up.
"Sorry that I didn't finish cleaning up the mess I made..." she said apologetically, but Nick wasn't sorry what so ever, "I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow".
He nodded hesitantly without saying anything. He could feel his nerves taking over again and his palms began to feel damp and cold. He had to do it, it was now or never.
She started to make her way out of his bedroom door, but was put to a stop, "wait," Nick said, "maybe we should exchange numbers...in case anything happens to our project". So, he lied a little, he really just wanted her number so he could possibly man up later on and call her out to hang out, not for project purposes.
"Sure," Miley answered. They quickly switched their phones and entered their own numbers in each others' phones.
"Bye," she whispered softly to Nick with a sweet smile and left him exasperated and confused all at the same time.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
It was a quiet Friday evening for both young teenagers. They were secluded in their separate and almost empty homes that was filled with a jungle of their thoughts and feelings that filled their void of their lonely evening, thinking of nothing but each other.
Miley laid her back on her soft bed and stared emptily at the ceiling while Nick was nervously pacing back and force in his bedroom. He just couldn't seem to settle and was distracted by his confusion. As he walked back and forth in his comfortable loose shorts and classic white t-shirt, he kept stepping on his several clothes scattered on the floor. He sighed at how fast he made his room so messy with his belongings after cleaning it up so nicely and even making his bed just before Miley had came over. He didn't know why he cared so much about her seeing his messy room, but he just did.
This was nothing but an uneventful evening for both Nick and Miley. Frankly, they had both become so accustomed to spending their evenings together because of the biology project that now it was strange not to be together.
Miley picked up her cellphone set on her nightstand and went through her phonebook and to none other than Nick. She sighed and stared at his name and number. She had secretly been hoping that Nick would call or at least text, but he didn't that it began to make her question that maybe they were really nothing but just project partners that were randomly placed together.
She placed her phone down on her bed, but she couldn't help it and began to question herself, thinking that maybe she should step up and make first real conversation. She held up her phone again and began to type in a text message to send to Nick. A call would probably be too awkward and quick, so a text was just right.
It took her a while to decide what to text him. She kept rewording, replacing, deleting and trying to come up with the perfect short sentence that didn't make it obvious that maybe, possibly, she was thinking about him at the moment.
Finally, after 10 minutes, she came up with, "Hey :)".
She groaned with frustration and how difficult it was to make the first move and deleted the foolish text. Miley threw her phone down onto her bed once again and stuffed her soft pillow in her face.
While Miley was drowned in her frustration, Nick continued to nervously pace in front of his messy bed while holding his phone in his hand.
"Hey, it's Nick," he said with a funny voice.
He groaned and tried again, "Miley! It's Nick!" he said in a high pitched, preppy voice, making him sound like a girl.
"Heyyyy Nick here," he said coolly with a sexy, hot voice, which was definitely not him.
"What are you doing this lovely evening?" he said, making him sound like a complete stalker, which was so not cool.
"Hi...Hey..." he cleared his throat, "Hello...Miley...Heyyooo".
He must've tried out about a million different voices with different pitches and tried to spark up several different possible conversation starters until he really gave up. He just wanted it to be perfect and not sound weird or awkward when he called her. He was completely confused with it all. He wanted to let her know that he was somewhat, possibly, into her, a lot, but yet, he didn't want her to know about how nervous he was.
He finally gave up his ridiculous practice phone calls and fell on his bed with his eyes on the ceiling. He groaned aloud; he just couldn't understand why it was so difficult to just call her up and be himself. He began to really think about it and realized that it really isn't that hard. All he had to do is call her and talk, it wasn't like they never talked before or like it was ever awkward between them in real life.
Taking a leap of faith with all his gathered confidence, he picked up his phone and bravely clicked Miley's name in his phonebook. This was it, he was going to call her and just be naturally him and let her know how he was feeling. He was feeling confident that he was going to do this, but right when he heard the phone ring, he instantly hung up in results of nervousness once again.
For the first time, he just couldn't do it. He rolled over himself in frustration and stuffed his face into the fluffy pillow and laid there with his heart officially out there for grabs.
That night, they both lay in their beds in complete disappointment at how they couldn't just step up and make the first move. Lonely and defeated by the nerves of love, they were nothing but two more lonely people that night, but not for much longer.