Blue Madness: (Blue Raspberry Series #3)

by D. K Lake

  Even though it feels like we've known each other for years. I think as I slip my bra on.

  "What if it doesn't work out, then what? I'll have to find somewhere else to live. Not to mention how crazy everyone will think we are."

  Mitchel takes the t-shirt from me and pushes it over my head and helps me to get my arms into it.

  "It doesn't matter what age you are, people older than us move in together and realize how wrong they are together. Just 'cause you're older doesn't mean you'll make good decisions or know what you want. And the only reason it won't work out will be if you make excuses and try to convince yourself why it can't work. And I don't care what anyone else thinks other than you." He turns back to his drawer and pulls out his maroon sweater and pulls it over his head. "You know more about me than anyone does. I know JT told you...some stuff." he says, his eyes locked on mine.

  "What stuff?" I mumble as he helps me into one of his sweatshirts that is fleecy on the inside and warms me up.

  "Everything. I heard him talking to Boston about talking to you after school and I threatened to break my other hand on his face if he didn't tell me what he had said to you."

  "You need to stop beating people up."

  "You need to stop being difficult, then."

  "I didn't ask you to beat Zeke up."

  "Yeah, but..." he trails off and scratches his hand that's in the cast.

  "But what?"

  "I thought you and him..."

  "No."

  "Ok, so I have a temper and get a little jealous when it comes to you. But that's only because I'm crazy about you and I know what I want and I know my feelings for you won't change."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "Because I just know. I know there's no one else I want, now, tomorrow, next week, next year...it's always going to be you now."

  He steps forward and takes my face in his hands.

  "I need you, Kelse." he whispers before pressing his lips to mine.

  I close my eyes and breathe him in, gripping his sweatshirt to steady myself. He breaks the kiss to kiss me on the nose which makes me smile. I walk over to the bed and sit down and pull my jeans on.

  "Things change." I say quietly as Mitchel chucks me a pair of his socks.

  "Yeah, they do. But not the way I feel about you."

  "This is madness." I mutter.

  But why does everything feel so right when I'm with him?

  "Blue," Mitchel softly calls me by my new nickname that sounds perfect when it rolls off his tongue.

  He sits next to me as I pull on my shoes.

  "Tell me what's going on it that head." he asks as I pull my messy bun out and shake my hair out.

  I turn to look at him and he moves a strand of hair out of my eyes.

  "When I'm with you, everything just feels so...right. These feelings I have for you, they feel so intense. I can't explain it...it's just..."

  "Us." Mitchel finishes for me.

  I suck my bottom lip into my mouth as the butterflies take flight inside of me. The things this boy does to me.

  Mitchel leans closer to kiss me when a crash in the kitchen makes him stop.

  "Uh-oh." I say with a smile.

  "I better go and check they're not killing each other with cooking utensils." Mitchel stands up and offers me his hand and I let him pull me up and we wander out of his bedroom and head to the kitchen. Just before we reach the kitchen I hear Nessie shriek loudly and JT swearing loudly. As we walk around the corner Mitchel and I walk straight into the line of fire and end up covered in flour.

  Nessie is in a fit of giggles, JT is covered in flour and looks like a yeti and there is an exploded bag on the floor.

  "Wow, it's snowing inside." I laugh as Mitchel turns to me and brushes the flour off my cheeks and I do the same for him.

  "I thought they were fighting." I say quietly to him.

  "Me too." He shakes the flour out of his hair.

  "What are you making?" I ask, looking at the messy counters.

  It doesn't look like they've made anything apart from a mess.

  "Pancakes." JT tells me, picking up a mixing bowl.

  After Nessie has calmed down I help her to tidy up while JT makes pancakes and Mitchel sits in front of the TV.

  Everything is going fine. JT and Nessie are getting along. And I don't just mean they are getting along in a friends type of way. She keeps flirting with him and not too long ago he licked the maple syrup off her fingers. I snuggle up to Mitchel on the couch until the pancakes are ready, and then I sit on a stool next to Mitchel and Nessie and JT stand on the other side of the counter to eat.

  "These are actually pretty good." Nessie says before filling her mouth again.

  She's usually pretty reserved around boys and eats tiny amounts but right now she's eating like she's just come off a diet, shoveling in another fork load before she's even chewed down the first. The atmosphere suddenly changes and a glum silence falls over us all. We all chew quietly and no one knows what to say to anyone.

  "We should do something." Nessie says, washing her last mouthful down with her morning coffee.

  "Like what?" I ask, still feeling tired and slightly hungover but the food is helping to perk me up.

  "I dunno, anything. It's your last weekend here, we have to do something."

  Mitchel shifts around uncomfortably next to me. Like any of us need reminding it's my last weekend here...for now. Hopefully, I will be back in no time.

  "Shopping," Nessie suggests and I think my face says it all.

  Shopping is her thing, not mine. JT also groans at that suggestion. I didn't know this weekend involved JT as well, but apparently, he thinks it does.

  "Ok, how 'bout a movie?" Nessie says.

  "There's nothing on, not unless you want to go and see some sappy romance drama that ends in tears." JT snorts.

  "Fine! No movie... Oh, oh, I got it!" Nessie claps her hands excitedly.

  "Please not the tanning salon, any more color on those legs and you'll turn into an orangutan." JT teases.

  Nessie stops her happy clapping to scowl at JT and playfully smacks him before turning back to me.

  "The fair." she grins.

  "The fair? It's not in town. I don't think it's here until next week." I say.

  "No, but it's in the next town closest to us for the next two nights. We should go!"

  "That's miles away, Ness." I complain.

  "So, I have a car now, remember?"

  "No. There's no way I'm getting in that plastic Barbie car." JT finishes his drink and says, "I'm driving."

  "They don't normally open until after six. What are we going to do until then?" I wonder out loud.

  "We need groceries, seeing how Vanessa threw half of Willa's ingredients all over the place." JT says, picking a shopping list off the fridge that his mom has left there.

  "Hey, that wasn't all me." Nessie tries to hide her grin as she opens the dishwasher as though she's done it a hundred times before.

  "All right, we'll go grocery shopping first, then a spot of lunch over at Dirty Willy's..."

  She stops when everyone bursts out laughing and she tries not to laugh herself.

  Dirty Willy's serves the best food but the owner, Willy McRowe, is the sleaziest man I've ever known. He usually stands behind the bar winking at the girls and he always has his hands in his pockets. I shiver just thinking about him.

  "Well, we need to find something to do for a few hours before we go to the fair, sound good?" Nessie asks.

  "Do you want to write it in your planner? Maybe you could add Dirty Willy to your pros and cons list you keep in there." JT smirks and Nessie's mouth drops open.

  "You did look inside it!" she squeals.

  The grin on JT's face is classic.

  "OMG, Jacob!" Nessie cries.

  "She gave Principal Hayes an 8 for his tight ass, but only a 3 for his weird facial hair." JT informs us.

  I can't help but laugh.

  "Yeah, well, you got a 4 fo
r your boring ass." Nessie folds her arms.

  "No, I didn't. If I remember correctly, you rated me a 10 for everything apart from personality which you gave me a big fat zero."

  "You think you're so cocky." Nessie starts. "Mr. I'm-better-than-everyone-else. But we all know that big ego is only to make up for having such a small-"

  Before Nessie can finish her sentence, JT has her backed up against the fridge and has silenced her with his lips. Mitchel bursts out laughing and hops off his stool.

  "And that's our cue to leave." he says.

  Nessie grunts and shoves JT away.

  "Stop kissing me!" she says with as much firmness as possible but it sounds like she's about to burst out laughing herself.

  "I need my shoes." she informs everyone and disappears down the hallway.

  Mitchel and I get ready to leave and he hands me a hoodie to wear. We wait by the front door, listening to Nessie and JT bickering in the bedroom.

  But their bickering soon fades away when Mitchel pulls me to him and kisses me like it's the last kiss we'll ever have and it leaves me breathless and wanting more, and he only breaks the kiss when JT and Nessie join us in the hallway.

  "You're not going to do that all day, are you? We might need to get you a bib." JT jokes, looking at my open-mouthed, drool expression.

  I ignore him and Nessie links arms with me and leads me outside and we all climb into JT's car.

  53

  Mitchel and I dawdle around the supermarket while JT whizzes up and down the aisles with Nessie in the shopping cart, spinning her around and barely missing all the display stands. I help Mitchel find all the items on the shopping list, but we end up carrying it because Nessie is taking up most of the shopping cart and for most of the grocery shop they seem to be in a different aisle to us, and all I can hear is Nessie giggling like she's still drunk and JT's deep laugh. Every now and then Mitchel and I hear Nessie apologizing as JT nearly crashes into somebody.

  "What do you think the school's like?" Mitchel asks, looking at me as he picks up a carton of milk.

  "Huh?"

  "In Prairie."

  "Oh, um, I don't really know. Mom just dropped the bomb yesterday."

  "The school looks pretty outdated. Not much to do there, they have a school newspaper and a cross country track team but not much else." he mutters.

  "What? Did you Google it already?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at him.

  "Maybe."

  "You know I'm not a sporty kinda girl. I'm more of a donut eating contest kinda girl."

  "I'm just sayin' there are a lot of athletic types at the school."

  The shopping cart rolls to a stop next to us and we quickly offload what we've picked up onto Nessie's lap before JT rolls her away again. Mitchel looks sad as he pushes his hands into his pockets and I walk over to him and lean up on my tiptoes.

  "I'm not really into the athletic type." I say, knowing that he's already worried about me running off and finding another boyfriend, but I know that isn't going to happen.

  He gives me a little smile and a quick peck on the lips just as we hear a loud crash in the next aisle over.

  "Hopefully it's just flour." I say as Mitchel grabs my hand and walks me to the end of the aisle where we are met by JT helping Nessie to climb out of the shopping cart, looking extremely guilty might I add.

  "Time to go. We all done?" JT asks.

  "Yup." Mitchel replies, leading me away from the crime scene as a few members of the staff hurry to the aisle behind us.

  We all help to quickly offload the groceries onto the checkout and JT pays and we carry the groceries out to the car. It's not even eleven o'clock when JT drops us off and leaves Nessie and me to put the groceries away while he and Mitchel leave us to take care of business. I don't even ask, but I have an idea.

  "Where do you think their mom keeps the peanut butter?" Nessie asks, looking around the kitchen.

  "How about over there with the other jars of peanut butter in every variety." I reply, hopping up onto a stool.

  "They must like peanut butter here." she mutters.

  "So you have nothing to say?" I say, watching her put the fruit away in the bowl. "You're ok with the fact they just dropped us off to go and err...deal with business?" I continue.

  "Are you?" she asks.

  "I know what they are, but I'm waiting for the speech."

  "Like it makes a difference. JT always does what he wants, but he said he won't be too long. No, I'm not happy about it but I'm not going to sit in the car while they make delivery runs. Anyway, after next Monday, I'll have no reason to talk to either of them again. You'll be gone, making new friends, and I'll be left here on my own, and I'll have to throw myself into cheerleading to stop myself from missing you, or maybe I could take up another hobby."

  "What kind?"

  "Is drinking a hobby?"

  "No! You and alcohol don't go well together, you make terrible choices, and I'm guessing JT will be right behind you to fix all of them."

  "He's such a brute...it's sort of hot in a caveman way."

  I roll my eyes and reorganize the fruit bowl.

  "Do you think he'll hurt Zeke when he next runs into him?" she says quietly.

  "I don't know. I don't think I can take much more drama."

  "It's ok 'cause you won't be here, you're abandoning me." she mopes.

  "Not by choice. But I think if you want Zeke to remain upright and mobile you should stay away from him."

  "He messaged me."

  "When?"

  "When we were in the supermarket. I told JT it was Stephen."

  "What did he want?"

  "To apologize. Again. And he wants to go out for pizza sometime."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, what should I do?"

  "Ness, do you even like Zeke like that?"

  "I dunno. I'm all confused after he deflowered me and left me wilting."

  "You don't know? You just had sex with the guy last night and he popped your big, shiny, Nessie cherry. You must have liked him a little bit to let him do that to you."

  "Don't call it that." she snorts. "He's cute...but I don't think I like him like that, it was just a one-time thing. I like him, but I don't, you know?"

  "No, I really don't."

  "He doesn't make me crazy like JT does."

  "Is that a good thing?" I laugh. "Just let Zeke down gently, tell him you were really drunk, which you were, and tell him you can still be friends...just not when JT's around because he's a jealous maniac when it comes to you."

  "Hardly."

  "Girl, wake up! JT is crazy-mad about you-" I stop talking when I hear the front door open and close, and in walks Boston.

  "Morning." I smile.

  Boston shuffles across the kitchen in the same clothes he had on last night and picks up a jar of peanut butter.

  "Where is everyone?" he asks, searching the cutlery drawer.

  "Out on business matters." Nessie informs him.

  He pulls out a spoon and dunks it into the peanut butter jar and scoops up a load and pops it in his mouth. So that's what all the peanut butter is for.

  He then walks into the living room and switches the TV on.

  "It would never work out." Nessie whispers.

  "Why not?"

  "Because he's a little too rough around the edges. My mom wants me to marry some fuddy-duddy that plays golf, wears his sweater around his shoulders, and we'll have two children and live in a perfect house. I mean, I could never marry JT."

  "Whoa...what? Who said anything about getting married?" I laugh.

  "Oh, shut up! You know what I mean. I don't think my mom wants me to end up with someone from the drug cartel."

  "Drug cartel?" I giggle as the front door opens again.

  "Ladies." JT greets us, walking into the kitchen. "What's so funny?" he asks.

  "Nessie was just telling Kelsey how much she wants to marry you." Boston says loudly from the other room.

  "What?!" Nessie laughs, embarrass
ed.

  I burst out laughing all over again and Nessie gets redder and redder.

  "Is that so?" JT dumps a paper bag on the counter and stands over her with a huge grin on his face.

  Mitchel walks in and closes the door and comes over to me and wraps his arms around my shoulders and gives me a backward bear hug as I sit on the stool.

  "No. Boston misheard us." Nessie scowls at Boston on the couch.

  "I'm free next week." JT says casually, opening the fridge and pulling out a water bottle.

  "As if! Like any girl in their right mind would marry you!" Nessie grabs a dishcloth and brushes nonexistent dirt off the counter. "What's this?" She opens the bag and pulls out a handful of rolled up notes.

  "Money, darl'. You use it to buy pretty things with." JT says in a voice that makes him sound even more Australian.

  "Where'd you get it?" Nessie asks and we all look at JT, and it's only then I notice the fresh graze on his forehead and the grazing on the side of his hand as he holds the water bottle.

  "What did you do to yourself?" Nessie asks in a voice that is both concerned and appalled at the same time.

  She grabs the water bottle from him and spills some on the floor as she gets in front of him.

  "Have you been fighting again?" She reaches up to inspect his forehead. "Did you attack Zeke? You did! Ohmygoodness, I can't believe you! You said you would leave him alone. Did you hurt him? What is wrong with you?! Please tell me he's still breathing? Answer me, Jacob!!" Nessie all but yells at him.

  "If you shut up for a minute, I will." JT says, snatching the water bottle back, but he doesn't answer her and instead, he finishes his drink and grabs the paper money bag off the counter and leaves the kitchen, and Nessie follows him.

  "What happened to his face?" I ask Mitchel as he spins me around to face him.

  "He misjudged the curb and fell into the wall." Mitchel laughs as he tells me.

  "Really?"

  "Yup, not that he'll admit it. It was kinda hilarious, though."

  "He needs to learn to tie his shoelaces." I smile, wrapping my arms around Mitchel's neck as he picks me up off the stool.

  "That's exactly what I told him." He smiles as he kisses me and walks me over to the couch.

  "Can you two not do that in here? I can feel my breakfast coming back up." Boston lurches forward and clutches his stomach.