“Okay, okay, I yield,” he shouted. “You and Clary aren’t in the tree.”
I laughed and rolled onto my back to stare up at the sky. We were both panting for breath and had matching smiles on our lips. It had been a while since we’d messed around like that. I’d gotten so busy with school and football this year everything else had taken a back seat. Had it really taken a pandemic for me to realize I didn’t spend enough time with my brother?
A raindrop splashed onto my face as I lay on the grass, and I realized it was probably time to head back inside. I rolled over and got to my feet before helping Elliot up. “We should do that again soon.”
“Yeah?”
I tousled his hair and nodded. “Yeah.”
Elliot grinned as he turned to walk inside. I went to follow him, but as I looked up at the house, I noticed Clary in the window of her bedroom. She was curled up on the seat that overlooked the garden with a book clutched to her chest and a smile on her face as she looked down at us. The moment I caught her watching she immediately turned away. She focused on her book, pretending like she hadn’t seen us at all.
My chest swelled with a feeling of warmth though. Clary had definitely been watching us, and it had made her smile. I may have chickened out when it came to having a real conversation with her today, but that smile felt like an opening. Maybe my chances with her weren’t as slim as I thought.
9
Clary
It was surprising how quickly time passed while I was stuck in lockdown in the Moore household. Days passed without any news about my parents’ return, and before I knew it, a whole week had gone by. Mom and Dad contacted me frequently to talk, but it seemed that getting home was going to take slightly longer than they first expected. I worried about them terribly, but at least I didn’t completely hate my existence here.
Yes, I was living with the world’s most persistent flirt, but his mom was so nice and his little brother cracked me up. I was also starting to notice some moments when Aiden didn’t seem all that bad. I’d caught him playing catch with his little brother outside the other day. The way they had both smiled as Aiden tackled Elliot to the ground to tickle him was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.
I was also growing used to Aiden’s constant flirtations, and they were starting to feel like bit of a game. If it was a game, I was losing badly though. I’d been so good at ignoring him at school, but the more time I spent with him, the harder it was to stop myself from laughing at his sad attempts at flirting. I also found myself firing back a reply more often. In Aiden’s books, any response was a good response. It felt like I was only encouraging him.
The one thing I wasn’t getting used to though was Aiden seemed to have zero personal boundaries. He always snagged the chair next to me at dinner and sat far too close. And, whenever he was talking to me, he always made a point of standing firmly within my personal space. After waking up to him working out in my bedroom on my first morning here, I’d seriously considered leaving a bear trap by the door. I really should have gone through with it because it seemed he was back again this morning.
“Clary, Clary, wake up!”
I groaned and blinked one eye open. Aiden’s smiling face was hovering over me. The guy always looked so happy. Even this early in the day. It only made my grumpy morning mood even worse.
“Aiden, I told you to stop letting yourself in here!” I threw an arm over my face and closed my eyes again in the hopes of blocking him out. If I couldn’t see him, then perhaps he’d take the hint and leave.
“I know, but this is an emergency.”
Could you roll your eyes when they were shut? It definitely felt like I could. It was far too early for this. “Surely, this can wait until later…”
“It can’t, actually,” he said, dragging my arm away from my face. “They’ve reopened school, and thanks to you, we’re running late.”
“What?” I jerked up in bed, suddenly feeling wide-awake.
“School is open again. Didn’t you know?”
I reached for my phone. “No, I didn’t, and that doesn’t make any sense. Surely, I would have heard before now if school was opening again.”
Aiden grabbed my hand and started to pull me from the bed. “You’ve been distracted all week, and I can’t help it if you don’t check your emails. Come on, you better hurry, or we’ll be late.”
I grumbled under my breath as I let him drag me up. Once I was standing, I immediately shrugged out of his grasp and went to grab my towel. Aiden snatched it from my hand.
“You haven’t got time for a shower. Just throw some clothes on. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” I glanced at the time on my phone and swore under my breath. Aiden had woken me up with absolutely no time to get ready. “Aiden, why didn’t you wake me up sooner?”
He shrugged. “You looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Please tell me you weren’t watching me sleep…” I shook my head, deciding I could leave that conversation for another time. “Get out of here so I can change.”
He nodded and dashed from the room. I rummaged through my suitcase until I found something that seemed appropriate to wear in the outside world. Most of my clothes looked like I’d slept in them or spent days lazing around in them while watching Netflix. Both were probably true.
I couldn’t believe I’d missed such an important email. I was also surprised Zoey hadn’t been gushing with excitement about school starting again when I spoke with her last night. She was finding lockdown even harder to cope with than me.
I reached out to pick up my phone so I could text her, but a pounding knock echoed through the door. “Clary, we need to leave now.”
“Okay, okay. I’m coming.” Who knew Aiden was such a stickler for the rules?
I opened my door and found him leaning against the wall just outside the room. I went to push past him. “I just need to brush my teeth…”
He grabbed my hand though and pulled me toward the stairs. “Nope, no time.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Apparently, he wasn’t, because he kept dragging me down the stairs. I hesitated at the bottom. He was on a mission to reach the front door, but my whole body was urging me toward the kitchen.
“Can I get some coffee before we go?” There was no way I’d make it through the first day back at school without my caffeine hit first.
“Sorry, no time,” he said again, as he continued to pull me to the front door. This time though, I planted my feet, stopping in the doorway, refusing to move an inch farther.
“Come on, Aiden. I can handle dirty teeth, but no coffee? It’s like you want me to be a grumpy bitch all day.”
He shrugged, his eyes solemn as he looked at me. “Sorry, Clary. Maybe if you’d spent less time on your hair this morning you’d have had a chance to get coffee.”
“I didn’t do my hair!” I exclaimed. I’d barely had time to change out of my pajamas, and my hair was still in the same messy bun I’d woken up in. I was planning to redo it on the drive to school.
“Really? But it looks so messy chic.”
“It’s bed hair.”
“It’s sexy.”
“Aiden, coffee, please.” Yep, I was begging now.
He laughed and nodded at Elliot who was standing on the front porch with a travel mug in his hands. I nearly wept at the sight.
“Oh, thank God,” I said as Elliot handed it to me. I cradled the warm cup in my hands and took in the strong smell of the fresh coffee. “I was about to mutiny and refuse to go to school.”
Aiden chuckled. “Yeah, I noticed. Now, let’s go.”
I followed Aiden and his brother toward the truck. It was cold this morning, making me even more grateful for the coffee warming my hands. As Aiden started the engine, he turned the heat up full blast. I took a sip of my coffee and let out a happy sigh. Aiden’s mom bought the best coffee. I had no idea where she got her beans from, but I imagined they came from a
happy place. Only happy beans could taste this good.
“I still can’t believe school’s starting again,” I said as Aiden pulled out of the drive. “It seemed like the year was over. That we wouldn’t get to see graduation.”
“I know,” Aiden agreed. “I was surprised too.”
“Did the email say why it was okay for school to open again?”
Aiden shrugged. “Something about the fact that they’ve been able to put precautions in place now.”
“Oh, okay.” I was quiet as I thought it over. It seemed strange that they’d open school when everything else remained committed to staying closed. Experts on the news kept insisting that the virus didn’t affect kids in the same way it did adults. Perhaps that’s what made it okay for us to go back to school.
I lowered the sun visor above my head to take a look at my appearance in the small mirror. I immediately scrunched up my face in disgust. My hair was a total mess, and there was a long crease down the side of my face from where I’d been sleeping. I probably smelled too. It wasn’t going to be a lack of caffeine that drove people away from me today. It was going to be the lack of a shower and deodorant.
I let out a sigh as I lifted the visor, pushing it back into place. I was a total lost cause today, so there didn’t seem any point in bothering to redo my hair.
“You really couldn’t have woken me up a few minutes earlier?” I complained to Aiden.
Elliot laughed from the back seat, and I shot him a scowl over my shoulder. “It’s not funny.”
“It kind of is. Some of the zombies on my video game are in better shape than you right now, MJ.”
“Great,” I muttered. I was rocking up at school for the first time in weeks looking like I’d just risen from the dead. It was just what every girl wanted to hear.
“I think you look pretty hot—for a zombie.” Aiden winked at me.
I groaned and buried my head in my hands. “I’m not a zombie.”
“But you need a constant stream of caffeine in your system to keep you animated,” he continued. “And if you don’t get it, you’re likely to bite the head off the closest living being.”
“Just like a real-life zombie,” Elliot added.
I lifted my head to glare at them both. Aiden laughed when he caught my expression. “Don’t deny it. You know it’s true.”
“I…” My voice trailed off as Aiden pulled the truck to a stop in the school parking lot. There were no other cars in sight, and not a single student was wandering around the grounds. “Where is everyone? Did you guys get the email wrong?”
I turned to find two identical grins watching me. “What’s so funny?”
“Clary, what day is it?” Elliot slowly asked.
“Wednesday…” Though I failed to see his point.
Aiden rolled his eyes. “Yes, but what is the date?”
The days all seemed to merge at the moment, so I glanced at my phone to check it. “Uh, it’s the first of April…”
“April Fools’!” the two of them screamed at once.
I slowly looked up at them as their words sunk in. “This was a prank?” I drew in a deep breath. “You guys pranked me?”
“Yeah, and we got you good!” Elliot exclaimed.
I struggled to contain my anger. “You guys woke me up and dragged me here just to laugh at me?”
“Um, yeah?” Aiden replied hesitantly
“And all when the world is in lockdown and we’re not supposed to leave the house?”
They both fell silent, and a look of uncertainty replaced Aiden’s proud grin. There was nothing to be proud of. Pranking girls should be illegal—especially if it involved waking her up before nine in the morning. And I wasn’t sure if I could forgive either of them for flouting the lockdown rules just for a laugh.
“You guys suck.” I jumped out of the vehicle, slamming the door behind me.
“Clary, what are you doing?” Aiden asked, jumping out of the truck to chase after me. He raced around the front of the vehicle to catch up with me. I was on a mission though. I wanted to get as far away as possible from these two idiots.
Aiden lightly touched my arm when he caught up with me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We thought you’d find it funny.”
I whirled around to face him. “Aiden, you dragged me here without letting me shower or brush my teeth. You probably wouldn’t be breathing right now if you hadn’t given me a coffee.” The remainder of my coffee was still in the truck, and I glanced back at it with longing. I should have finished my drink before storming off.
Aiden tucked his hands into his jeans pockets. “Look, I really am sorry. Elliot and I get a bit excited about pranking each other on April Fools’ Day. It’s a bit of a Moore family tradition. We thought it would be fun to include you.”
I let out a sigh, a little of my anger dissipating as I glanced toward the school. Aiden seemed sincere, and while he enjoyed getting under my skin, his attempts were never cruel. It made me realize he hadn’t been trying to be malicious or hurtful with his prank.
“Aiden, I get that. But we should take this lockdown stuff seriously. I want the virus to go away more than anything so my parents can get home.”
His face fell at my words. “I’m sorry, Clary. I really didn’t think it would be a problem.”
I slowly nodded. “I know.” It was hard to justify my frustration because we hadn’t come into contact with anyone else. The rules were in place for a reason though, and I didn’t want to break them. I was probably just extra emotional because my coffee hadn’t kicked in yet.
As I glanced at Aiden, I felt bad for getting so angry with them. He was only trying to include me, and while I may not have enjoyed the prank very much, he’d gone to a lot of effort to try to trick me. I slowly started to smile. “It was a pretty good prank,” I admitted.
“It was?” Aiden let out a relieved breath when he saw I was softening up before he chuckled. “I guess it worked pretty well. You really had no clue we were fooling you.”
“I didn’t,” I agreed. “I must still be half asleep.”
“Yep, we were kind of counting on that, to be honest.”
“So, it looks like I’m going to have to come up with something extra special to get you guys back.”
“You will, huh?” His eyes turned playful, and there was a sense of amusement in his voice.
“Oh, yeah.” I started to walk back to the truck. “You should watch your back. I can be pretty vengeful when I want to be.”
He didn’t look afraid at all. If anything, he looked excited.
10
Clary
It was growing late, and I was pacing around my room at a total loss for how to prank Aiden. Tricking Elliot had been easy enough. Once we got home, I swapped out the cream for toothpaste in a packet of Oreos and left them on the kitchen counter. Elliot saw the cookies and went for them without hesitation.
His little face had been so cute when he realized his mistake. His nose scrunched up, and his eyes widened with surprise. It wasn’t the most original prank, but Elliot had laughed and high-fived me after. Apparently, they took pranks very seriously in this house.
Aiden wasn’t going to be so easy to trick though—and I knew I had to go much bigger for his prank. I couldn’t let him get off easy like I had with his younger brother. I was struggling to come up with the perfect idea though, and I’d been thinking about it all day. Everything I thought of seemed too lame, and as I glanced out the window, my stomach tensed. Night had well and truly fallen now, and I was running out of time. How did you prank a guy who thought everything in life was a joke?
I blew out a breath and took a seat on the end of my bed as I considered my options. If I couldn’t think of something good, was it better to just not prank him at all? I couldn’t quite bring myself to let it go though. He’d made me feel like a total idiot this morning, and I was desperate to take my revenge on him. Lockdown was probably to blame for the intensity with which I focused on making him pay. If I wa
sn’t stuck in the house with nothing to do, there was no way I would have cared this much.
As I stared at the far wall, my gaze caught on Aiden’s weight bench. His football jersey was resting across the end of it, just like it had been ever since I moved into the room. It almost felt like Aiden had left it here to taunt me. Every time I saw it, I was reminded of my first morning here and how I’d woken up to find him working out in my room. And, even more disturbing, how he’d suggested the jersey would look better on me.
I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t tossed it from my room yet, but as I stared at it, a crazy plan started to take seed in my mind. Aiden was always flirting with me, but I never returned his advances. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if I actually flirted back. He always seemed to be leading girls on. Maybe I could give him a taste of his own medicine.
He’d definitely be shocked, and he was too arrogant to ever imagine I wasn’t being serious. He would either completely panic or get far too excited. Either way, he’d be totally tricked, and I could already imagine the look on his face when I finished the prank by shouting April Fools’ right in his face.
I bit my lower lip as I considered the idea. Flirting with Aiden was risky, and I’d be embarrassed forever if it somehow backfired. I was desperate though—desperate and committed to pranking Aiden no matter what it took.
I jumped from the bed before I could reconsider and changed into Aiden’s football shirt. It was far too big for me and fell midway down my thigh, making my pajama shorts disappear completely beneath it. I felt ridiculous as I glanced at myself in the mirror. The outfit was supposed to look sexy, but I thought I looked more like a small kid dressing up in her dad’s clothes. I pulled my hair out of the ponytail it was in and allowed the soft curls to fall down my back. That improved the look slightly.
“This is totally going to backfire,” I muttered as I studied myself in the mirror. I still looked too much like myself, and I definitely didn’t think I was the kind of girl guys found sexy. This was Aiden though, and he’d been the one to suggest I wear the stupid jersey in the first place. Plus, he pretty much dated anything that moved. I had to believe that included me.
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