“I miss my house.” Nick muttered.
I sighed. “Don’t get me started.”
Nick looked at me in mild surprise. Okay so there was more of an edge in my voice than I had meant to come out. I was just nervous and I wanted Nick to be at least somewhat happy with this place.
“Sorry, it’s not that bad. I’m just getting used to this.” He said quietly.
“It’s all good.” I smiled reassuringly at him. He returned the smile and then his attention was drawn to the Little Mermaid again. I narrowed my eyes at the grin that appeared on his face. “You better not be messing around on there!”
He gave me that all too familiar innocent look that made most girls melt. “Nice try Carter. Doesn’t work on me.” Unfortunately my voice didn’t come out as mean sounding as I was aiming for though. I just shook my head in resigantion.
He gave me a look of mock horror. “Who’s Carter? My name is Jack Carpenter.”
My eyes widened at my mistake. “Whoops...”
“Yeah, whoops is right, gimme your cell phone. And by the way, why do you get one and I don’t?” He stuck his lower lip and and I snickered.
“Yours is coming, you brat. Amy didn’t have time to reconfigure two of them so they can’t be traced or picked up on. We have a PO box that it is going to be delivered to within the next couple days.” I explained handing him my cell. “What did he say?”
“’How?’” Nick grinned again as he typed out another message.
“’How’ what?” I countered, but he ignored me. Right before we went into the small office I stopped cold.
“What’s wrong?” Nick flipped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket.
I chose to ignore that for now. “When I came in here the first time I filled out an application in our names just in case because they always do a credit check and they would check our rental history and stuff. What if it comes up blank? We are so screwed!” I fretted.
“Whoa, take it easy. We won’t know until we find out.” Nick rested a hand on my shoulder.
I groaned. “Go figure, you’ve never had to mess with this shit before.”
He laughed. “Thank God.”
I just shook my head and we walked inside. A middle-aged man sat at the desk and offered a pleasant greeting.
“Hi, my name is Katie Allen, I was in here the other day and filled out an application. This is uh...my uh...”
“I’m Jack Carpenter.” Nick stuck his hand out, giving me a look out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh, that’s right. Let me check.” The man turned around and rifled through a file cabinet.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, dumbass.” Nick whispered.
“Shuddup.” I hissed back kicking him.
“Ah, yes here it is. Well y’all have been approved. You both have excellent credit and your rental history has been spotless. Not one mark in the past three years you have been together. That’s pretty good. All I need you to do is fill this out and I need a $150 deposit and I can show you to y’alls place.” The man placed a piece of paper in front of us on the desk.
Three years of being together?! I looked at Nick and he looked like he was trying not to laugh. I just stood there like an idiot so he grabbed the pen out of my hand and started signing his new name in the various places.
Only a few minutes later the man escorted us around the side of the complex and up the stairs to apartment 237. He handed both of us or keys and told us to let him know if we needed anything or had any problems.
“Well here goes...” Nick stated as he unlocked the door and swung it open. I reached around him and flipped on the light.
It was moderately sized. It was actually about the same size as the apartment I had shared with Kyung. I felt a pang in my heart when I thought of that. I hadn’t talked to her since this all happened. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to call her. I wouldn’t be able to tell her anyway about what was really going on and I hated to lie. She had to be so devastated by now. I was going to have to page Brian to get ahold of her and let her know I was okay. I shook it off and put my attention back to the room.
“Well?” I looked at Nick anxiously.
“It’ll do. Ya know, that guy is gonna wonder why we have a two bedroom apartment if we are ‘together’.” His voice carried from the tiny kitchen he had wandered to.
I walked into the hallway that had both rooms. They were right across from each other which was sort of odd since most apartments had the rooms on opposite sides. Then it dawned on me. “He probably thinks that is gonna be the baby’s room!” Nick’s head whipped around so fast I thought it would snap.
“Baby?!” He choked.
I about died laughing. Literally doubled over, holding the side of the wall, uncontrollable laughing. The look on his face was priceless. Between breaths I explained my theory about the location of the room. His eyes grew even wider and he shook his head.
“Okay,” I said, composing myself. “We’ve got a lot to do. We need to get some cheap furniture, food, and we both need clothes. Where do you want to hit first? Mall or used furniture store?”
Nick’s eyes grew wide again. “How about I let you do that stuff and I will hide out here?” He asked hopefully.
“No dice Carpenter. Mall then?” I smirked at the look on his face. This was going to be so weird for him, going out and blending in with the rest of the world.
“How did I let you talk me into this?” He muttered as we headed back out the door.
“Could be worse. You could be all on your own about this.” I giggled at the look of horror on his face.
“Okay okay, but at least I would be free of your ass keeping me in line.” He grinned to show he was just playing around.
“Ha ha ha.” I retorted dryly as I locked the door behind us. “Before we go anywhere we are stopping for food. I’m starving.”
“Sounds good, but I am driving!” Before I could react, he grabbed the keys out of my hand and darted away as I lunged at him.
“You punk!” I hollered, tearing after him. Okay, between the two of us there was never going to be a dull moment.