That Tingling Feeling

"Tomorrow you need to clean out your car and the kitchen. Vacuum the pool too."
"I know," Alexis yelled back to her father.

"Of course you know," he said under his breath but loud enough for her to hear. "You know everything don't you." She sat at the dining room table sketching a logo for a new company that hired her to do art directed and she tried not to cry. "You know everything but you do nothing, lazy piece of shit." As he starting cussing from his room down the hall she started to cry. She couldn't hold it in any longer because not only was her father yelling at her again but her mom didn't help the matter any.

Alexis looked up at the clock on the wall and noticed that it was 10 o'clock at night. She picked up her phone and called her best friend.

"Hey shortie. What happened?"
"Umm," she said through her tears. "Can I spend the night at your house tonight?"
"Yeah sure. Come on over. I'll let mom know so she doesn't freak out when you come bursting through the door."
"Thanks John."
Alex picked up her things and put them in her bag. She looked around the house wondering if she had forgotten anything and realized that she really didn't need anything considering that John's house was like her own. She grabbed her car keys out of her purse and got in the car, driving the 5 miles that it was to his house. She walked in the house, said hi to his mom who was in the kitchen and went upstairs to his room. He was under the covers with the light off.
"Johnny, if you're sleeping why did you say I could come over?"
"Because you need a place to sleep and you know how much I hate sleeping by myself."
"What do you do without me when you're on the road?"
"I get really lonely kiddo."
"Well I'm sorry."
"What happened this time," he asked as he lifted the covers for her. She put her things down on the ground and climbed into bed next to him.
"My dad kept on yelling at me that I just know everything and that I never do anything about it and that I'm just a lazy bitch. And my mom was over-reacting about every little thing again and it's just stressing me out a lot."
"Well, you shouldn't let it get to you. Come on, you should try to sleep. You should have no problem sleeping here."
"I never do."
"It's because you aren't abruptly woken up by the sound of your parents screaming."
"I know."
"And you have the weirdest situation in your family. You are the only people that I know that have divorced parents who still live together."
"Yeah and you don't think that it's still hard on me. I can't believe that I had to move back home with them. I thought that I finally got out of it."
"Well I'm looking to move out so maybe we can get an apartment."
"I think that would be really cool. Are you being serious?"
"Yeah, of course I'm being serious."
"Do you want to look tomorrow before you leave tomorrow night?"
"That works. Now shortie, it's time for bed."
"Thanks Johnny."
"You're welcome."
She snuggled into his chest and they fell asleep almost immediately. When Alex woke up the next morning John was on his computer. She went over to him and sat on his lap.

"What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for our new apartment. What do you think about this one?"
He showed her a 2 bedroom apartment about 20 minutes away from their parents' houses. She loved it so they called the number and made an appointment for the next week when John got back home.
"So how's the new job going," John asked as they got up to go downstairs to eat breakfast.
"Umm, it's going alright. It's really great that all I need is my laptop and a scanner near by to work. Working from home, sketching and designing websites, how hard can that be?"
"So you can basically work from anywhere?"
"As long as there is a wireless connection somewhere nearby."

"Well I just got off the phone and I was wondering if you want to go with me this week."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I've been wanting you to come with me for a while now but I'm finally ready for you to become a part of my world."
"Your world heh? I think that I could deal with that. And if I don't like it, then I don't have to go ever again."
"Yeah you don't ever have to go again but you may not ever want to be away from it."

"Whatever you say John."
"Well the flight leaves at 5 so you need to be back here at 2 so we can go to Logan airport."
"Alright, so what kind of stuff do I pack?"
"After breakfast we'll go back to your house to pack up your things."
"And I have to clean up a few things so that my parents don't flip out on me again."
"I don't get it. You work for like 4 different companies and they are saying that you don't do anything."
"Well all they see is me on the computer all day and they think that I'm just fucking around and not really doing anything that's worth while."
"Your parents are just fucking retarded and they don't know that you finally found a job that you like doing and you're getting paid money to do it at the same time. I mean that should be the dream of every parent in America."
"It should be but unless their kids are doing what they want then they really don't seem to give a shit about what I'm doing."
"Come on Alex, your parents can't be that bad."
"Johnny, why do you think I sleep here so often? It could be do to the fact that I hate my parents and they hate me."

"I'm sure they don't hate you but when you moved back in maybe they got upset. My parents did because they thought they had gotten rid of me when I went off to college and then all of a sudden I was back and they had to adjust back to it. After a while, we were back to the way that we had always been."
"But this is the way my parents and I have always been. It's the way that we work. They yell at each other and then both of them yell at me in different ways. My dad tells me that I'm lazy and my mom is stressed out and takes it out on me."
"I think that it's a way for them to feel better about themselves but Al, it's not going to help to sit here and complain about them. They are always going to be your parents and they're going to be like that no matter what. Maybe by you moving out they will learn their lesson."
"They might or they could be assholes the rest of their lives."
"Come on let's pick this up and get going."
John and Alexis finished their breakfast and picked up after themselves before they got into Alex's car and went back to her house. She cleaned out her car while John vacuumed the pool and then they doubled teamed the kitchen together. Afterwards, they went upstairs to her room and she got out her old softball duffle bag.

"Do you miss it," John asked as she put the bag down on the bed.

"Yeah, I miss it a lot. It just sucks that there isn't anywhere to go after college."
"Maybe we could play a game sometime with our friends. It would be a lot of fun."

"Yeah it would. So what do I pack?"
"Umm, bras, underwear."
"Yeah because I would make one hell of an impression like that," she said with a laugh.

"You need other things too like pants, sweatpants, tshirts, tank tops and 2 nice outfits just in case. You never know what I am going to be doing."
"Do you even know what you're doing?"
"Not really, I just go with the flow and do what they tell me to do when they tell me to do it. I've never been one for schedules, you know that."
"Yeah like your high school schedule, you just kind of blew that off entirely."
"Kind of but then I went to college so you can't say anything to me missy."
"Well sorry. I went to college too but whatever."
Alexis packed up her things and her and John looked around her room before she left for good. She threw her bags in her car and they drove back to his house to pack his things. They ate an early dinner with his mom and dad before they drove to the airport. John put on a black hoodie and blue jeans with sunglasses while Alexis wore her dark brown hair down and wavy with a black tank top and black tight pants. They got on the airplane as Alex started to panic a little bit. She had never been on an airplane before and she never wanted to be again. John held her hand as she relaxed a little bit and buckled up her seatbelt. Before she knew it they were on their way to Florida. They watched a movie on the plane and when they landed Alex was happy that they had reached the ground.

"So what do you normally do now?"
"Go to the hotel, get room service, watch a movie and fall asleep. It's the basic routine. Then tomorrow morning we all go out to breakfast before we head to the arena."
"We all as in who?"
"Just my group of friends. Nothing really big but it's good to make a point to do it every week."
"Well then I'll just sleep in tomorrow."
"Nonsense, you need to meet everybody. Come on and we'll get the bags."
They got their bags, got their rent a car and checked into the hotel. They ordered up two steak dinners and ate them while they watched a movie. When the movie was over, they lied down in the bed.

"Are you okay shortie?"
"Yeah I'll be fine Johnny. I'm afraid of meeting your friends though and seeing what you do."
"It's not as scary as you may think. Everybody is really nice but you may feel a little out of place."
"Why? Am I too fat to hang out with you guys?"
"One you're not fat, you're gorgeous and the reason you might not fit in is because you're just so much shorter then the rest of us."
Alexis punched John and turned over. "I'm not talking to you anymore. You get my ass."
"Yeah sure I do," John said under his breath.
"What?"
"I thought you weren't talking to me."
Alex pouted as she turned out the lights. John put his arm over her stomach and one underneath her head. She held his hands in hers and smiled. He dug his head into her back as they both smiled. "Good night shortie."
"Good night Johnny."
Alex smiled to herself as she started to get the tingling feeling in her stomach. She tried to ignore it but she couldn't. It just wouldn't go away as she tried to fall asleep, which took her about an hour to actually fall asleep. John barely slept also as he had the same feeling in his stomach.