Living with the Lockhart Boys [Completed]

Chapter Twenty Three- Way to take advantage of your skills with numbers, dude.

Theo

"Hey, man, can I talk to you?" Nick asked quietly.

I shifted myself from underneath Cherry, who was snoring softly in her sleep, and silently followed him out of the room.

"What's up dude?" I asked as we sat down in the kitchen.

"I just... I don't know if you udnerstand what you're getting yourself into with Cherry," he muttered.

"What the Hell is that supposed to mean? You think I'll bail on her?"

He looked alarmed. "No! I just think you should know how bad she was last time."

"Oh... What did she do?"

"Well, first it was the guys. She made-out with just about every guy in our year, and slept with half of them."

"Yeah, I kind of got that bit udner control," I told him, rolling my eyes.

"Then she started on the alcohol."

"That's easy to handle."
"That's what you don't get. I don't mean occasionaly drinking... I mean in any form she can get. She stole it from shops, her parents, my dad... Once I caught her about to drink ethanol from the school lab," he explained.

"What the fuck?"

"Then the self-harming. And before you say you can handle that, I'm not talking about superficial cuts and razor blades. She used kitchen knives if she could get her hands on them, and she cut really, really deep. You know that scar on her shoulder?"
I thought about it. He was right, there was a long, wide, gash-shaped scar leading from the left of Cherry's collarbone half way down her chest. "I always thought something had happened when she was a kid, or something," I murmured.

"No. She did that."

"Shit."

"That's not the worst of it. After I finally managed to stop all of that, she just went... I don't know. It was like she was dead Theo. She was pale and lifeless and it was like she just couldn't hear you talking to her anymore, you know? She didn't eat for nearly a week. She spent most of her days either lying in bed staring at the wall and sat in the shower watching the water. It was horribble." Nick shuddered.

"I won't let it get to that," I promised, and I meant it. I would never be able to stand seeing Cherry like that. Her smile was too beautiful.

"I have no doubt you'll try... "

"I'll never give up on her."

He gave me a weak smile. "Wanna do something?"

I thought about it for a second. "Jenna said something about you and cinnamon swirls?" I asked.

He nodded. "When we were on break she'd come into my Dad's bakery every morning and order a sprite and a cinnamon whirl. It was like a Luke and Lorelei thing, I guess."

"Wanna make her some?"

He rasied an eyebrow in surprise. "We're allowed to do that?"
I chuckled. "We're allowed to do pretty much anything. Jenna and Steve are great people."

Nick smiled. "Yeah, I figured as much."

I started grabbing things from the cupboard. "So, umm, what exactly do you need to make these things?"

Nick rolled his eyes and started rummaging throughb the pantry, gathering everything he needed. Then he sat at the table and started doing division sums and percentages. i watched him for a moment, too surprised to say anything.

"What the hell are you doing?" I finally asked.

He sot me a sheeping grin. "We make nearly 100 in a batch at home. There's no way we'd pull that off here, so I'm working out how much of each ingredient we need to make 12," he explained.