"What are you doing?" Carlos asked one morning, about a week later, after doing his morning bathroom ritual (which's mostly just using the bathroom right after waking).
"Gathering my stuff. I have to leave. I've been neglecting my duties and I have to go." Alexa sat down on the bed and motioned for Carlos to join her.
"Where are you going? Can I go?"
"Chicago and I'm sorry, but you still have your concussion to deal with." She kissed his temple like a doting mother.
"Are you really going to Chicago?"
"No, but I can't risk saying where I will be out loud."
"Don't you trust me?" Carlos pouted.
"With all my heart, but I can't risk the possibility that me saying the place out loud allows someone to hear it." She bopped his nose. He grabbed her wrist and slid his hand to interlock their fingers.
"I hate not knowing where you are and if you're safe."
"That's how I felt when you were hanging with those guys. I'll figure out some way to let you know without giving away my location."
"I hate dating a spy."
"But, you don't hate me?" Alexa frowned.
"No, I love you."
"I'll be back safe and sound before you know it."
"Will you come back when you're done?"
"Absolutely," she reached for her tennis shoes which had managed to find their way under the bed. "I'll have to go home for a few days, but I can be right back here after that. You don't know how much I miss you."
"I think I can imagine." Carlos reached again for his girlfriend's hand and pulled her into a kiss.
Breaking apart, Alexa reached into her bag and pulled out the cracked helmet.
"Keep it."
"But, it's your—"
"I've got the new one." Carlos double tapped the headgear he wore. "You need something to remember me by when we're apart." He winked. "Hey, you could wear it and then we'd be helmet buddies!" He made a face. "Aw, but it's cracked so it wouldn't really do you any good."
"I'll keep it in my bag so I'll always have you near me." She rolled her eyes. "Wow, that sounds really corny out loud, but I mean it."
"I love you." Carlos embraced Alexa in another kiss, this one longer. She tasted minty fresh.
Sitting at the kitchen counter munching on helmet cereal, Carlos sighed. With his own bowl of cereal Logan sat down next to him. Carlos sighed again. Logan looked at him but didn't say anything. James entered the kitchen and grabbed a mug of coffee. Carlos sighed again. While carrying his laptop and chatting away with Jo, Kendall walked into the kitchen and sat down on the other side of Logan. Carlos sighed a fourth time.
"Cheer up, Carlitos. She'll be back," James said as he sat down next to Carlos and began sipping his hot brew.
"I know." Carlos stirred his cereal but did not eat it.
"I know!" Logan squealed. "Let's throw a party! Kendall's birthday and Halloween are coming up, not in that order. We can have a Halloween/Kendall's birthday/Carlos is getting better party."
Carlos's eyes lit up. He waved his arms around almost knocking over his cereal.
"I think I'm available that day," Jo said from over the interwebs.
"And how do you know what day it's going to be?" Kendall smirked.
"Your birthday, genius."
"We need to come up with a guest list," James said. "We can't just invite all of our contacts. We have to be selective."
"Well, I'd love to help," Logan took his now empty bowl to the sink, "but it's Thursday and I have to get off to class."
"Why don't you pick up some invitations while you're out," James suggested.
"Invitations? Why?
"We can just send e-vites or call and text," Kendall said.
"No, we should send paper invitations through the mail," Carlos said.
"Why?" Kendall asked.
"Because I want to!" Carlos pouted.
"OK, OK, fine. I'll pick up a package of invitations after class." Logan gave James a look, probably for giving Carlos the idea.
"Hey, we're the Hollywood Super Party Kings of Hollywood. If we want paper invitations we get paper invitations." James crossed his arms.
"I said I'd get them."
"Thank you."
"OK, so the guest list," Kendall said after Logan left. "Our girlfriends, obviously." He smiled at Jo. "Is someone writing this down?"
"You're on the computer. You can just type it up," Carlos said.
"But, I'm talking to Jo."
James searched through almost all the drawers in the kitchen before pulling out a scrap piece of white printer paper and a pencil.
"Lucy…Jo…Camille…Alexa," he spoke as he wrote. "OK."
"Katie," Kendall and Jo said simultaneously causing them both to laugh.
"Katie and Mama Knight."
"Really? You really want my mother at our party?" Kendall asked.
"OK, no Mama Knight." James vigorously erased the name of his LA guardian.
"Any friends from Minnesota?" Jo asked. "Have you kept in touch with any of them?"
"Only Jenny Tinkler and well, we'd rather not…" Kendall said.
"But she'd be hurt if she found out we had a party and didn't invite her," Carlos said.
"Send her an invitation. She most likely won't come since she's in Europe," Jo said.
"How do you know that?" Kendall asked.
"I have my ways."
"Uh-huh. Anyway, let's get back to the list."
"If we're inviting your sister, Kendall, can we invite Cristian?" Carlos asked. Cristian was his seventeen year old brother. "I'd like to invite Tina and Nina as well, but I'm not sure Mom and Dad would let them come, but I'm pretty sure they'd let Cris come for the weekend." Tina and Nina were his younger sisters, fifteen and thirteen respectively.
"Jett," Jo blurted out as James scribbled names on the list. "He's not that bad and you guys have sort of become friends."
James made to say something when Kendall said, "Fine." He looked pensive for a minute. "Any more people at the Palm Woods we should invite?"
"The only other people you're really close to are the Jennifers. I'm not sure if they're in town, but we can try."
"The Jennifers," James wrote. "How about Fallon?"
"Really, James? You're inviting Lucy and you want to bring Fallon here?" Kendall asked.
"She's not my date! She's just a friend who would enjoy this party. She can bring a friend, a date even. Whatever, I'm writing her name down."
"Well, we're definitely inviting Paige," Kendall said.
"Paige Godfrey?" Jo exclaimed. "Your neighbor, the author? You better!"
The four of them continued discussing who to invite naming various celebrities they were friendly with including but not limited to Dak Zevon, Cher Lloyd ("We should invite Cher Lloyd. We recently did some things together that make me believe she's so over the fireworks incident. She's always thought you were a nice guy, Kendall."), Austin Mahone ("Katie would totally kills us if we didn't."), and Jordin Sparks ("She was the first celebrity we met." "We did meet Nicole Sherzinger." "Yeah, but we just basically said hi. We actually spent time and recorded a duet with Jordin." "No, our first real celebrity was Dak. Remember the photo shoot and then he helped us prepare for our first concert." "OK, she was the second since Nicole doesn't count and we're inviting Dak so we should invite Jordin.").
"I'm going to lie down," Carlos said. He had barely eaten his cereal and hadn't contributed much to the invitation conversation after deciding to invite his brother. "My heard hurts."
"I need to go, too. Audition." Jo blew Kendall a kiss. "Be here when I get back?"
"I dunno. Maybe I have plans."
"Kendall!"
"OK, OK, I'll be here whenever that is."
"Thanks, love you."
"Love you, too."
"Work out with me," James said more of a declaration than anything else.
"I worked out with you yesterday."
"You don't want to get soft in the middle." James poked Kendall's stomach.
"Why can't you work out by yourself?"
"I can, but it gets boring." James wrapped an arm around Kendall. "Working out is an every day thing, Mr. Knight. We did arms yesterday and today it's legs."
"Fine," Kendall shrugged James's arm off him.
Lying down on the couch with a not so soft brown pillow underneath his head, Carlos sighed for the fifth time that morning. He was James's work out buddy and it hurt that he couldn't work out due to the concussion. After five minutes of not being comfortable he moved to the recliner. He could just lie down in his bed, but he didn't want to walk up all those stairs. His head was throbbing.
"Carlos," He felt a tap on his shoulder but didn't care to open his eyes to look. "Do you, uh, need some medicine for your head?"
Carlos finally decided to open his eyes and saw Kendall standing before him holding two ibuprofen in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
"Thanks," he grunted taking both from his best friend.
The next thing he knew a phone was ringing. Ringing, ringing, ringing, and no one answered it. Then it stopped. Ten seconds later it started back up again.
"Damn it!" Carlos shouted. He had been taking a wonderful nap when the ringing woke him up and it looked as though he'd have to answer it because no one else would and the caller wouldn't give up.
His head still hurting, Carlos climbed out of the recliner and stepped gently into the kitchen to retrieve Kendall's cell phone which sat next to his laptop. He didn't remember Kendall having his cell phone with him earlier, but eh, it was here and that was that.
"What the hell, Logan!" Carlos answered glancing at the caller ID.
"Kendall?" A female voice came through the line.
"This is his phone, but I am not him."
"To whom am I speaking?"
"To whom—oh, this is Carlos."
"Car—" she swallowed. "Carlos Garcia?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"I can't believe I'm talking to—"
"Um, excuse me but who am I talking to? You called me on Logan's phone."
"Oh, right. This is Alicia, Logan's friend from Bio. Logan slipped on the sidewalk and hurt his arm pretty bad. He thinks he may have broken it so I'm going to take him to the hospital for some x-rays. He told me to call Kendall and I thought I did, but I got you instead."
"You called Kendall's phone, he's just nowhere to be found at the mo—did you say Logan broke his arm?" Carlos sighed for the sixth time that day. "Do you need us to meet you at the hospital?"
He heard shuffling on the other end of the line and then Alicia came back. "Logan says you don't have to. It's just a broken arm, nothing serious. His words not mine."
"That's good, because he has our only vehicle."
"Oh."
Carlos sighed for the seventh time and rubbed his temple. This conversation was making his head throb even more.
"Let me find Kendall and have him call you back. You'll still have Logan's phone?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
"I—can't—" Carlos heard Kendall let out between breaths. He had slowly made it down the stairs and into the exercise room.
"Can't is for wimps," James scolded.
"Kendall," Carlos sat down on the empty weight bench and handed Kendall his cell. "Logan's friend, Alicia, called and said Logan broke his arm. She's taking him to the hospital but Logan said we don't have to meet them there which is good because he has our car. I told her you'd call her back. On Logan's phone." Carlos laid back on the bench. "Dude, my head hurts."
"I hope Paige is home," Kendall said dialing Logan's number. "I'll need her to take me to the school to get the truck and after that, I'm going to the hospital. Wanna come with me? Uh, hi, Alicia?"
Carlos wanted to say yes but his throbbing head wouldn't allow him. Darn concussion.
"I'll stay with Carlos," James offered. "Hey, dude, are you okay?"
"No," Carlos managed. "I think I'm having a migraine."
"Do you need to lie down?" James asked quickly.
"I'm already lying down," Carlos replied his eyes closed.
"Do you want to go some place more comfortable? The couch in the game room? Upstairs? Your bedroom?"
"Shut up."
"Don't tell me—"
"Your talking is making my head pulse," Carlos interrupted.
"James, his prescription meds are upstairs. Take him up there with you," Kendall said. "I'll be back later with Logan. Dude, how do you manage after work outs?" Kendall grabbed onto a weight machine to gather his balance.
"I dunno."
"Can you help me up?" Carlos blinked his eyes a few times. He had tried focusing on Kendall flailing about with rubber legs, but everything was out of focus and wouldn't stop swaying.
"Just lay right there."
Awakening from sleeping in the recliner, Carlos opened his eyes a crack at the sound of someone moaning. Out of his peripheral vision he saw the edges of Logan's black and white striped sweater. Opening his eyes some more he looked over to see Logan lay down on the couch with his right arm in a sling.
"Hey," he said slowly.
"Hey, how's your head?" Logan asked. He put his left arm behind his head.
"I had a migraine, but I think it's going away."
"I don't think it was a migraine," Logan spoke. "It's probably just an intense headache from your concussion."
"Whatever. It hurt. Like hell. How's your arm?"
"Hurts, but nothing I haven't dealt with before. You know what it's like with a broken arm. It's just a tiny fracture, but that's enough."
Carlos's new phone, which he had in his pocket, beeped indicating a text message.
"From: 123 'Andy left early. Xavier Adams isn't sitting still. All's fair enough. Dana needs raisins.' What? Who's Andy and Xavier? Why do I care if Dana needs raisins? I think I got a wrong number."
"Let me see that," Logan requested. Carlos tossed him the phone hitting him square in the chest. "Ow. OK, it says 'Andy left early Xavier Adams—that's Alexa, isn't sitting—is, still all's fair enough, safe. Alexa is safe. She left this morning on a spy mission, didn't she?"
"Yeah."
"She's sent you a message telling you she's safe. Alexa is safe." One-handed Logan tossed the phone back to Carlos landing in his lap. "Dana needs raisins means Do Not Reply. Don't text her back. It's a safety measure, I'm sure."
Guest and deb: As you can see with the upcoming party Logan and Camille will be together then, maybe before, but definitely then, so we'll get some Lomille there as well as Jucy and Jendall. There's Jendall in this chapter through the internet. It's not much, though, I know.
Not very good with creating my own cryptic puzzles so I apologize if that one looks too cheap and easy (or just plain bad).