The next morning, I showered and got dressed, and as I was eating my breakfast, I got a text from Ross: ‘I’ll be over to pick you up in 10 minutes.’ I smiled and texted him back: K :). I quickly finished my cereal and ran upstairs to grab my bag, slipping Ross’ hoodie over my head as I walked out of my room and ran downstairs. My dad had already gone to work, and my mom was still in bed. I left her a note saying that I had a ride, and I’d see her later, then waited for Ross to come. Almost exactly 10 minutes since he texted me, I heard a knock at my door. I opened it to see a smiling blonde boy.
“You ready?” He asked me as I nodded, slinging my bag over my shoulder and grabbing my books off the table, as I walked out of the house, locking the door behind me. We started walking down the sidewalk, and he took my books, again. “Nice Hoodie.” He commented to me, squinting his eyes with a goofy grin in the sunlight. I grinned back, following along.
“yeah thanks, some goofy guy gave it to me…” I said, bumping his shoulder with mine. He pretended to be offended as he gasped, but then came up with a comeback.
“Well he sounds Awesome. I’ll have to meet him someday.” He said as we came up to his house, walking up the driveway. “Okay, we’ll leave in a little bit, we’re still waiting for Rydel to finish getting ready. Hungry? We have pancakes.” He said with a grin.
“No thanks, I ate at home.” I told him as he looked disappointed.
“Well come on anyways.” He said as he took my hand and dragged me inside, setting my books down by the door, releasing my hand and kicking off his shoes and running to the kitchen. I slipped my shoes off, and followed him to the kitchen. The rest of his siblings were all there, eating pancakes. I stood a little awkwardly in the doorway, none of them noticed me because they were so busy eating, and there weren’t any empty chairs. Finally, Ross looked up and laughed. “Here.” He said, scooting over in his chair and patting it for me. I walked over and sat next to him.
All of his siblings then saw me and greeted me good morning. Soon, they all finished and we were getting ready to head out the door.
“Are you ready to go to a very pointless day of school?!” Rocky asked everyone. They all cheered, but I just looked at them confused. Riker laughed.
“It’s the Friday right before winter break, the teachers don’t want to teach anything because they’ll just have to teach it again after break, so they mainly have parties, or watch old Christmas movies.” He explained to me. I nodded and laughed along.
“Sounds like one of my old schools. We didn’t learn ANYTHING there.” I said as we walked out to the van. They laughed along, and climbed in, Riker began driving, and I didn’t realize until we were almost at Ratliff’s that if we were picking up Ratliff and Kelly, that I would have to sit on Ross’ lap again. It made me want to turn 10 different shades of red just thinking about it.
We pulled up to his house and Rocky got out to go get them. I looked at Ross with a worried look. He laughed.
“Kelly’s getting a ride from her mom today. Don’t worry. It’s just Ratliff.” He whispered to me. I sighed, relieved, leaning my head on his shoulder as we waited for Ratliff. He ran out, and we drove off, towards the school.
We all climbed out of the car and said goodbye to each other. They all wished us good luck on our duet. Crap. I had totally forgot until now. I practically started freaking out right there in the parking lot. Thinking I was still walking next to him, Ross kept walking towards school. After a few feet, he noticed, stopped, and ran back to me. Noticing I was practically hyperventilating, he grabbed my shoulders, shaking me.
“It’s gonna be fine. We got this.” He told me, giving me a hug and kissing my forehead, to calm me down. “c’mon.” He said, beginning to walk, but I couldn’t move my feet. Finally, he sighed, grabbing my hand and dragging me toward the school entrance. “Now, can you walk, or do I have to keep doing this? People are gonna think we’re dating if we keep this up.” He whispered to me, gesturing to our hands. I quickly nodded, that I could walk, and he released my hand, leading once again to our first class.
