Rick stood from his desk for a break and fell back onto his bed. He had started unlocking his phone just as a message arrived.

And here's the last one

Those texted words were followed by a smiling emoticon and then a picture of the four of them grinning at the camera.

The picture's arrival had him smiling in amusement as he recalled their antics the night before.

He'd been exhausted and hungry and then just exhausted after addressing the hunger portion of his personal status levels. The events he had signed himself up for had escalated with regards to how taxing he thought they'd be on him one after another: babysitting morphed into get that fever under control pressure and then drill this youth basketball team turned into a oh can you also substitute for the absent other instructor and thus double at once the teams under your wing today frenzy.

He'd been feeling too tired mentally and physically to even be amazed by how he managed to eat while he was decidedly ready for hours and hours of sleep pronto.

The girls had convinced him to nap a bit first before leaving for home rather than not managing to get from point A to point B and maybe unknowingly falling asleep on the way somewhere.

And nap he did until he felt he had enough energy to open his eyes for as long as it took to get himself back to the apartment. He didn't know how long of a nap he had taken as he was gradually rousing into wakefulness but his hearing was ready to resume alert functioning before his eyes had been convinced to let go of slumber. And that's when he heard some suspicious sounds.

"Hey, let's pull a little prank on him." That was Lyselle's whispered voice, which was followed by more careful and now inaudible other whispers.

As time ticked on, it felt as though a source or sources of softness were being draped on him. What kind of prank was this, he had wondered. And something seemed to have been placed oddly on or against one of his shoulders, he suspected with his eyes still closed in feigned deep, continuing sleep; either that or one of them was likely leaning against him, which he was beginning to consider to be more probable.

There was the sound of a picture being taken amid the chuckling around him.

He opened his eyes slowly and saw Elysha first with her aimed camera. It seemed that the girls where too absorbed in their laughter to more quickly notice he had begun to stir and a look up at the laughing Caely seated on the back half of the couch armrest he had been using as a pillow supported this notion.

Next, a moment later he realized as vibrant blonde and orange strands slipped over his face that it had been their hair that they had been draping on him as he'd been sleeping to capture photos of. Yes, even as it seemed the girls were becoming more aware that he was no longer his previously drowsy self, Elysha kept snapping shots from what his ears were telling him as the click of the camera sounded repeatedly.

It seemed they were also waiting for him to speak a reaction and speak he would. An idea had struck him and with a grin he quickly swept Lyselle in front of him from where she was at his side.

The planned words and further actions fled his mind in that instant then to be replaced with a brief, sudden wondering if like the held-in gasp the now blushing girl in front of him showed him, he might also be holding his own breath at that time. At the same time, another part of his awareness took note of how he had begun to hear what he guessed to be logically his own heartbeat. However, all this only took beats of a moment that quickly transitioned to seconds of other moments of transpiring hilarity.

A sharp in-take of breath that had also immediately followed Rick's retaliating motion had aided in the breaking of eye contact between Lyselle and Rick.

And, Caely sounded to be in the process of tackling the challenge of reigning in her renewed laughter as she said through her chuckles, "Are you alright, Elysha?"  From the new positioning of Elysha's camera in her hands, it appeared to Rick that she might have nearly dropped her phone in surprise at his abrupt movement.

"I accept that this is a declaration of bedhead war," Rick finally said as he shook Lyselle's hair.

Caely spoke again in further amusement, "Bedhead war, Rick, don't you want to get home quickly and sleep?"

"My victory will be swift," Rick replied.

More laughter and joking banter ensued from there, among the other starting offensive strikes being Lyselle targeting Caely and Rick targeting Elysha.