🎱. . .CHAPTER 006 ! —————
( real life . . . )
❛ you also smell really good mikayla ❜

ᵣₑₐₗ ₗᵢfₑ !

          "If you're gonna blast music at least make sure it's good," mikayla bitterly murmurs to chris from the back seat of the van while in between nick and nate.

          matt chuckles at mikayla's frustration from the driver's seat, one hand steering the wheel while his other arm rests. the triplet had went to pick up the doe siblings from their home by himself for a video they were planning to film, but chris heavily insisted that matt should let him go as well. nick also decided to join just for fun.

          chris rolls his eyes and turns his head to face the girl behind him. "how about you just sit back there in silence mikayla," a smug smile spreads across his face as he watches mikayla's eyes narrow at him. the fact that it's clearly visible to everyone in the car how much chris enjoys annoying mikayla just pisses her off even more, along with his consistent smugness. as the two are still trying to pretend they're dating, chris rotates his body to face forward, stretching his arm back and towards her. she glances at nathan quickly, before taking his hand in her own, holding it gently.

          it's been a few days since they started pretending, but even though it isn't real nate still isn't fully comfortable with it. he continuously questions mikayla that it's fully fake and there are no romantic feelings, and each time she manages to convince him that they're just pretending. with their friends, matt and nick all believing that they're actually dating, nick more than matt, they're curious as to why nate never complains.

          nathan's jaw slightly tenses as he watches the two laugh and hold hands, but mikayla gives him a reassuring look that nothing is going on. matt also wonders silently why they had gotten together so quickly and suddenly, but he keeps any questions to himself until it's the right time to speak to chris.

          the friend group stand in the kitchen while nick sets up the camera for the baking video they're about to film. nathan sits on the couch, scrolling through his phone as chris and mikayla loudly bicker with each other about who's going to be mute. with four people, it means that it's difficult to assign roles. mikayla pinches her nose bridge, "chris, you're mute because you talk too much!" she throws her hands up while sitting on the kitchen counter.

          chris stands in front of miks, his hands resting on the marble counter and next to both of her thighs, his left hand on one side with his right on the other. with all the girls he's dated and flirted with in the past, pretending to like Miks isn't hard at all, especially since nathan isn't on his case.

          but it's different with mikayla. before the new year, she was quieter and less outgoing. yet, she's never been in a serious relationship with anybody and the fact that her first one is fake is very embarrassing to her. however, it's fun as there are yet to be any real feelings involved. yes she's kissed boys and went on dates, but it was never anything more than that.

          being the overprotective brother that he is, nathan made another rule for chris to follow. they weren't allowed to do anything other than hug or hold hands, which is reasonable, considering how chris and mikayla doing anything more is disgusting to him. the fake couple both agreed to keep it at that.

          "you should be mute since you don't know how to shut your mouth," chris mutters, while his eyes quickly flicker from mikayla's eyes to her lips. he's doing it on purpose and he's fully aware of the way it's making her feel. "you also smell really good mikayla," he adds with a low whisper, a pink tint spreading across mikayla's cheeks.

          for a moment, miks almost forgets who she's talking to and the sort of player that chris is. she stays silent for a few moments until matt appears, leaning against the fridge next to them with a crease between his eyebrows. being chris' brother, he can immediately tell that something is off between him and mikayla.

          with a roll of duct tape in one hand and a blindfold in the other, he passes the tape to chris. "you both talk too much so you're both mute," and with a proud smile, matt passes the baby pink blindfold to Mikayla. "you're blind and mute."

          chris rolls his tongue inside of his cheek, bitterly grabbing the roll of tape. mikayla hops off of the counter, snatching it from chris' tight grip. his face scrunches up, and as he tries to get the tape, mikayla takes a step back, moving away from him. she pulls a piece, using her teeth to rip the tape. the height difference between them is quite big, so miks has to stand on her tiptoes slightly, placing the tape across chris' mouth, patting it gently afterwards.

          a small, muffled chuckle is heard before he takes the duct tape back and does the same to her. for a few minutes, his thumb traces and lingers across her cheek. they stand in silence until nate obnoxiously clears his throat from the living room, causing them to move away from each other. chris coughs awkwardly, gently taking the blindfold from miks' hands, and placing his hands on both of her shoulders to swiftly rotate her body. as her back faces him, he straightens out the blindfold, holding it over mikayla's head before concealing her eyes.

          he ties it so that it isn't tight enough to hurt, but it's tight enough to keep it secure. with two of her main senses taken away, it's as if her hearing improves greatly. chris' deep breaths from his towering body behind makes the butterflies in her stomach flutter. he knows what he's doing, and she hates it.

          as Nick presses the button to record, chris throws his arm over mikayla's shoulder while nick and matt starts the intro to the video. as nick's supposedly deaf in this challenge, he scrolls through his spotify playlists, blasting his favorite olivia songs.

          filming this video has been very chaotic to say the least, mostly caused by mikayla and matt's constant bumping into everyone else as well as the kitchen counters and fridge. with everyone's laughs echoing throughout the room, they had almost forgotten that they're filming a video and for an hour, it was just a friend group having a great time.

          nathan sits patiently, waiting for them to finish as he's anticipating tasting the fudge brownies that they're baking. he would've joined in with them but with a small knee injury from a hockey match, he thinks it's a better decision to rest before his next game.

          mikayla stands in front of the fridge, unaware that she's blocking where chris needs to go. the boy desperately craves a pepsi, and yes, he can just tap mikayla on the shoulder to get her attention so she can move out of the way, but there's no fun in that.

          he quietly chuckles to himself, before placing his both hands on mikayla's hips, gently moving her out of the way. and even though she's blind, she instantly knows that it's chris by his large hands and familiar grip. her heart practically jumps out of her chest as his hands drop from her waist. miks feels her heartbeat rapidly increase, not quite understanding why she feels that way. It obviously means nothing to chris, but it does mean something to her.

          nick dances around the kitchen while yelling at matt, who can't see, as he keeps spilling the vanilla icing and sprinkles everywhere. the oldest brother slaps the back of matt's head with force and the middle brother's head slowly turns to face where he thinks nick is standing. chris glances between his siblings, immediately knowing what's about to happen so he takes a step back.

          matt's hand slowly slides across the counter, searching for the bowl of vanilla icing. when he finds it, he slowly picks it up, throwing it towards where he assumes nick is but boy is he wrong. instead, the metal bowl hits mikayla on the head and everybody gasps loudly, then laughs. miks yells out in pain, holding onto her head as the upper half of her body is covered in sticky frosting.

          "what happened?" matt mutters, confused raising his eyebrows while he defensively holds his hands in the air.

          even though there are rules for the baking challenge, mikayla rips the tape off as well as the blindfold. "what the hell matt!" she groans in disbelief while matt covers his mouth with his hands. a blaring alarm on matt's phone signals to everyone, except for nick who can't hear at all, that the brownies are done baking.

          chris removes the tape from his mouth, flinching lightly as it pulls out some of the small hairs on his chin, "at least the brownies are finally done."

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ arianna speaks ¡
trying to make this a slow burn with angst but i need them to kiss rn