With a loud huff I came to a stop near where Lena was crouching with her hands pressed flat to the ground and her head held low as she peered under one of the lawn chairs with her face squinted up as if she were focusing on a hard math equation.
“Do you think Lilly can fit under here?” She tilted her head up at me, shielding her eyes from the sun with her perfectly manicured hand.
My eyes shifted to Lilly where she stood stock still with a small smile adorning her delicate features. Just as I was finished sizing her up, Lilly spoke for herself.
“I fitted under there last time I tried. My head got stuck, but that's okay.” She twisted her arms behind her back as she said, “If we smush together real tight then we can all fit, maybe.”
Lena stood up straight, motioning with her hand from Lilly to the chair. “Go ahead, squirt. Forrester and I can hide somewhere else.”
Lilly shrugged her little shoulders before dropping down to the ground. With her stomach flat against the concrete she began sliding into the narrow space beneath the lawn chair.
Trying to gain my attention, Lena gripped onto my arm and pulled me to face her.
“We can hide in the space behind the shed.” When she spoke, the sunlight made the wires in her silver braces shimmer brightly.
In response to her suggestion, I shrugged, realizing that we hadn't hidden there yet. “It's kind of an obvious hiding spot, don't you think?”
“Exactly. It's perfect. Knowing Blake, he'll probably over think it.”
Lilly giggled from under the chair. Glancing down, I smiled at her and stuck the toe of my boot under the chair. I felt her poke my toe and I laughed.
“Lilly, remember you have to be quiet or Blake will hear you.”
My response was met with another chorus of giggles which I took as an answer to my statement before Lena and I trudged over to the shed. Lena squeezed in first and I followed behind her. Once we were hidden behind the shed I heard Blake call out, “Ready or not, here I come!”
I felt Lena poke me in my ribs. “He's coming,” she whispered suggestively.
Although I was unable to turn my head toward her due to the lack of space, I already knew that a smirk would be imprinted on her freckle covered face.
“Be quiet or he'll hear you,” I whispered while gently elbowing her in the side.
As soon as my arm made contact with her, she hissed in pain. “That was my boob, Forrester!” she squealed.
“Well maybe that will teach you to be quiet.”
“Whatever. Thanks to you, my boobs are going to be lopsided now.”
“They already were. I just evened them out a little.” I replied smugly.
I felt her poke me in my ribs again. Although this time the poke was a little more forceful. “We might wear the same bra size now then.”
“Shut up,” I whispered, taking no notice of what she had just said. “I'm going to check and see if Blake's found Lilly yet.”
Slowly, I began inching my way toward the narrow entrance that led to our hiding spot. My back was pressed up against the side of the privacy fence that lined our yard and my face was extremely close to a spider web that was against the back of the shed. Trying to ignore the fact that I was extremely uncomfortable in my current position, and that it felt as if I had a splinter in my butt, I peeked around the edge of the shed.
I quickly scanned the backyard until I spotted a tall figure dressed in faded blue jeans and a short sleeved band shirt for The Rush, a band we liked. My mother had not approved of his clothing choice when he arrived earlier. I rolled my eyes as I remembered the look that had crossed onto her face when she first saw him. After her long lecture about how he was unprepared for the cold weather and should protect himself from the harsh winds, she went to the hall closet and pulled out all of my dad’s winter coats. Despite her attempts at trying to keep Blake warm, he had insisted that he was fine and had politely refused to take any of the coats that she had offered to him. The horrified look on her face as she watched us leave the house was priceless.
The sound of Lilly’s giggling reached my ears, pulling me out of my mental reverie. Blake was slowly walking in a circle around the chair Lilly was hiding under. He was tapping his finger against his chin and although his lips were moving, I wasn’t close enough to hear what he was saying. In one fluent motion he dropped to his knees, slapping his hands against the ground and peering under the lawn chair.
Lilly’s laughter got louder as she began wiggling out of her hiding spot. As Blake helped her off of the ground and hoisted her up onto his back, her little brown pigtails bounced and her smile grew wide. From her position on Blake’s back she held onto his head with one hand and with the other she pointed over toward the shed. Moving my head back so that Blake wouldn’t see me, I slid over and told Lena that not only had Blake found Lily, but that Lilly had told him about our hiding spot.
“That little munchkin! I told her that if she didn’t tell him where we were this time, I would give her a piece of candy,” she grumbled under her breath.
“Let’s just go,” I chuckled. This had been the fifth time that Lilly had told about our hiding place so it wasn’t anything new.
I slid out from behind the shed a few moments before Blake got to us. I watched Lena emerge after me, and laughed as she instantly began swiping at her face. Lilly began laughing and was joined by Blake and I. Lena was jumping up and down as if she had to use the toilet and her hair was whipping around her face in an orange whirlwind that reminded me of the bonfire that I had attended at camp two summers ago.
Her hands smacked at her face repeatedly as she began to screech, “Spider!”
“Lenny!” I shouted, trying to stifle my laughter but failing miserably. “There is no spider! It was only the web!”
Lena stopped freaking out and hesitantly moved her hands from her now red face. Lilly and Blake continued laughing, and when Blake set Lilly back onto her feet they both began reenacting Lena’s freak out.
“It’s not funny!” she harrumphed whilst crossing her arms. “Spiders are gross.”
“It was so funny! You should have seen your face!” Blake countered.
Lilly clutched her little tummy and doubled over in another fit of laughter. “I laugheded so hard!” she managed to screech in between her giggles.
Lena squatted down, pulling her coat tighter around her torso before poking Lilly in the stomach. “I thought we had a deal munchkin. If you didn’t tell Blake where we were hiding, I was going to give you a piece of candy.”
Lilly stopped laughing and a devious smile stretched across her face, making her little red nose crinkle up. “Blake gave me two candies.” Her words were said in a sassy tone, and she had even put emphasis on the word two.
Lena looked up a Blake. “Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater!”
I laughed as Lilly poked Lena in her knee and said, “Only babies say that,” before she turned around and ran to gather up her hat and scarf from where she had discarded them when we had first come out. “I’m cold. I wanna go inside!” she yelled back to us.
Lena and Blake shrugged as I said, “It’s getting dark anyway and I haven’t done my homework yet.”
As we walked back toward the house, Blake draped his arm over my shoulder, pulling me closer to his surprisingly warm body. I snuggled into his side, sighing in content. When Blake kissed the top of my head, Lena feigned a gagging sound which made me laugh.
Ahead of us, Lilly trudged into the house through the back door, leaving it open for the rest of us. As we entered the house, the warm air instantly began to warm my body. The overwhelming aroma of baked chicken and mashed potatoes filled my nostrils. The smell was so powerful that it was almost as if I could taste it. Being the forever hungry guy that he is, Blake pulled me along with him into the kitchen where my mom was stirring a pot on the stove and my dad was looking into the oven. The hairnet that my mom forced him to wear whenever he helped cook was holding back his thinning brown hair, making him look extre
mely feminine.
“Nice hair net, Dad,” I said nonchalantly with a slight smirk playing on my lips. “If it weren’t for your apron I might have gotten you confused with mom.”
Closing the oven, he turned around, facing me while wiping his hands off on the dark blue apron that he was wearing. I always thought it was funny that my dad and mom wore matching his and hers aprons. My dad’s is a deep blue and has sausage links circling his waist while my mom’s apron is a hot pink and has two frying eggs on the chest of the apron. Blake has always found both of them to be extremely funny, but I just find them perverted and awkward.
“Not a chance, kiddo. I’m nowhere near as beautiful as Rosie is.” Dad smiled flirtatiously and winked at my mom who blushed and continued stirring the pot that was on the stove.
“Oh gosh, Dad. Can you be any cheesier?”
“If I was any cheesier, I’d be macaroni and cheese,” he replied smoothly, giving me a wink. Then, when Lena and Blake had laughed at his horrendous joke, he took a bow. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.”
“This really makes me wonder where I got my amazing sense of humor from…”
Blake poked me in the side. “Your grandma’s pretty funny. Remember last year when she came to visit you for Thanksgiving dinner?”
I chuckled at the memory. “You mean when the wind blew her wig off and she chased it around the front yard for half an hour before finally giving up?”
“Nope.” He laughed lightly, before saying, “I’m talking about how she sat on her glasses and then wore them lopsided for the rest of her visit.”
Dad smiled. “That’s how your mother’s going to be when she gets old.”
Mom laughed and tapped the spoon against the side of the pot before setting it down on the ceramic spoon holder that I had made in art class when I was in fourth grade. She lowered the heat on the stove and turned to us with a smile on her classically beautiful face.
“At least I’ll be a hip and trendy grandma. You’ll probably be a lazy old grandpa with a cane and a balding head,” she teased causing Lena to snicker.
Dad laced his fingers through Mom’s and pulled her close to him with a smirk on his face. “Will you still love me the same?”
Mom giggled and her cheeks flushed a brilliant red. “Of course I will.”
When they leaned in to kiss, I made gagging noises while Lena awed. “Oh my gosh! You guys are so cute! I wish my parents were like that!” chirped Lena, with her hand over her heart and doe-eyed expression on her face.
I looked at Lena with my eyebrows furrowed. “Seriously?” When she nodded, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Let’s trade then.”
Lena shifted her weight from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. “I wish.”
Blake looked at me curiously as if he wanted me to explain why Lena had said that, but before I was able to respond to his curious look Brianna breezed into the kitchen with her hair gathered up into a high ponytail at the top of her head.
As if she hadn’t noticed the awkward silence that had filled the room merely seconds before she had entered she glanced at everyone before smiling and sending a friendly wave at my parents. Her cheerleading t-shirt was black and decorated all over in different colors of puffy paint, and the athletic shorts she had on were pink and had leopard spots all over them. She was definitely underdressed for the chilly weather that we were experiencing today.
“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Forrester,” she chirped. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m back from practice.” She fiddled with a sweat band that was around her wrist as she spoke.
My mom freed herself of my dad’s embrace and went back over to the stove as she said, “Dinner will be ready soon so you’re just in time. How was your practice?”
Brianna’s face lit up. She had probably been waiting for someone to ask. “It was amazing. We did tumbling for most of the practice and I finally landed my double Arabian layout!”
Dad clapped his hands together loud enough for the sound to ricochet off of the walls and amplify as he said, “I’m just going to pretend like I know what that is, but it sounds extremely complicated.”
“It sure is! Congratulations, Brianna!” screeched my mom in excitement.
To my surprise, Blake dropped his arm from where it was slung over my shoulders and walked over to Brianna, giving her a high-five. “You’ve been trying to get that flip for forever! Congratulations, Bri!”
Bri?
I felt someone’s eyes on me, so I broke my stare at Blake and Brianna and looked toward Lena, who was staring at me with wide eyes and furrowed eyebrows as she mouthed, “What the hell?”
In response to her unspoken words, I shrugged and turned back to Brianna and Blake. Blake had moved away from Brianna and was now engaging in conversation with my dad while Brianna talked to my mom as she chopped up some vegetables. It was annoying how she bounced on the soles of her feet as she spoke. How can someone be so freaking happy about landing a dumb flip? I guess that means I have to be the one to rain on her parade.
Lena watched me as I walked over to Brianna, casually slinging my arm over her shoulder and cutting her off as I said, “Lena is spending the night tonight so I need my room. I guess you’re just going to have to sleep in the guest room today,” I sighed.
Brianna turned her head toward me and gave me one of her famous fake smiles. “Or I could just hang out with you guys tonight instead. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
I suppressed my groan and tried to think of something to stop that awful idea from coming true. “Well, I don’t think that that would be a great idea. You know, you and Lena don’t really get along that well ever since,” I grappled for something to say, pausing momentarily before something popped into my mind, “you got into that fight with her little sister.”
My mom stopped cutting up the onion that was in front of her and gave Brianna a surprised look. “You got into a fight with Lena’s little sister?” Her eyes were wide, and I could see the unmistakable look that she got when she was judging someone pop into her head. My mom loathed violence almost as much as she hated trans-fat. “What was it about?”
Brianna looked caught off guard as she opened her mouth and tried to talk but nothing came out. She slightly resembled a fish out of water.
To her relief, Lena stepped in for her. “It was probably about something stupid. Gabriella even refused to tell me what it was about when I asked.”
My mom shrugged and went back to chopping. “I’d like to meet Gabriella someday.”
“Sure. I’d be glad to bring her over one day. She recently started going by Ella though so if she does come over, make sure you call her that. I don’t want her to chew me out,” she chuckled.
My mom laughed along with her. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She turned and focused her attention on Blake as she said, “Blake, hun, are you staying for dinner?”
Blake stopped talking and smiled at my mom. “No, but thank you Mrs. Forrester. I think my mom wants me home for dinner.”
“Do you need a ride home?” my dad offered.
Blake nodded and before he could say yes, Brianna chirped up and said, “I’ll give Blake a ride home.” She tossed me an evil smile.
Blake looked at me, asking me with his eyes if it was all right or not. I didn’t want to be the jealous type of girlfriend who controlled every little aspect of her boyfriend’s life so I shrugged and nodded; pretending like I didn’t care.
Blake looked to Brianna and shook his head. “No thanks. I’ll ride with Mr. Forrester today. Maybe he’ll let me drive…” he trailed off, raising an eyebrow at my dad.
My dad laughed. “Fat chance.”
I smiled at Blake, grateful that he didn’t accept Brianna’s ride. Lena asked for the bathroom and I directed her toward the nearest one. Brianna sent me a glare before she offered to help my mom set the table for dinner. As Blake and my dad got ready to leave, Blake pulled me out onto the porch with him and pushed my back up against the wall beside the screen doo
r. The crisp air blew against the exposed skin along the back of my neck.
“Thanks for not letting Brianna give you a ride home.”
Blake leaned in and pressed his lips gently to mine. To my distaste, he pulled away just as suddenly as he had leaned in. His shattering blue eyes caught the light as he tilted his head down to look at me, causing a few strands of his black fringe to fall into his eyes. “Violet, I love you. I know that you don’t like that I’m becoming friends with Brianna and I respect that. You’re my girlfriend so you’ll always come first. If you don’t want me to hang out with her anymore then I won’t.”
“I don’t like Brianna and I never will. I don’t even understand how you suddenly became friends with her. Why were you at her house in the first place?”
Blake placed his hands on the wall on either side of my head and stared straight into my eyes. “Promise me that you won’t tell her if I tell you?”
“I promise.”
He shifted on his feet before saying, “Brianna failed physics last year, so she was forced to repeat it this year. Apparently, Brianna has already skipped that class four times and it’s not even the third week of school yet so her physics teacher gave her an ultimatum; either she could join the school’s academic decathlon club, or she would get a call home to her parents and possibly get kicked off of the cheer squad. You know that cheerleading is basically her life. Without it all she has are her overbearing parents and her fake friends that don’t really even care about her. So she joined the academic decathlon team and that’s how we started hanging out. A few of my teachers saw my grades and offered me extra credit if I joined the team. Apparently, we lose to every school in our district each year.” He shrugged and reached his hand up to my face to brush a stray strand of hair away. His fingers lingered against my cheek for a moment as his face tilted downward, slowly moving closer to mine.
Quickly, I pressed two fingers to his lips, halting the kiss. “That doesn’t explain why you were at Brianna’s house though.”
Better Than Revenge (Sweet Secrets #1) Page 10