Disclaimer: I do not own anything that does not have my name written next to it in pretty pink pen. I only own my own fictional characters, this include my OFC Nicola Andrews and her family. I also do not own any of the songs used to write this story…except on CD.
Reviews etc. are always appreciated and adored.
Summary: "Do you remember that time I fell out your window and you came jumping out after me?" There was a twinge of humour to her husky voice and Leon smiled for her benefit. For three years he let himself believe that he would always save her from everything, until he was the reason she was in that ambulance, a broken back and their baby was gone.
Love Ink and tasha- thanks for my first two reviews! You guys rock. Please let me know if this starts to disappoint!
June 1997 – I Do Love My Ma and Pa
Vince had managed to chat her ear off until eight o'clock the next morning and Nicola was almost sad to see him leave when he stood up and looked at the other three sleeping bodies shaking his head.
"I'll see you later for the barbeque, Lala." He leant over and kissed the top of her head, careful to avoid the large gash before pulling Jess off the bed and walking out of the room.
"What the…?" Jesse yelled when he hit the ground, waking up startled and looked around the room, his gaze landing on Nicola who just shrugged. Leon made a sound and woke up at the sound of Jesse's crash to the floor and looked down at the blonde sitting on the ground.
"What're you doing down there, Jess?" he asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Jesse flipped him off before standing up and shooting a glare at Nicola before leaving the room in search of what Nicola guessed was candy.
Before Leon could say another word though Mia appeared in the doorway with a cardboard tray of coffees and a brown paper bag. Nicola's stomach growled and she realised she hadn't eaten since lunch the day before.
"Lala, are you okay, babe?" She threw the coffees and food into Leons hands before rushing forward and hugging Nicola, jostling Letty awake from beside her.
"I've been better." Nicola laughed as Mia looked over her in a motherly way. The older girl had always looked out for her telling her that she needed a mother for certain things, even though she was only a few years older.
"Would you like something to eat?" She snatched the food from Leon, ruffling his hair as she went and passed Nicola a chocolate croissant and a cup of coffee.
"Thanks so much Mia." Nicola took a large bite of the pastry as Mia handed coffees to a grumpy Letty and Leon as well as a pastry she had selected for each of them. They all thanked her as she looked around for Jesse, still holding a coffee.
"Vending machine." Nicola told her through a mouthful of croissant and when Nicolas father walked into the room she thrust the coffee into his hand before he'd gotten a word out.
"Good morning?" Jack Andrews took in the scene around him as the three friends looked up at him while his daughter continued to scoff on chocolate and pastry, only stopping to take a sip of coffee. "I didn't think you all would be here, so I only got Nic a croissant, but seems like she's right." He laughed as Nicola rolled her eyes and reached over for the bag in his hand.
"Thanks Daddy. Mia has Danish." She gestured to Mia before starting on the second croissant as her friends shook their heads at her.
"How're you feeling darling?" Jack asked as he sat down on the bed were Vince had sat for four hours before him.
"Excellent."
"That's good because I need to head off." He patted her leg and she smiled.
"I'll be fine Daddy. You travel safe." Her father stood up and kissed her head telling her to be careful and congratulations on graduating in three days before he left, patting Leon on his shoulder and thanking Mia for the coffee.
Nicola watched her father leave and sighed. It was so like him to end up with a job before something important. He was a truck driver and his job often took him halfway across the country.
"Hey. You alright?" Leon reached over and placed a hand on her leg. She snapped out of her trance and looked over at Leon and smiled.
"Surely am, when can we blow this joint?"
"I saw a Nurse and she said we just need to sign you out after a check-up and we're good to go." Mia said lifting her handbag onto the bag and opening it, "But before you go anywhere you'll want these." She held out a bottle of facewash and a hairbrush.
"Thank you so much!" Nicola grabbed the hairbrush and started to wrench it through her hair, but found it difficult. Leon stood up and snatched the brush from her hands and pulled it through her crazed hair while she chatted to Letty and Mia. .
Nicola tried to ignore the soft way Leon was running the brush through her hair, his fingers threading through the strands. Letty was wiping the smeared mascara off her face and Mia was signing her cast.
Nicola rolled over and looked around the room. This was not her room. Rolling onto her other side she saw Letty lying beside her, a large arm draped over her side. Groaning in disgust at being in bed with the affectionate couple Nicola made her way from the room and stumbled down the stairs to the basement stairs making her way through the tv room she pushed Leons door open.
He was sleeping with his arm across his eyes and Nicola continued to stumble towards the bed and crawled in beside him. Falling onto the plush mattress she pulled the comforter over her shoulders and snuggled into the warm bed.
She had only just closed her eyes when she felt large arms wrap around her and pull her into Leons chest. She strategically moved so that her back was to her chest and she stretched her broken arm out in front of her.
"You okay, Lala?" Leons husky voice was muffled by her hair and she pulled his arms around her waist.
"I just woke up in bed with Letty and Dom."
"Gross." Leon replied before his breathing got heavy and he was back to sleep.
It didn't take Nicola long to fall asleep as she lay wrapped up in Leons bed.
She was startled awake when someone jumped on top of her.
"Wake up, Lala!" Lettys voice rang in her ear and Nicola sat up looking around the room and realised she was in Leons bed.
"What?" She turned her attention back to Letty who was bouncing on the mattress.
"Beach time, chica!" It was then she realised Letty was wearing a bikini top and short white shorts, her sunglasses perched on the top of her head.
"What time is it?" Nicola rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with her good hand and looked over at Leons alarm clock which read 11:00am.
"Come on! Lets go." Pulling herself out of bed Nicola followed Letty up the stairs to where everyone was sitting around the kitchen table looking hungover.
"Cap'n Crunch or Corn Flakes?' Jesse was holding up two cereal boxes to Vince who gave him a look before having the Captain Crunch box thrown at his head.
"Hey guys." Nicola gave a small wave and the four men sitting at the table grunted a greeting before going back to their food or coffee.
Leon was sitting in a chair, resting his head on his folded arms, a coffee cup held loosely in his fingers. Nicola snagged the cup from his fingers and drained the rest of its contents before saying thank-you and being dragged out the door by Letty.
After stopping at Nicola's house the two girls met the rest of the team at the beach. Nicola ambled down the walkway to the sand as Letty and Jesse ran ahead, surfboards under their arms. Nicola was a bit jealous that they were able to go swimming while she lay stretched out on the beach in her red bikini, a black trucker hat holding her hair in a ponytail.
As she lay there baking in the sun, she could hear the sound of everyone playing in the surf. She glared begrudgingly at the yellow cast on her arm which was now covered in colourful words and pictures. Someone had also drawn a large heart on the underside that said "Lala loves Leon 4 EVA" written inside it. Leon had smirked when he saw it and raised an eyebrow but otherwise said nothing.
"La!" She heard someone yell.
"What?" She yelled back, not even bothering to look up. Suddenly there was wet body lying on top of her and everyone was laughing as Jesse wriggled around ensuring to get her all wet.
"Jesse!" Nicola shrieked, hitting him to get off her.
"You're missing out Lala." Jesse rolled of her into the sand and she promptly threw sand at him.
"You're such an ass!" She continued to abuse him as the rest of them watched on, laughing at the girl drying herself off.
"Come on Lala." Jesse laughed as he jumped up and ran back to the group.
Nicola leant back on her elbows as she watched the rest of them run around in the surf like a bunch of kids. It was funny to see the boys like Dom and Vince throwing Letty and Mia into the surf. Her eyes fell on Leon who was doubled over as Vince tackled Jesse face first into the water. His brown skin glistened with water and she could see his brown hair sticking up from him running his fingers through it. When he looked her way she couldn't help but look away quickly. It wasn't really common knowledge that she had a thing for Leon and she'd like to keep it that way. When she dared to look back up he had his back to her and she sighed and dropped back on the towel, closing her eyes and letting her mind wander to Leon like it had since she was about fifteen.
"What's on your mind pretty girl?" Someone spoke and her eyes snapped open to fall on a very hot Leon leaning over her.
"Nothing." She said quiet, feeling a bit of a blush creeping up her cheeks. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Leon only saw her as a friend when he said things like that to her.
"You sure, you looked like you were deep in thought." He too leant back on his elbows and his green eyes squinted at the bright sun.
"Hmm." Was all she said as she closed her eyes again and tried not to think too much about how close he was.
She felt him shift and looked up to see him running his fingers through his hair and smiled.
"I was thinking…" he started but her laugh cut him off.
"Don't start taking up new hobbies, Le." This earned her a look before he pounced on her and started tickling her. "No, no stop!" She laughed as he continued to tickle her making her hit him with her cast but he ignored it, laughing at her trying to defend herself. "Okay, I'm sorry." She said finally and he pulled back, smiling with triumph as she looked down at her sand covered body and shook her head and raised an eyebrow at him.
"Do you mean it?" He still held her arms over her head and for the first time they both realised he was straddling her. Before he could change his mind, Leon quickly climbed off her and fell back into the sand.
Nicola adjusted her bikini again and tried to stop the heat that was crawling up her neck. She saw Leon glance over at her before he jumped up and ran back to the group, never finishing what he wanted to tell her.
Flopping back on the towel Nicola closed her eyes and tried to collect her thoughts. La get it together Girl! She told herself.
"A box? Oh it's a…" Letty trailed off as she saw Leon standing behind Nicola as she drew on the piece of paper. When Letty stopped speaking Nicola looked up at her confused.
"Ah…earth to Letty Ortiz- we're winning here!" She snapped her fingers in front of her face before looking up to see Leon standing over her.
"Pornstar Pictionary?" He asked and the four players burst out laughing.
"If you want to play with us you'll have to wait until we're playing Swearword Scrabble because we're odd numbers." Nicola said as he sat down beside her and looked at the pictures that had been drawn on the pads in front of them.
"How did you guys even come up with these?" Mia looked over at Nicola and Letty who exchanged a look.
"Lets just say that we spent a lot of time in detention." Nicola bit her lip and threw a glance at Leon who was smirking.
"So you have a thing for Leon huh?" Mia said half an hour later as they sat beside each other on the table in the backyard, the rest having gone to get rations of beer and food before they started to play Swearword Scrabble.
"Don't know what you're talking about." Nicola replied as she packed up the Pictionary stuff.
"I saw you all goo goo eyes over him at the beach today." Nicola rolled her eyes at Mia.
"I wasn't all goo goo eyes."
"Whatever you tell yourself, chica." Mia plucked the box from Nicolas hands and disappeared before Nicola sat down on a chair, resting her yellow cast on the table as she waited for the rest of them to return.
Leon walked out of the back door and saw Nicola staring out to space. He could see the cool breeze whipping the hair off her neck, leaving it exposed. Not for the first time he imagined brushing his fingers against it but shook his head to snap out of it. This was Nicola, one of his best friends. So what if he'd been completely besotted with her since the day she walked into the Auto Shop at the high school looking for Letty. It was like meeting her for the first time as she'd looked him over and smiled, his name forming on her full lips before she bit it. He knew her well enough to know she was nervous, she always did that when she was nervous, or thinking too hard. He remembered thinking how he hadn't seen her around the school at all. He'd missed the transformation from a tiny ten year old to the sixteen year old that had stood in front of him and forgiven him for being such a crappy friend.
"You all growed up." She'd smiled as her eyes had raked over him and he couldn't help but smile. Just because he hadn't seen her didn't mean he hadn't heard about her. Her serial flirtations were notorious, sky rocketing her to popularity and now she was using her magic on him.
"You going to stand there all night?" Nicola turned around in the chair and he smirked, walking over and passed her a beer.
"I was just thinking about how you and Letty came up with these stupid games." He laughed sitting down beside her.
"It was your fault." She replied as she sipped at a Corona and leant back in the chair.
"Hey I did not force you two to steal my smokes and get caught outside the Auto Shop." He raised his hands in defence but he had a large smile on his face.
"You could have told us Miss Riddell was coming so we didn't get two weeks detention. I still remember the look on her face, "Miss Ortiz I expected this from you, but Nicola Andrews!" " Nicola shook her finger at Leon imitating her high school teacher. Leon chuckled and shook his head.
"Lala you are one mad girl." She punched him in the arm with her good hand.
"You love it."
"What does Leon love?" Mia asked as her, Letty and Jess walked out with beers and a box with the scrabble pieces in it.
"My awesomeness!" Nicola replied before Leon could get a word in and Mia just smirked. "Now lets get this game underway before Dom and V get back from wherever they mysteriously disappear to on a Sunday night." Nicola said as she shuffled the letters in the box.
A/N: Let me know what you think. I also think that swearword scrabble would make a pretty interesting game…Anyways there's another one for you so get clicking! x