Chapter 3

Lexa glanced up as the feral stepped into the living room wrapped in a terry cloth towel with her hair dripping cold water down her back. Slowly she pushed the napkin wrapped pop-tarts across the cardboard table, which had begun its life as the box the small amount of dishes they had had come in, toward the blonde as a peace offering.

Shalimar strode over to the tiny kitchen alcove and smiled at the other girl. "Don't worry Lexa I'm not all that mad. If you two hadn't woke me up then I would still be asleep and I would not have been able to get in a shower and breakfast both before we have to head off to work."

"Speaking of which," Lexa said with an empty spoon motion towards the blonde's outfit, "You better get dressed quick girl. We have a bus to catch."

The other girl glanced up with a look of confusion all over her face. "What are you talking about? Brennan promised me that he and Jesse would leave the truck for us to use today since it's actually starting to work consistently."

Lexa held Shalimar's gaze as she replied after spooning another mouthful of cereal between her lips, "Well then if that wasn't the Dodge I heard stuttering to life a few minutes after they ran out the door then well, I'll give you the rest of this bowl of cereal."

Quickly the blonde raced over to the tiny dirt streaked window that was the only source of light in the apartment and cursed as she gazed at the now Dodge-empty parking lot. "I'm going to kill him," she muttered as she raced to put on her uniform so they wouldn't miss their bus.

The ebony haired girl hid her smile as she finished off her bowl of fake applejacks and grabbed her tennis shoes from the floor and laced each of them up by balancing on one leg at a time. Brennan's in trouble.

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Jesse stared at Brennan while they stood outside the entrance to the girls' work, convinced that his friend had lost what was left of his mind. "You did what?"

"Jess, come on, we need a place to live where we can be alone. A place where we don't all get on each other's nerves. A place where everyone can have his or her own space. And that's what Johnny's offer is; a place we need for now. It'll at least give us a chance to save up some money. The girls could get rid of one of their jobs each so they aren't run so ragged all the time." Brennan locked onto his friend's honey colored eyes, "Come on Jess, the other night Lexa couldn't even stay awake past the previews on that chick flick movie we rented; and those are her and Shal's favorite kind."

The blonde slightly inclined his head in agreement. It was getting harder for all of them; and it would be nice to have a place to call home again. "Alright Brennan, I'll back you on this but you are telling them." and at that he jerked his thumb toward the familiar blonde and brunette who were busy taking orders from extremely tired truckers on the other side of the window inside the Waffle-House.

Brennan nodded. "No problem. They'll love the idea," he said with an air of confidence as he walked through the door into the diner.

Jess followed slowly shaking his head. Please let Brennan ease the girls into the idea instead of just hitting them with it like a Mack truck slamming into a butterfly.

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Lexa glanced up and saw Brennan and Jesse talking outside the window. "Hey Shal, your so-called 'gonna be there in the morning truck' just drove up and so did the two who borrowed it. They seem to be agitated about something."

Shal didn't even look up as she continued to count up the bill for one of her tables, "As long as neither one of them lost their job today and I get to hit Brennan for lying to me. I don't really care." She paused as she heard the door open and close behind the two men and watched through the corner of her eyes as they settled at the usual table in the corner. Hmm, Jesse does look nervous. Bren doesn't though, but then again when has Bren ever looked nervous?

The two girls worked quickly getting all the orders out to their respective tables so that they could get off work on time for a change. Shalimar's eyes watched the clock as the minute hand slowly made it's way up to eleven p.m. and at five minutes till she signaled Lexa to write down their own dinner order so that it would be ready to eat the moment they hung their aprons up.

Finally the clock struck eleven and Brennan and Jesse watched in amusement as Shalimar and Lexa elbowed each other in their race to the back room in order to get their time cards signed out. Shalimar won, mainly because Lexa didn't really want to give the feral any reason to remember the circumstances under her wake up call that morning, and so the dark haired girl went ahead and got their order from the grill and brought it out to the table with a side warning for Jesse. "Don't you dare touch any of that side bacon yet."

Jesse grinned, "Wouldn't dream of it dear." and then the moment her back was turned he broke off a small piece and popped it into his mouth. Seconds later however he was coughing and gulping down his water. "Hey, Lexa, you didn't tell me it was straight from the skillet" he whined in an accusatory tone.

"I told you not to touch it didn't I? It's not my fault you didn't listen," she said as she smirked on her way into the backroom as Shalimar came out and slid into the seat beside Brennan who was busy adding salt and pepper to his scrambled eggs.

Once Lexa came back Jesse glanced at Brennan who was concentrating sole on forking his eggs into his mouth. He is finally nervous. I can't believe it. Why don't I ever have a camera when these moments come around?

Shalimar smiled with a predatory hint as she finished counting up her tips and fitting them into the front pocket of her uniform. "How much did you make today Lexa?"

The girl sitting across from her shrugged, "Haven't counted it yet. Hunger way too strong." she said as she slipped another forkful of hash browns into her mouth. Shalimar shrugged in agreement and started to cut up her chicken fried steak into bite size pieces.

Fifteen minutes and two hundred glances from Jesse to Brennan later Lexa put down her fork and reached for the small jelly packet for her toast and decided she'd had enough. "Alright you two, what's up? Something obviously happened today and I'm starting to get afraid that one of you lost your job and since Jess keeps looking at you Bren I think you better open up your damn mouth and tell us what happened before I get mad."

Shalimar nodded and then looked at Lexa to see if she'd caught the flash of relief and fear that flashed across Jesse's face as Brennan set down his orange juice and bowed his head in agreement.

Brennan sat straight up and decided to come straight to the point. "I bought us a house today in an agreement that we do a bit of work on it and keep it up and we get it for at least a full year rent free and um we move in tomorrow and I already called our landlord and told him this was the last time he'd be collecting rent from us. So what do you think?" He stopped and looked at the two girls and then suddenly he wished he hadn't. I am gonna die and they are never going to find my body. Oh God.

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Continued in Chapter 4...

author's note

i am so very sorry for the format this ended up in. the laptop is not working and the computer itself is being so weird so once again...i'm very sorry about the format