Fraternizing with the Enemy

16 // To Getting Some

    "THIS is a joke, right?"

     I blinked, unsure of how to respond to Reese's thick knitted brows and disappointed eyes. My instincts told me that my ego just got punched in the face, again, with surmounting force, because this was Reese. And that's what usually happened with him.

     "Um, what?" I asked slowly, eyes blinking, confused.

     "Stella!" he groaned. My head shot back at his tone, his hands shaking urgently at me. "I told you to be ready for nine-thirty! It's nine-thirty!"

     Again, I deadpanned, taking a beat to make sense of his words. "Yes," I agreed steadily. "Which is why I'm here, ready, at nine-thirty. Like you said."

     He stood there stupidly for a second before his eyes narrowed. "This is you ready?"

     I mirrored his skeptic look, gesturing to myself with wide arms. "This is me ready."

     Reese's serious façade then cracked, and he scoffed, only further digging the rusty knife into my wounded ego. "All right, get upstairs," he sighed with a shake of his head. "We have a lot of work to do. Your lucky you have someone as great as me to help you out. You're welcome."

     When I caught his broad grin, I reminded myself of the old Portuguese lady who always sat in front of her bay window across the street and was probably watching us right then. Which meant that murdering Reese in cold blood was not something I should've done with a witness, if only because I was too picky to eat jail food. How lucky he was. This time.

     Reese pushed past me and invited himself in, to which I threw my arms up in sarcastic surrender. "You're asking to get your balls ripped off, I hope you know that. It can't be illegal if you ask for it, right?" I called out to his retreating body, irritation bleeding into my words as I nonetheless followed him up to my room.

     He did not feel obliged to ask before inviting himself in there, too.

     "You don't rip, Sandavol, you gently tickle," he corrected me, and I could hear the smirk in his voice. I refrained from smacking the back of his head, out of pure laziness really.

     When we stepped inside, I was a little grateful that my mom had barged in the night before to demand that I tidy up the hurricane aftermath that was my room, because Reese did not have to see my polka dot bras and beige granny panties. I would probably have to kill him to get him to shut up after that.

     A part of me reasoned that I shouldn't have been surprised that he'd marched me back upstairs like a paradoxical unimpressed father who actually wanted more skin. I wore the same variation of hoodie and jeans and mascara that I did earlier which he seemed less than impressed with, but opted for a very stylish burgundy sweater instead of black. Apparently not stylish enough, I thought, while falling onto the comforts of my bed.

     "Where's your closet? We need to go, and I don't know if you remember, but the whole point is that you're supposed to look good," he murmured, which I still very much heard, and crossed the room to push my closet door open. "Wow, you really are always ready for a funeral."

     "Well Savannah says I look fine, so you should probably start thinking so too if you want to find any common ground with her," I grumbled while forcing myself to sit up, wanting to keep a keen eye on him while he was in my personal space. "And don't worry, I'm always ready for your's."

     "Hey," he protested, wearing that stupid grin of his while he rifled through my monochrome wardrobe. "I'm not saying you don't look absolutely ravishing, trust me, I'm just saying we just have to make Tyler think so."