by Lili Lam
I was in the living room curled up on the sofa with Anya, each coddling our own guilty pleasure...a pint of rocky road ice cream watching P.S. I Love You. Sigh, this is our all time favorite movie it’s such a tear-jerker, wahhh! We've been home for the past half-hour, my parents are out on a date night so we had the entire house to ourselves.
We decided to have a love movie marathon night, since right about now we’re feeling a bit bitter about love. What have we gotten ourselves into? Each one of us is sporting our black yoga pants and matching love stinks tees...ironically there are dogs on the damn shirt which only reminded us of our mates who are wolves, blah.
Choosing P. S. I Love You, A Walk To Remember, The Notebook, and Titanic, we figured we'd try and stay up as long as we possibly could while shoveling the delicious goodness down our throats. A relentless pounding on my front door along with constant ringing of the bell interrupted my drooling over Gerard Butler's sexy accent. For goodness sakes, rolling my eyes I placed my ice cream on the coffee table very carefully and stood from the sofa. Making sure to pause the DVD before going to see whom it was.
Anya and I traded knowing glances as she too imitated what I did and we both made our way over to the foyer. My hair was braided into two separate pigtails on each side of my head. Anya had hers pushed back with a headband and a green cucumber mask was slopped messily onto both of our faces. What? There's no sense in attempting to be cute, trust me; Anya's seen me at my worst and vice versa.
Yanking open the door, we came eyeball to eyeball with two large fists held mid air getting ready to start yet another round of knocking. "Eeeuggh!!" Was the childlike screech we received from their mouths as they hugged up on one another like they just saw a ghost.
We stood there with our hands on our hips and our eyebrows raised in a 'what're you gawking at' type gesture. The guys tried to cover up their unmanliness by straightening themselves up and coughing. "Uh, how'd you two get home?" Tristan asked clearing his throat as he rubbed at the hair on the nape of his neck.
"Bishop." I replied with a one-word answer. I wasn't in much of a mood to speak to him considering the fact that he completely ignored me to fight over a damn soccer game.
"Can we come in?" His eyes seemed to be filled with remorse, they don't have that usual shimmer to them. Anya stood next to me quietly as Luke mirrored her. They were allowing Tristan and I to take charge of the situation at hand. What situation, you ask? We have problem, a very big one at that. Anya and I don't appreciate the two of them thinking that it’s ok for them to make decisions for us.
We're each our own person, with our own brains to think for ourselves. There’s absolutely positively no reason for them to treat us like we're helpless woe is me females. Looks to me like we were a couple of perfectly functioning individuals before they came along and we didn't plan on changing our ways to accommodate the likes of them.
I shook my head in a beg-to-differ manner. "I don't think that's such a good idea. We're actually in the middle of something." Anya and I already came to the conclusion that in order for us to earn the respect that we desired. We need to be tough. Treat them like they need us more then we need them, even though I know that we’re suffering just as much as they are.
"Can we please come in?" Tristan's voice sounded like it was on the verge of begging. "We'll only be a few minutes."
Flashing a gaze out the corner of my eye at Anya, she chewed down on the inside of her cheek and gave me a slight nod. "Fine..." I huffed out dramatically opening the door a bit wider so they could step inside. They both came in and we stood around the foyer looking at them expectantly
Wow, I should really consider joining the drama club at school. I’m surprising myself with this tough girl attitude. There’s no way we’re allowing them into the living room. I'm sure we won't hear the end of laughter, once they get a glance of our pints of ice cream and DVD's on the coffee table.
"Nice shirts." Tristan smirked trying to hold back a smile as his eyes trained onto our t-shirt logos. "We just came by to apologize for our idiotic behavior and for ruining your night."
"It got way out of hand." Luke chimed in. "We shouldn't have allowed our anger to overcome our emotions."
Are they talking about fighting or about telling Troy to stay away from us, because we all know that's not going to happen! As a matter of fact, Anya and I made plans on the final day of camp to get together with Troy next weekend for his eighteenth birthday.
Now that I know they're enemies, I sure-as-heck wasn't going to disclose to Tristan that Troy follows us on Twitter and is listed under close friend on Facebook. I'm also pretty sure he won't be too delighted to know we skype each other every few weeks. That doesn't seem like something that would tickle his fancy. Is it sad to say the entire time we were standing in the foyer, the only thing that troubled me was my pint of chocolate marshmallowy heaven that was melting away to milk?
"What're you two up to?" Tristan questioned taking a step closer to me, he reached out and rubbed my arm right above my elbow. It instantaneously warmed me to the core, gosh I'm such a sucker! I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss the life out of him, who cares if I smear my mask all over his face.
Allowing my attention to divert over to Anya, I noticed she was about ready to crack too. Her and Luke were just standing there speaking to each other, but not touching. He stood in front of her with his hands shoved deep in his jean pockets. Her being the spunky little firecracker she is, had her arms crossed defensively across her chest.
They weren't arguing but everything was far from peachy. "We're watching movies." Anya answered for me.
"Oh…" Disappointment laced Tristan's tone. "Mind if we join you?" His voice filled with hopefulness. Hmm, should we let them join us?
"They're chick flicks. We're kind of having a girl's night." Anya retorted snootily. "So yea, we mind if you join us."
Tristan and Luke looked as though we punched them in the gut upon hearing her answer. In a way I felt kind of bad, but hey that's what they get for acting like jerks. The doorbell chimed and a knock sounded causing the four of our heads to stare at the Cherrywood before us. A low rumbling growl came from deep within Tristan and Luke's chests.
I can only imagine who's on the other side of the door, any guesses people? Yea, I'm sure you have a good idea. Turning my body away from Tristan to go open it, I felt his arm shoot out and grab a hold of my shoulder. Seriously?
"Can I please answer that?" He pleaded with his puppy dog eyes drilling deeply into mine.
I blinked my eyes at him and put on a blank expression. Jeez, talk about weak. That look melted my heart into a puddle of nothing. Time to step my seriousness game up! "Um, last time I checked my house, my rules." I answered pointing to myself, I stepped towards the door. I pulled it open to find Troy and the guy who came barreling at Luke and tackled him to the ground standing on my doorstep.
"Hey..." Troy drawled and then stopped as he got a gander at who else was over my house. Troy's only been over here once before, I’m surprised he remembers how to get here.
"I thought I told you to stay the hell away." Tristan thundered angrily standing right behind me. "What're you doing here?"
Really, like really? We're going to go through this again? I thought these two came over to apologize? What happened to being sorry?
"And I thought I told you I'm not scared of you." Troy seethed. "For your information I came to check up on my friends to make sure they're ok."
Aw, how sweet of Troy he drove all this way to check up on us. "You weren't answering any of my calls or texts. I got worried." Troy said genuinely concerned.
"Are you kidding me?" Tristan scoffed. He was really pissed off. "Please tell me he doesn't have your number, Lise."
My mouth opened and closed on its own accord as I stood there like a dummy not knowing how to respond. "We're friends of course he has my number." I mumbled under my breath. I just don't get why these two hate each other that much. Can't we all just get along?
&n
bsp; Troy shook his head and laughed a little, "Damn, I miss our facial nights." He sheepishly admitted referring to our weekly facial nights at camp. Yes, we got him to replenish his skin and unclog his pores with our homemade cucumber masks. He was our guinea pig.
Things were getting uncomfortable as we all stood there. I rocked back and forth on my heels chewing down on my bottom lip in nervousness. I wasn’t sure if I should invite Troy in or if it would cause World War III? Finally, I decided that since he drove all this way I wasn't going leave a good friend hanging.
"Want to come in?" I asked Troy and his friend.
A huge grin spread across Troy's lips as he smirked cockily at Tristan with an 'in yo face' type aura. "We'd love to."
"Over our dead bodies." Tristan and Luke raged at the same exact time. Oh lord here the freak we go again!
"I think it's time the two of you get going, didn't you say you were only staying for a few minutes?" I queried with a look that said 'it's bout time you two left'.
Tristan and Luke stared at me like I had three damn heads! "Oh no you don't. If he gets to stay then so do we." Tristan answered.
Throwing my hands up in the air I grabbed a hold of the back of Anya's shirt and we trudged our way back into the living room. "What're we supposed to do now?" She hissed quietly next to me. I knew exactly what she meant. What are we supposed to do with these four guys that seemed to have it out for each other.
Throwing myself down on the sofa, Tristan came over and practically lifted me up putting me down on his lap. Big oaf! Luke sat next to us pulling Anya down on his lap as Troy and his friend sat on the love seat across from us.
Twiddling my thumbs, I nodded my head up and down, up and down. What're we going to do all night, sit here and stare at each other…so much for our love movie marathon night. I groaned internally as I glanced down at my melted pool of mud situated in my pint on the coffee table.
I should have just accepted the fact that this night would be the night of all things to go wrong! Using the remote I turned off the TV, since I wasn't in the mood anymore. "Time to rinse off our faces." Anya ordered grabbing a hold of my hand and pulling me to my feet. She all but dragged me towards the steps so we could go upstairs to my bathroom. I just hope when we come back down, that the four of them don't end up killing one another in my house. How would I explain that to my parents?
Chapter 21: Challenge