Smasher

  "Hi!" I open the door for her to walk in.

  She walks in cautiously. "Hey guys." She smiles brightly, looking at all of us.

  "Hi." We say in unison.

  Nikayla walks over to Amaya. "How are you?"

  "I'm really good." Amaya answers her reassuringly.

  "You are? Even after your run in with Landon?" This surprises Nikayla, but I can tell that she's very happy.

Amaya nods. "Yeah, honestly I kind of forgot about it."

    "Oh, good." She fidgets with her hands. "I was coming over to tell you that you don't have to worry about him anymore. I took care of him."

   "How?" Amaya sits up straighter, eyes focused on Nikayla.

     "Last night, after I saw you, I knew I had to do something. He'd gone too far this time." She stared off, reliving the call she made last night. Amaya's eyes start to water as she listens to her friend explain. I watch the interaction, reminded once again what a great person my girl is. "I decided that I needed to report him. He needs help."

Amaya's eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. "You reported him?" She pauses. "That was so brave of you."

  "I had to." She said sheepishly. "He would've seriously hurt someone, or worse." She shivered, giving me the urge to protect her.

  "What ended up happening?" I move beside her, focusing on her. "Where is he now?"

  Niki looks at her feet then back up at me. "He was admitted into an insane asylum."

  Blade and I look at each other. "An insane asylum." Blade echoed.

  She moved her head in agreement. "Yeah, he's in some place called Clementine's Residence."

  Our eyes all grew wide. "Nikki, doesn't that name sound familiar to you?" Amaya's asks.

  Her face scrunches up in concentration, which I find adorable. "Not really. Should it?"

Amaya breaks the barrier and tells Nikayla the secret we've all been keeping from. I'm glad she does because I've been starting to feel guilty for not talking to her about my past. "That's the place where Blade was, when he was picking up Smasher. Remember when we were searching for him?" Amaya questions her. I watch as it dawns on her.

     "Oh my gosh, now I remember!" Nikayla gasps. She looks, putting two and two together. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to disappear. "You lived there?"

I stare at my feet and nod in agreement. "For a little bit yeah." I can't bring myself to look at her. I don't think I want to know what she's thinking about me right now.

  "Why?" I can hear the shock in Nikayla's voice as she asks.

     "Doesn't matter really, he never should've been in there." Blade jumped to my defense. "We've all had tough times."

   Nikki ignored him, her eyes still on me. "Smash?"

I counted the floorboards to ease my anxiety. I know I needed to tell her the truth at some point, it might as well be now. If she wasn't okay with my past it wasn't going to work out between us anyways. I prayed she could look past this. "I went a little crazy when my ex died. I did some things that I guess could be considered insane." I finally build up the courage to look up at her. I need her to see me, the real me. "I just felt so guilty you know? I didn't know what to do with myself."

Before I know what's happening, Nikayla's lips are on mine, easing every single worry I've ever had. Her lips are soft and passionate against mine. This kiss is exactly what I was praying for. When she pulls back I lick my lips, enjoying the lingering taste of her.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Nikayla asks, her wide eyes searching mine.

"I didn't know how." I tell her honestly. It's such a hard thing to talk about, it's so heavy. I didn't want to put all that on her. Especially since she liked to see me laugh so much.

    "I'm sorry. That couldn't have been easy." She was staring into my eyes intently. "Is that why you've never kissed me?" 

This girl had a real talent for asking the difficult questions. I didn't know whether or not I should tell her the truth. I decided to be honest, she deserved the truth. "Yeah, I haven't really kissed anyone since her."

  Nikki looks at me shyly. "I thought maybe you just weren't that into me."

   I shut her down instantly, I would not have her thinking I'm not completely obsessed with her. "No, that's not it at all. I like you a lot." I wanted her to know how much I wanted her. I would not let her get away.

  Nikki smiled brightly. "You do? Really? You mean it?"

  I smile sincerely back at her, taking in the beautiful view of her. "Yeah, since the first time I saw you I thought you were amazing."

     She blushed. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear that." As I look at her, my desire to kiss her is so intense I forget that there's anyone else around. I needed to kiss her. I needed to taste her lips again. I needed to stop all the doubts she was having from crossing her mind ever again. I bend down to reach her lips and kiss her passionately, releasing all the pent up passion I had been repressing. She kisses me back, wrapping her arms around my neck tightly. I feel one of her legs lifting, making me smile against her mouth. "Wow." She whispers breathlessly so only I can hear. Amaya and Blade's presence suddenly becomes apparent.

I had to get her alone. "Do you want to go get some coffee or something?"  She nods, looking as dazed as I felt. We walk out the door, hand in hand.

She stops, yanking my arm. "Wait, we need to introduce Amaya and Blade to Jikayla!" She looks up at me eagerly.

"Oh yeah, let's go grab her." I agree and we take off to her apartment. When we walk in, we see Jikayla laying in a bawl on the couch against the pillow.

Nikayla runs over to her. "Awe, my poor tired baby, you're so cute!" Jikayla rolls over, wagging her tail. I smile and put my arm around Nikayla. "Do you want to meet your auntie and uncle? They're going to love you!" Jikayla jumps into her arms and she tightens her arms around her puppy. "Okay, let's go see them!" 

We walk back into the hallway, heading towards Amaya and Blade's apartment. They are walking down the hallway.

"Guys, wait up! There's someone I want you to meet." Nikayla yells after them.

They turn around, looking confused. When Amaya see Jikayla she runs over to her. "Oh my gosh, who is this?" She pets her, grinning.

Blade walks up behind her, looking surprised. "She's really cute."

"This is Jikayla." Nikayla says, beaming like a proud mom.

Blade squints. "A combination of you guys' names?" I want to hit him. Does he always have to be so annoyingly smart. He catches on to everything.

Amaya takes Jikayla into her arms. "When did you get a dog?"

"It was Smash's idea. We just got her, we would've introduced you guys sooner but it's just been so chaotic." Nikayla pulls out her phone and starts taking pictures of Amaya and Blade playing with Jikayla.

I look at my background picture of Nikayla first meeting Jikayla and grin. "So, where were you guys headed?"

"He won't tell me." Amaya says, making a pouty face.

Blade rolls his eyes. "She can't handle surprises. She's been bugging me ever since she found out I didn't want her to know."

"Oh I see, well we'll let you guys get to it, have fun okay?" I pat Blade on the back. Blade grins at me.

Amaya smiles. "Thank you. We'll see you three later alright?"

Nikayla hugs her and Blade. "Bye guys."

When the two of them are gone, Nikayla turns to me. "You didn't seem too eager to talk."

I take her gently by the arm and walk her to her apartment. I take Jikayla and lay her on the couch.

"Are you good?" Nikayla looked at me, confused. "What's going on with you?"

I walk quickly over to her and press her up against the wall. Her eyes get wide. "Smash, what..." I kiss her the way I'd been wanting to since I met her. She kisses me back grabbing the back of my neck to deepen the kiss.

"You have been driving me crazy." I say, my lips next to her ear. I bite her lip, making her gasp.

Her breathing intensifies. "Me? You kept teasing me! You kept making me think you were going to kiss me, then you'd stop."

"Is that why you pulled that little bedroom stunt?" I ask, wide-eyed.

She giggles. "You deserved it!"

I kiss her, pressing myself against her. When I lean back, I whisper. "Well, why don't you try that stunt again now that I'm prepared. Let's see how that works out for you." I tease her.

"Challenged accepted." She pulls me into the bedroom and closes the door behind her.