A Slumber Party Like Situation

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"What are you doing here?"

"Nice El. It's good to see you, too." he says sarcastically.

I didn't mean that the way it sounded, honestly I didn't. I'm happy to see him. Really. I'm just, well ... shocked would be a good word but it's not really strong enough. Floored would be better. Leveled, even.

"Sorry." I say. "It's good to see you." I hug him awkwardly, dying a little with embarassment on the inside. He returns it with none of the tension I'm obviously feeling. But does that suprise anybody? Didn't think so.

"So ..." he says. He's got that tone. The one where he's waiting for me to say or do something but I have no earthly idea what it could be. A clue, perhaps.

"So ... " I repeat.

"Can I come in or not?" he finally asks. Duh, Nash. Leave him him standing in the hallway. Super idea. I step aside to let him in and notice tht he is carrying a very large black duffel bag and his guitar case. Hmm. Not what you'd see when a friend is just dropping by.

"Craig, why do you have luggage?"

"I actually kind of need to talk to you about that." he said sheepishly.

Why do I get the feeling that I'm not going to like this?

"You see, Joey took Angie to visit his mom and I didn't know so I jumped on a plane and came here without telling him."

"And that explains you showing up at my door, with a bag, how?" I ask.

"Well ..." he trails off, suddenly not too keen on looking me in the eye, "I'm not big on staying in the house by myself."

"So what, you wanna stay here?" This is so not happening. God would not be so cruel.

"Just for a couple days. Marco said your roommate was out of town." he says. Oh, I'm gonna kill Marco.

About the time that lovely little thought popped into my head, Craig actually got down on his knees, hands clasped in front of his face, and began pleading with me. "Come on, El. I'm literally out on the street here. Have a little sympathy."

The little smirk that twitched it's way onto my lips was beyond my control. Craig can be such a drama queen at times. "Get up." I say. "Of course you can stay. But if you tell my roommate about it, you're so dead."

Once more on his feet, he's sporting that confused look again. "Why, would it bother her?"

"Only because you're sleeping in her bed." I explain, hastily shoving things, i.e. the box, out of the way in an attempt to make myself not look like such a slob. I spy Craig out of the corner of my eye, looking back and forth between Anne's bed and mine. And he does not appear to be a bit happy. No wonder, my bed is equipped with two foam and one feather matress pads and an abundance of pillows. Anne's however, just has the one standard issue dorm matress that's as hard as a rock and the one pillow. Honestly, I have no clue how the girl gets any sleep.

"Stop looking like that." I tell him. "It's not that bad."

"But your's looks so much softer." he says.

"It is." I assure him. Ha, take that Manning. Oh, do I sound bitter? Cause I'm not. It's just not every day that Craig shows up at my door with a suitcase and a plea to sleep over. It's making the thought process a bit difficult. This has the makings of a potentially delightfully enjoyable situation for me.

Or it would have had I not come out of the bathroom a few minutes later to find Craig stretched out like a cat in MY bed, shoes and all.

"Yeah, this isn't gonna work for me." I say, hands falling onto my hips.

"El, I just flew across the country to find my family gone and now I'm here with a friend that wants me to sleep on a slab of concrete." he babbles. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"So what, you expect me to sleep in Anne's bed? No way." I cross my arms over my chest to let him know I mean business. "If you don't want to sleep there, I have a perfectly good floor."

His arms were crossed behind his head, but at my idea he removed them and pushed himself up to look at me with that dumbstruck incredulous look of his. "The floor!" he demanded. "That'll be really good for my jet lag."

"This is ridiculous." I say. "What are we suppossed to do?"

"You can either try to move me yourself..." I snort at this idea. I can really see little barely over five foot me moving six something him anywhere. "Or," he continues, "we can share."

The heat creeping up my face is my absolute least favorite part of being a redhead. Blushing is so not what I want to be doing right now. It'll make him think all sort of things that aren't true in that arrogant little brain of his. Like that I still like him or that he's cute or something.

"Nice try, but that's a no. I'm not too sure my boyfriend would like that. Or your girlfriend for that matter." Ugh. Just speaking of Manny leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

"Boyfriend?" he whispers.

Suppressing that evil little smile threatening to break across my face, I pluck the strip of pictures of Jesse and me out of my mirror frame and show to him. Is it wrong that some teeny little part of me is getting a kick out the fact that this seems to bother him?

"I didn't know. I'm sorry ... I shouldn't have... " he gets off my bed, shoving the pictures back into my hand and heads for the door, leaving his stuff behind.

"Craig, what are you doing?"

He won't even turn around to look at me. "I don't want to cause any problems for you Ellie. I'll juts go rent a hotel room or something."

"Without your stuff?"

It seems to hit him that he was about to take off without his bag, and he turns to get it. I put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Craig, just because I'm dating someone doesn't mean you can't stay here. You're still my friend."

"Yeah, friend, sure." he mutters. The he finally looks into my eyes. "You sure?"

"Of course." I tell him sincerely. "Just go to sleep."

I crawl into my bed and flick off the bedside lamp. Craig just kind of stands there for a minute, illuminated by the moonlight wafting through the practically useless blinds. He seems to snap out of his trance and toes his shoes off, then his jacket falls onto the floor. He stoops to pull off his socks, and he chesitates slightly. I know what he's thinking, it's so obvious. He's wondering if I'm looking. Hello, it's dark. Yeah he's still standing in the moonlight, but do I have to mention it? Deciding that it's safe, Craig grabs hold of the hem of his shirt and yanks it over his head. Good thing it is dark, I can feel the fact that my face is more red than my hair at the moment. Finally, he undoes his belt and lets his jeans fall to his feet. Jeez, the boy couldn't have brought some pajamas? Then I wouldn't be in the precarious position of checking him out while he has no idea I'm doing it.

He crawls into Anne's bed and starts tossing and turning at once. Shoot. Now I feel bad. Stupid Craig. He did look completely exhausted. I could just ... no, no, that's a bad idea. Horrible. The most idiotic idea EVER. Don't go there Nash.

"Craig." Why don't I ever listen to myself?

"Yeah?" he asks, a trace of irritation in his voice.

"Stop wearing a hole in the matress and get your butt over here."

I am so gonna regret this.

Without a word, Craig bolts out of Anne's bed and is sitting on the edge of mine. I put my hand on his shoulder when he attempts to pull the covers down. "Not so fast." I give him a pillow and inform him to sleep at the foot of the bed. "And keep your feet out of my face."

"You're so generous El." he says sarcastically.

"Keep it up Craig. There's always the floor." He mutters incoherently, but obeys and crawls into the bed. Unable to stop myself, I giggle at the absurdity of the situation. Yes, giggle. But it goes no further. Understood?

"What's so funny?" he asks.

"I told you to get into bed and you were here in half a second. God Manning, I knew you were easy, but that's a little much isn't it?"

"Ha ha." he says dryly.

"Night Craig."

"Night El."

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A/N: Not too craxy about the chapter title. Any ideas for a better one?