XX

"Took your time." Alex remarked as she shut the door behind her.

"Excuse me?" April answered kicking her shoes off, her eyes fixed on the boxes filling the living room, covering every inch of the counter top.

"We could of painted half this apartment by now." Alex answered walking towards her and grabbing the sheets out of her limp arms.

"When did these come?" she muttered slowly walking towards the boxes lining the hallway.

"What? Oh the boxes, dude showed up just after we did, left a few minutes ago." Alex draped the sheets over the floor near the wall. April moaned to Mere that he wouldn't do anything, but he seemed to be helping, and doing a good job of it.

"Where's Jackson?" April asked, turning her attention away from the boxes and onto her other surroundings. Alex was kneeled over and taping a sheet to the wall with duct tape.

He ripped it with his teeth and answered, "Went out to, uh, don't know, wasn't really listening. Give us a hand would you."

"Sure." April replied.

She rushed over to him and picked the pile of sheets off the ground and began lining the floors next to walls with them, she wanted this room painted today. Alex moved behind her, quickly but carefully duct taping each sheet to the wall, blocking any potential splatter, much like her he didn't want any paint on the beautiful wooden floors.

"Where did you learn to do this?" April asked as he duct taped the last sheet to the wall and she dumped the left over sheets on top of a box labelled Kitchen #1

"Uhm, I don't really know." He answered standing up and scanning the room. "You any good?"

"What?" April answered her eyes following his gaze, trying to get some context.

He moved his eyes and took a step towards two boxes that stood alone in the corner of the room. All of the other boxes were bunched together in the hallway, the kitchen and then in the centre of the room, far away from the walls. She had originally ignored this when she had entered but now she was thinking that this was done on purpose. Only she couldn't figure out whose idea it was, was it Jackson's or was it Alex's?

"Painting? Can you paint?" Alex replied throwing her a paintbrush. Catching it, she could see from side on the smile of Alex's lips at the lack of a clatter sound when the paintbrush hit the ground. He cracked open the lid of one of the tins of paint and pulling a stick out of the box he stirred it for a few seconds.

"I have painted a few sheds in my day and a barn actually. I painted the barn red, for Larry and.." April started, a smile reaching her eyes at the arousal of a distance memory of her childhood.

"Yeah yeah, I don't need your life story." Alex interrupted as he stood up and walked over to the door.

"Why do I have to use the paintbrush? When we have those?" April asked pointing at the pile by the boxes, while ignoring his comment.

"For the corners. I thought you said you had done this before?" Alex said as he looked from the paint to the walls, to the kitchen and then back to the paint.

"I have!" April replied walking down the hallway, heading to her room. Dropping the paintbrush on top of one of the many boxes sitting in her room she looked over each box, lifted the box labelled Clothes #2 and placed it on the floor. Turning her attention to the box underneath it, labelled Clothes #4 she took her key out of her back pocket and used it to cut open the tape.

"Whoever chose the paint did a good job. It will look great." Alex yelled in reply.

"Thanks." She yelled back rummaging through the box. "Aha!" she said to herself as she pulled out a pair of her old track pants and one of her slightly small tank tops. Peeling off her jeans, she put her track pants on, pulled off her top and yanked the navy blue tank top over her head.

Grabbing her paintbrush and stuffing it her pocket she spun around and looked at her new room. The wallpaper was perfect, her bed would arrive in, she looked down at her watch, about 6 hours, she had plenty of time to do the first coat of the paint in the living room before they brought their beds in, that was good.

Her room wasn't the biggest, but it wasn't the smallest, it was a little bigger than Alex's and it was a little smaller than Jackson's, but her room had the biggest cupboard and Alex's had the best view. Smiling she opened the window and stuffed everything back into Clothes #4.

Trudging down the hallway she pulled her hair into a messy bun and banged her toes on two different boxes as she made her way towards Alex. That was the issue was thinking and walking, she could multi-task that was easy, but when you were imagining what your apartment would look like, rid of boxes, with the furniture delivered and the walls painted, it was hard to focus on your actual surroundings.

Alex was already into it when she reached the living room, he had done a few strokes of paint on the wall and was hard it work. She had to say she was pretty surprised, she had assumed that Alex would bugger off, like Jackson had seemed to have done or he would sit on the counter drinking beer and telling them that they missed a spot, but he seemed to be into it.

He was actually helping, with minimal harassment. He bent over to get more paint on the end of his roller and then plastered more paint onto the wall in front of him. He wasn't in jeans nor was he in scrubs, which were the two main things that she saw him. He was in dark red track pants that had a few holes, the ends were frayed and they were already covered in splatters of paint- some wet, some dry. She then realised she was checking him out. April! He's Alex. She thought to herself.

"Well are you just going to stand there?" Alex remarked covering his roller in more paint.

"But you do it so well. Don't want to ruin your flow." April answered stepping forward and stirring the stick that was in the paint tin next to the rectangular grey container that was full of paint to put on the end of Alex's roller.

"You aren't getting out of this." Alex did long strokes of paint onto the wall, top to bottom, firm, steady and fast. He looked like he had done a lot of this, maybe a part time job, he didn't seem like the type who would have done a lot of painting at home with his dad, and with what little information she knew about his childhood she knew that family bonding was not the cause of his obvious skill.

"Wouldn't dream of it. Just trying to witness the mighty Alex painting, who knew." April smiled, she didn't mind that Jackson had left her with him, she hadn't wanted Alex to be here with them, she just wanted it to be Jackson and her. To get this flat with the fire place, the beautiful wooden floors, the walk in shower; they needed Alex's money.

At first she hated the idea, she would always do most of the cleaning up, she would nag and pressure Jackson into doing some, but Alex would most likely adamantly refuse. However this appeared not to be the case. Then again, painting and washing plates were a different story and they had only been here for about an hour.

"Shut up, press play and start painting." Alex replied still busy painting, he stepped to the side and started working on a new area of wall.

"Press play?" April mumbled scanning the room.

Her eyes fell onto the ipod dock sitting on the counter with an ipod plugged in, walking over she pressed play and dropped her paintbrush into the box on picked up a roller. The music started as she rummaged through the box and pulled out another grey container. Placing it on the other side of the front door than Alex she gently placed the roller on the ground, grabbed the paint and poured it into the container.

"What are we listening to?" she asked as she lifted up her roller and smacked it against the wall.

"Music." Alex replied.

"Really." April smiled, she didn't mind talking to him like this, he wasn't her best friend, he was no Jackson, but they were friends. When he wasn't been gross and well Alex like.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alex lean over and grab a small black thing. The music got louder and she realised it was a remote.

"Shut up and paint." Alex yelled over the music. So much for conversation, oh well, painting was bonding. As new roommates they needed to bond over something, loud music and wet paint may just do the trick. The music wasn't bad either, neither was the company.

"Shit you did a terrible job." Alex remarked as he scanned her side of the room.

"What?" she yelled defiantly, roller in hand.

"Thank god we have to do another coat." Alex replied with a laugh.

"It's better than yours." April remarked, taking a step towards the side of the room that he had painted. They had spent the last 3 hours painting the room, working on separate sides with blaring music and they had just finished the first coat.

"Mine is perfection." Alex took a step towards her, staring at the wall in front of him.

"Perfection?" April remarked pointing at a spot on the wall.

"With painting a first coat, errors are to be expected." Alex answered defensively. He lowered his roller onto the sheet, placing the spongy bit into the now empty grey container.

"That's bull, mine is way better. It doesn't have 'errors'. Plus perfection doesn't include errors." April replied laying her roller down onto of his.

Pacing over to the opposite side of the room, he pointed at the doorframe. "What is this then?" Alex remarked, his finger hovering a smudge of paint on the corner of the door.

"Well, uh, shut up!" April would not go down without a fight.

"That paint should not be there!" Alex replied. He had clearly won, they both knew it but April did not want to give up and she certainly did not want to admit that he was right nor did she want to say that his painting skills were far more advanced.

Bending down she picked up her discarded paintbrush dipped it in the paint and flicked it at Alex. "What?" Alex yelled as paint splattered over his shirt and track pants.

"That paint should not be there!" April mockingly repeated a wide smile on her face.

"Oh you are asking for it." Alex replied, dipping his hand in the paint and flicking it at April.

"Ahh!" she screamed as her navy singlet was covered in a layer of paint. She ran to the other side of the room, picked up the roller and ran at Alex with it. Painting a line down his middle she laughed, dropped the roller and turned to run.

Grabbing her from behind, Alex wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her into him. He dragged her backwards as she struggled to break free but his grip was to strong.

"Alex!" she squealed as he smeared his hand which was covered in wet paint, all over her hair. Letting her go he doubled over laughing as teal paint ran down her forehead.

"You… ass!" She yelled at him as she wiped her hand over face preventing any from falling into her eyes. Dipping both hands into the paint bucket she ran her fingers through his hair. Giving him a teal Mohawk, laughing while she did it.

Turning again to run away, he grabbed her from behind again and spun her to face him. Laughing she said, "Pay back."

"I always thought that teal would suit me." Alex remarked laughed and for a split second a thought crossed his mind. Clearing his throat, he shook his head and they stopped laughing, standing silent. His hands rested on her hips and he had no desire to move them, and April had no desire to make him move, she was comfortable as is.

Bringing her hands up she rested them on his arms, slowly pushing them to move from her hips and limply wrap around her, his hands crossing behind her back. Taking a step forward she lifted her head and looked from the handprints she was leaving on his arms and then into his eyes.

"Who would have predicted this?" she whispered, nothing moving but her lips and her chest, rising up and down, her heart pounding in her ears.

"A horoscope?" he muttered, his eyes staring deeply into hers, unmoving, breathing slowly in and out, trying to control his every move.

"It did tell me that I would kiss a hot stranger sometime this month. Maybe it was referring to now." April breathed out slowly, her eyes unmoving, barely blinking.

"Really?" he mumbled, his grip tightening, his hands moving to hold her lower back, almost desperate to touch her. He slowly pushed the bottom of her singlet up and rested his teal hands against her back, just above the waistline.

"They got some of it wrong though." She replied moving her hands up from his arms, leaving a painted trail as they made their way to rest onto his shoulders.

"Yeah?" he answered, his fingertips pushing the top of her track pants down.

"You're not a stranger." She replied, her breathing slow and steady, controlled, barely.

"Are you calling me hot?" he smiled cheekily.

"I guess I am." She smirked taking a small step towards him.

"April." He muttered inching his lips closer to hers.

"Yes." She breathed, her whole body did an involuntary flick, she was so nervous but she was ready. She wanted to do this, she had waiting long enough, and doing this didn't mean she was less of a Christian. She could do this, Alex, guilt free.

"I'm going to kiss you now." He answered, his lips hovering over hers for a moment, his eyes searching hers. He didn't know what she was thinking, was she okay was this? Is this what she wanted? Or was she going to freak out and then they would awkwardly co-exist in this apartment, avoiding each other here and at the hospital. He just needed an answer, something.

"Okay." She breathed closing her eyes.

That was all he needed.

XX