“Great, power’s out,” Jaynee Flynn groaned, rummaging through a junk drawer in hopes of finding some candles. “We have at least a million and one candles, and they all disappear when we need them,” she muttered angrily to herself.
“What’cha looking for?” a younger female voice asked from behind, giving poor Jaynee a figurative heart attack.
“Crap, Ashley! Don’t scare me like that!” Jaynee yelled, whacking the other girl in the shoulder.
“You hit me!” the girl known as Ashley said, clutching her shoulder in mock pain. “I was hit so hard, that I have forgotten where Crystal moved the candles!”
“Tell me where they are, Ashley,” Jaynee growled, getting more annoyed with her younger sister’s antics, “it’s getting dark outside, and I want to be able to see.”
“Fine,” Ashley smirked, giving Jaynee some candles. “There were two right next to you, genius.”
“Guys,” a guy named Revé, said, interrupting the girls’ bickering. “The storm’s getting worse.”
“That’s not good,” Ashley said, stating the obvious.

“Yeah, it’s not good!” Jaynee snapped, “When it rains, the basement floods, and we’ll have to devote an entire day trying to clean it up!”
“It won’t be that bad!” Ashley grinned, “I have an idea to make it go faster!”
“I already hate your idea,” Jaynee sighed.
****

Three hours later, Ashley, Jaynee, and their other three roommates were in rolled up in blue jeans, trying to rid their basement of nasty and cold, dirt-colored water. In the dark.

“Whose bright idea was it to leave the candles upstairs?” Revé’s sister, Crystal; said, wiping her hands on what she thought was a towel.

“I forgot, okay?” Ashley replied, pouring a full bucket into a container. “Okay, that should be it for now,” she chirped happily.

“And it only took, oh, about four hours,” Jaynee remarked sarcastically.
“That was because we didn’t have enough containers,” Ashley replied, matter-of-factly.
****
“So I got another update on the storm,” Jaynee said, looking at something on her phone, “the storm is going to last longer than expected, and we probably won’t get to leave the house for a bit.”

“What do we do now, then?” Ashley asked, already bored.
“We could play a game,” Jaynee replied hopefully.
****
“Fear not, maiden mine!” Revé said dramatically, swinging around a toy light saber, “I shall save you from the furry beast!”
“Such a noble!” Jaynee said in a nasally voice as she held their grey tabby, Shakespeare, in front of her. “You shall taste good as knight flavored kibbles!”
“Don’t do it, Sir Revé! She will attack you with cuteness!” Ashley cried dramatically from the corner of their living room.
“Come on Revé! Save the princess!” Crystal and Ian, posing as the audience, yelled.
“Die, you furry beast of cuteness!”
Revé yelled, gently poking Shakespeare with his light saber. “Ah, I’ve been touched by the beast’s rough tongue of doom!” he cried, falling to the floor, and dying dramatically.
“I win! The princess is mine forever and ever!” Jaynee yelled triumphantly.
“Boo!” the audience shouted in response.
****
“So, we’ve wasted our time doing what we can to keep our minds off of this stupid storm, and the power being out, and I’m still bored,” Ashley pouted, messing with Shakespeare.
“It’s okay, Ash, so am I,” Revé sighed, staring at the ceiling.
“Instead of trying to find something to do,” Jaynee said, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, “how about we just go to bed? It is almost midnight.”

“I like that idea,” Crystal said, yawning.
“Sleep is good,” Ian nodded.
*******
Crack. Pop…SCREEEEEEEECH!

“Hhnh?” Ashley mumbled sleepily. “Shakespeare, go to sleep.”


CRASH!
“Jaynee!” Ashley whispered, feeling her heart in her throat, “I think there’s someone here! Get up!”

“It’s probably the cat,” Jaynee replied, turning over.
“But I swear I heard something,” She muttered to herself, picking up the nearest object (which, conveniently, was a flashlight).

Snap.
“Show yourself! I have a weapon!” Ashley yelled, trying to muster up her courage.

“Ooh, deadly,” an unrecognizable voice snorted, knocking the flashlight out of Ashley’s hand. “You’re coming with me,” they said, placing a sack over her head.
******
“What’s going on!?” Ashley yelled, trying to wiggle free until she realized her hands were bound.

“Ashley?!” Someone cried.
“Revé?!” she said, feeling a little relief. “What are you doing here?”

“I came down here to get something for Crystal, and next thing I know, something is slipped over my head, and I’m tied up here,” he replied.
“I told you to stay quiet and not do anything to wake up my roommates!” A familiar voice growled, arguing with another woman.

“And you told me to try and get everything of value, and to get the hell out,” she spat back.
“Well I thought you could do that and not make any noise!”

“Wait a minute,” Ashley whispered, “is that Ian?!”
“Well, now that we have some visitors,” Ian said, suddenly aware of Revé and Ashley, “we may have to take care of keeping them quiet.”

“Ashley, they’re going to kill us!” Revé whispered, paling.
“Well, that just can’t happen,” Ashley muttered, squirming once more.

“Well, well, what have we here?” Ian smirked, his cerulean blue eyes flashing dangerously.
“Look,” Revé said anxiously, “I understand that you want some of our valuables, but seriously, dude,” he said, giving Ian a deadpanned look, “we have nothing that’s worth more than $10 here.”

“Except for the Xbox,” Ashley whispered.
“Not helping!” Revé said, shooting her a dirty look.

“Hey, I don’t want to die either,” Ashley snorted, oblivious to the gun at her head.
“Why won’t they just say they like each other already!?” A female voice yelled from another room.

“Wait, what?” Revé and Ashley said, turning bright red simultaneously, surprise in their eyes.
Sighing, Ian ran a hand through his blond hair, guilt and annoyance in his brown eyes. “For the past few months we’ve noticed that you two like each other, and don’t say ‘no we don’t,’” he said, watching Revé turn redder. “It’s obvious. So I, along with Jaynee, Crystal, and my younger sister, Jess, staged a little robbery.”

“But Jaynee was asleep when I heard the noises,” Ashley said, trying to refute Ian’s statement.
“It doesn’t mean anything if she was asleep when you heard the noises,” Revé retorted.

“You two don’t get to be untied until you say you like each other,” Ian said, changing the subject.

“Aw, come on!” Ashley said, trying to hide her face.

“In what universe is staging a robbery to get two people together a good idea?” Revé snorted, still trying to break free.

“Yeah, why not just lock us in a closet or something?” Ashley asked, genuinely serious.
“Because,” Ian’s sister, Jess, said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not as dramatic, duh!”

Looking at each other, Ashley and Revé sighed.
“So you’re saying that if we kiss each other,” Revé said, repeating Ian’s instructions, “you’ll let us go?”

“Correctamundo,” Ian replied.

“Just one kiss,” Ashley said to herself, turning red as she leaned into Revé and kissed him.

“Wow,” the two said simultaneously, looking into each other’s eyes.

“You two love each other, you’re dating now,” Ian said seriously, as he untied them.
“Ian, sweetie,” Ashley said sweetly with a small hint of anger in her voice, “we love you dearly, but next time you try to mess with the love life of Revé and me again, I will ensure that your most embarrassing picture will be posted all over the school’s website.”