Making Her Rules

👓12👓

Keon's POV:

"I'm home", I say as I walk in, closing and locking the door behind me.

I hear pots and pans clanging from the kitchen. Is Quinn cooking?

I anxiously sprint to the kitchen and push open the door.

The woman bent over the pots hears me and turns around to face me.

"Hey darling", she says with a smile.

I sigh and my shoulders slump. "Hello mother"

She comes forward to hug me, before she stops halfway. My mother is a very physical person; I am not. Instead of hugging me, she uses her gray eyes to scan me. I watch as eyes identical to mine analyse me. Everything about me is a replica of my mom, and because if how young she looks, she is often mistaken for my twin. However, right now she looks tired and seems to have lost her cheerful glow.

"You look exhausted. Have you been sleeping properly?"

"Funny", she says, hiding a yawn. "I was just about to say the same thing about you."

I wave away her concerns as I open the fridge to get an apple. "I'm tutoring a student and I've been worrying myself on how to get her to focus"

"Is he the one who's note you're holding?"

I almost forgot that I was still holding Stephanie's note. She left the library before I could turn around and give it to her. I don't blame her for being in a hurry though. My rude behaviour was enough to chase anyone away. I still don't know what came over me to make me respond the way I did, but it was uncalled for and I was sorry the moment the words left my mouth. The honest truth is that I panicked, not knowing if she was making a joke at my expense. However, from her tone after, I could tell that I had hurt her.

"Ahem", my mother coughs, and I see her watching me expectantly.

"Oh yeah, this is Stephanie's book. She forgot it after our session"

"Stephanie?", my mother asks a bit too innocently, and I can almost see how her brain is working.

"Don't mother. This is not one of your romance movies"

My mother is a director and part-time actress, and she absolutely adores romance movies. I constantly have to remind her that life is not fiction.

"Your face is red son", she points out.

"Red out of frustration", I sigh, trying to force the color out of my cheeks.

"You like her", my mother pushes on. "You don't get red talking about girls. For a while I thought you might be gay", she muses to herself.

"Mother, I am not gay and even if I liked Stephanie which I am not admitting, she is Quinn's best friend."

And she hates me.

And I have my own reasons for tutoring her.

So many reasons to not even begin consider falling for Stephanie

Quinn pops her head in through the door. She looks fresh and happy, and I feel a surge of joy looking at her.

"Are you talking about me?", she asks.

"We sort of were darling", my mother walks over to Quinn and hugs her. "I'm making pasta. You love that don't you?"

Quinn's eyes widen in fright for a fraction of a second, so quickly that an innocent watcher would miss it. But I saw it and from the look on my mother's face, she saw it too.

"I ate at school", Quinn says with a careless shrug, though her expression is now guarded.

My mother's face falls, but she doesn't push her. Instead she heads back to stir the pot of sauce bubbling in the stove.