The Quirky Tale of April Hale (Quirky Series #1)

8. My Room Looks Worse from His Room

It was swarmed with Teddy Bears.

It was supposed to be a harmless hobby. Buy one small Teddy Bear. Just one. But over the course of years, it became something close to an addiction. If I was taking a stroll to a mall and stumbled across a Teddy Bear that looked at me in the eyes, I’d start to have dreams about it. The more I tried to ignore the dreams, the worse it got. It took trials and errors, but after a while, I decided that I’d just buy any Teddy Bears that ‘spoke’ to me right away. It was a good thing that I never spent my money on going out or clothes.

Ryder looked around my room with widened eyes. He then progressed to stare at my photos at the comic-con that were hung on the wall, before, shortly thereafter, he showed obvious signs that he would puke.

“Trash-bin?” I offered, and in just a second, there was Ryder’s half-digested food in it.

Seeing how revolting his vomit could be, I believed my face changed colors to purple. Ryder sat on the floor, his back facing the wall. Now, he had just completed the first three stages of getting drunk.

1. Having zero control of the coordination of his mouth and brain.

2. Peeing. A lot.

3. Puking.

What came after this would be losing consciousness. 

At least, that was how Quentin’s four stages of intoxication usually worked out for him.

It would be very easy for me to be disgusted by Ryder at this moment. His breath induced strong smell of alcohol mixed with vomit. His eyes couldn’t quite focus and whenever he attempted to talk, all that was out was a bunch of badly strung sentences. He was a good looking guy when he was sanitary, but I doubt that any girl would find him attractive in this particular condition.

But then I made a big mistake by looking at him right in the face. He looked tired, that was for sure. And he looked sad, if not depressed. It was a pretty funny notion since there was a bit of smirk left on his lips, but then he couldn’t really hide the wave of sadness that washed over his eyes.

I knew I was gonna regret this, but I actually stormed off to Quentin’s room. He was snoring and the room was dark. I felt guilty for doing this, but I finally said goodbye to conscience as I pulled his clothing cabinet and grabbed a t-shirt from the very bottom.

“Great bedroom,” Ryder said dreamily to me when I got back to him. His voice contained an unhealthy amount of innocence that I didn’t know he had it in him.

I had difficulty repressing myself from saying ‘awww’ and start pampering him. When he wasn’t scowling, Ryder was a really cute guy. His eyes were big, deep set, and perpetually starry. His lips looked like they were permanently swollen, but a good swell. And a good color, too. I kneeled in front of him and take a clutch of the blanket that he’d thrown over his body. “Now take this off.”

“Horny?” he asked.

This time, the difficulty was to stop myself from headbutting him in the eye. 

“No,” I said patiently. “I bring you fresh clothes.”

Ryder grinned. “You want to see my naked.”

I groaned, but I slid off the blanket anyway, trying to ignore him smirking at me. As his bare upper body was revealed, I could finally take a good look of his bruises. It was a lot, more than before he went to that party with his friends.

“Did you fight again?”

He shrugged a yes. “Somebody called my dad  a ‘fucking douchebag’. Nobody calls him that but me.”