Sorry that Chapter 3 was super short, just felt like posting what I had already completed while writing This bit of magic for you here…
Sookie spent the rest of her morning breaking into her old home filling up suitcases and boxes full of her belongings; mostly clothes, books, framed family photos, dvds, and her super-expensive home theater surround sound system she had bought last year. Bill would be furious the minute he'd find it missing.
A good portion of her last paycheck was used to buy new pillows, a bedding set and various cosmetic/hygiene products. She purchased a new bed, but it wouldn't be delivered until the next day.
Deciding not to waste the day away feeling sorry for herself, Sookie built a large fort in her room out of her bedspreads, blankets, suitcases, and boxes. It would have to do until she had a real bed. Next order of business was to set up her surround sound system in the living room. The hardest part was actually mounting the speakers to the brick walls around the room. As she was bending over attaching the receiver to the back of the television, Alcide and Claude both walked in the front door carrying boxes of pizza
"Um, need any help there, Sookie?" She sprung up quickly, brushing the hair out of her face.
"Nah, I'm cool. Is that pizza?" Alcide genuinely smiled while offering her a plate.
"Claude's birthday. He didn't really feel like going out, even though it's a Friday night." She accepted the plate and sat at the kitchen counter waiting her turn to help herself.
"We can go out another time. I worked an 80 hour work-week. I just want to come home and relax, and eat some of this pizza." Claude slapped three slices onto his plate. Weren't models supposed to count calories?
"80 hours?" Sookie leapt up and leaned into the fridge. "What would you boys like to drink?" All three of them decided on beers with their pizza.
"I also own and manage a strip-club. It's not like I'll be able to model forever." Claude brought out his keys and used his bottle-opener keychain to open both his and Sookie's beers. Supposedly, Alcide was a big boy and could open his own.
"Smart. There's some job security in having other people take off their clothes for money!" Sookie peeled off a piece of pepperoni from her cheesey slice and ate it playfully.
"So Sook, what did you do today?" She hurriedly swallowed the bite of pizza she was chewing on to answer Alcide's question. She thought it best to pretend nothing had happened between her and Mr. Northman in the early morning.
"Well, FIRST I went home to gather up a bunch of my things; clothes, shoes, ooo, and did I mention our fancy-schmancy surround sound system?" Sookie gestured to the electronics she had been setting up when they walked through the door. Alcide and Claude made appropriate "oo"'s and "ahh"'s to her handy work.
"Buuut, I had to leave half of the stuff I packed because my ex came home a bit earlier than expected…" both men winced. "Yeah, AND he was with the same woman who saw me naked. Good thing I parked my car around back. I had to sneak out my bedroom window." Alcide stood up to get Sookie another well-deserved beer.
"See, now that's a good idea," Claude stood as if making a big announcement. "It's my birthday, and I wanna get drunk. With SOOKIE. My new roommate."
"I dunno if that's such a good idea, Claude. She just got out of a bad relationship, alcohol's probably not the answer."
"NO. That's a GREAT idea!" Sookie was sick of crying alone every night, and getting shit-faced with two guys she barely knew seemed like the perfect type of distraction she needed. "Better yet, we can all get drunk in my FORT!"
Who knew that you just had to MENTION the word "fort" to these guys and they'd be racing for Sookie's room..?
Eric's POV (6 hr's later)
"Guys?" Eric walked cautiously into his apartment. He had tried to persuade Claude into celebrating his birthday at Eric's club since it was a Friday night, but the man insisted on relaxing at home instead of mooching free drinks all night.
Somewhere in that six hour time span his plans must have changed because he had sent Eric a plethora of unintelligible txt messages. He was definitely drunk somewhere.
He walked through the darkened living room and tripped on what seemed to be a discarded pizza box on the kitchen floor while making his way towards the only source of light in their home: Sookie's bedroom.
Eric practically held his breath as he nudged her door further open with his foot, who knows what ungodly things his two (drunk) best friends would be doing to her on her first real night here. He was not expecting them to be laughing hysterically in a makeshift fort.
He tip-toed into the room past an obstacle course of empty beer bottles and Sookie's discarded jeans and kneeled by the blanketed entrance.
"Pffft, that's ri-DiculOshh Shookie! Schook? Sook?" Yep, Claude was drunk. "Nicknames!"
"Yes!" Sookie was equally drunk as she squealed with excitement. "I declare, we all have nicknames…BASED ON…" there was a long pause, "theeeeeeeee… Wendy's value menu!" Silence…followed soon after by extreme laughter from a drunken Claude and Alcide.
"No no, we can do this!" Eric almost laughed outside her fort. She was actually trying to sell them on this idea. "Claude's the skinny one, so you're gonna be named 'Side Salad' (said in an exaggerated drunken Gangsta' tone). I can be 'Baked PO-tato"…OOH, and Alcide, YOU can be 'CHILLI-BOWL'!" All three of them howled with laughter.
"Yeah? And what about Eric?" There was a pause as Sookie thought about it, then, in as deep a man-voice as she could muster:
"This here FROSTY. He don't say much." Uproarious laughter. He took that as his cue to enter the fort.
"ERIC!" Sookie sprung back, having been caught joking at his expense.
"Sookie, I like what you've done with the place." Sookie blushed. It really was an impressive fort (especially for a girl). It was large enough for Alcide to be lying almost fully across it; Sookie and Claude sat cross-legged in the back two corners of the fort with half a case of beer sitting between them.
Eric tried desperately to tear his eyes away from the stunning, and inebriated, beauty. Her blonde hair was once pinned up in a clip, but the majority of it was spilling over her shoulders in a beautiful drunkenly tangled mess of curls. She was wearing the most bizarre pajamas he had ever seen. Her tank top was the top-portion of Wonder Woman's costume, printed all the way to the belt, and her bottoms were the blue panties (bottom of the costume) with white stars. Probably supposed to be funny or cute, but Eric was strangely turned on. That—plus the way she nervously bit her bottom lip, he didn't stand a chance.
"Yea, I ordered a bed, but it won't be delivered until tomorrow." She guiltily handed a half-empty bottle of rum that rested between her knees over to Claude.
"Have a great birthday man?" Claude smiled much brighter than usual before taking a large swig of the rum. "That was a yes."
Alcide was sprawled out across the fort and was drifting 'suspiciously' in-and-out of consciousness. Eric knew he was planning on 'conveniently' falling asleep in Sookie's room so he'd have a nice excuse to sleep there with her, or possibly do more than sleep.
The girl didn't seem to be the type to jump into bed with a man she barely knew, but she did just get out of a long relationship. Alcide was still healing after getting the shit kicked out of his heart by that obnoxious bitch, Debbie. They could probably both use a little meaningless sex, but Eric was hesitant to let Alcide be the one to give it to the beautiful mixture of Wonder Woman and Clark Kent. Sharing a bunk with Alcide in college gave Eric a good idea of how well he performed; sounded like a rescue crew trying to communicate with a stranded miner: "Are you okay?" –gulp- "Yea…" "Are you okay?" "yeah…". Sookie deserved better.
"Let me get this guy outta here for you." Eric flipped the sheet/entry way of the fort out of the way and began dragging Alcide out onto the wood floor by his wrist.
"Woah, woah, Eric. I'm Cool! It's cool man." Sure it was.
"You gotta sleep this off Alcide." He leaned closer to Alcide's ear and whispered, "You're no good to her like this, anyway." Claude and Sookie stared in awe as Eric hoisted Alcide over his shoulders and wore him like scarf out into the hallway.
Sookie's POV
Who knew Eric was so strong? Alcide was NOT a small man, and Eric picked him up and tossed him over his shoulders like a child! She tried to shake herself out of the sexual haze she always found herself drowned in whenever Eric was around. Glancing over at Claude she noticed he was staring at her strangely. She fidgeted about, uncomfortable under his gaze. Could he tell how badly she wanted Eric? Was she drooling that bad?
"What?" Claude's eyes narrowed on her.
"Did you use my conditioner?" Sookie almost laughed. She was so sure he was onto her little crush on Eric.
"What? No." Claude didn't seem convinced. He pushed the case of beer between them roughly out of the way, smelling her hair.
"Wha-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Claude was practically pushing Sookie back as he buried his face in her mass of hair over her left shoulder.
"Lotus Berry Relax, Lotus Berry Relax! I can smell it on your hair!" She started pushing his drunken self off of her, laughing between words.
"Then FINE! Stop smelling my hair!"
"Sook, do you know how much this stuff costs?" He had pinned her down at this point, his chin and warm breath tickling her neck.
"Okay! Claude! I didn't use your conditioner!"
"THEN WHY DOES YOUR HAIR LOOK SO BABY SOFT?" He was practically lying on top of her before the real tickling began. Sookie practically screamed as his fingers savagely tickled her abdomen.
"FINE! CLAUDE, I ran out of shampoo, and I used your conditioner!" Claude siezed his assault, removing his face from her hair and gasped audibly. "We are talking about conditioner, right?"
"You used it as SHAMPOO? It's for moisture, Sook, not for cleaning! I can't belie- I Can't believe we're friends!" She couldn't tell if he was really furious or simply drunk and playful…
"So we're friends now?" Sookie looked up into the eyes of the gay man atop her. They stared at each other for a while before Claude got that crazy look again.
"Give it back." Now she was confused.
"Give you what back?" Claude straddled Sookie's thighs and sat back onto her lap, running his fingers wildly through her hair.
"Give me it back!" The onslaught continued and Sookie could barely breathe through her laughter.
"CLAUDE! HAHA, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING!"
"I'm squeezing it out of your hair!" Sookie kicked and tried to push his hands away from her hair, but he was incredibly strong.
"You're squeezing it out of my-?" A man clearing his throat caused them both to stop wrestling. Eric was kneeling at the fort entrance with that same sexy quirked eyebrow….
Why couldn't they just have a normal conversation, in a normal setting, without Sookie making a fool of herself…?