Bates & Landon [Wattys2015]

LANDON

"Good evening, class," she welcomed the class, ruffling down her pencil skirt, "Today we will be using oil pastels. Now not everyone will be good at it, so we must start easy. Okay? I got some pears from the local supermarket for us all to use as our muse and paint with the oil pastels." She said, smiling as she put the two pears on a table in the middle of the room. "I'm not looking for five star work, but I am expecting it to look good and clean. After all, this will be taken as a grade. Good luck."

Bates had already begun, using different oil pastels to make it look more like the pear, more realistic. He was so good at painting.

Bates looked up at me. "Are you going to keep watching me or are you going to work on your assignment?" He nudged me with his elbow lightly, making me look down and begin working, Alice never came to class.

•••

Bates and I were leaning against the wall by the school. I dialed Mandy's number. She answered on the fourth ring.

"What?" She snapped as soon as she answered.

"Um, hi. I was wondering if I could hang with my... uh, Bates."

"I don't even know who that is, Landon. So I most definitely won't let you."

"Can he come over to the house?" As soon as I said it, I cringed. Maybe I was moving to fast. Plus, what about Emmy? Mandy let out a sigh, sounding tired.

"What about your sister?" I asked him, moving the phone away from my ear.

"There is a daycare at the school." He said, "I'll just have to go and tell them she will have to stay at the after school daycare for a couple hours."

"Mandy?"

"I don't know how your dad will feel about it, but fine. Whatever. You two need to ride the bus, I have errands to run before I get home."

"Okay. Thanks!" I hung up, smiling and turned to Bates who was already looking at me. "You can come over to the house."

"Great," he said, starting to walk and I followed him, "Now I need to go and tell Emmy she needs to go to daycare."

•••

We arrived at my house not long after Emmy went to daycare. We stepped inside and he looked around. "You have a nice house," he said slowly.

I grabbed his wrist and pulled him along, our hands ended up intertwining. "I'll give you a tour," I pulled him all throughout the house, showing him all the rooms.

"Who is that?" He asked, pointing to a picture hanging on the wall.

"That's Connor and I at my dad's and Mandy's wedding," I said, looking at the picture with him.

He nodded, "You look good in that pic. But I prefer your hair down," he turned to me, picking a strand of my dark hair.

"Um, thanks," I blushed, looking down at my feet. I walked towards my room, opening the door. "This is my room."

He looked around, smiling a bit. "I like it." Then he walked around, looking at the things hung on my wall. "You like a lot of quotes, don't you?" He was standing by the multiple printed out or handwritten quotes.

"Yeah," I walked up beside him, looking at them like he was, "I do."

"What's one of your favorite ones?" He asked, looking at me. I kept looking at the quotes. I liked them all. They all meant something to me and has a part of me.

I looked at them for a long time, reading and rereading them all. I kept going back and reading a certain one, so I pointed to it. It read:

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

- Henery David Thoreau

He read it and was quiet for a little while before finally speaking, "Very well said, I'd say. Where do you get all these quotes from?"

I smiled lightly, "Tumblr at its finest." He chuckled, sitting down on my bed.

"Comfy bed," he noted.

"Thanks." I said, debating if I should go sit beside him. Before I could over think it, he stood up.

"So what do you wanna do?"

"Want to watch a movie?" I asked him, receiving a nod from him.

We went to the living room. We walked over to the stack of movies that were lined up on the small, mini bookshelf. "What are you in the mood for?" I asked, "Horror, romance, action, comedy?"

He sent me a dazzling smile, "Horror. Mainly, so I can hold you when you get scared."

My face went red. I scoffed, trying to play it cool, but mostly probably looked like a flustered red faced weirdo, "I don't get scared, Bates."

"Wanna bet?" He raised his eyebrows at me. "If you get scared, you have to do whatever I say. If you don't get scared, I do whatever you tell me to do."

"For like a whole week me or you do whatever one of us tell each other?"

"It's whatever you want. The winner chooses whatever they want." He said. "Deal?"

What if he made me do something embarrassing? Oh, who am I kidding. He wouldn't ever do such a thing, I hope not. Plus, I won't get scared. I'll win.

"Deal," I said. We shook hands to seal the deal officially.

"Ah, look!" Bates exclaimed, picking up a movie, "You guys happen to have The Exorcist."

Crap. Kill me now.

"Oh," I said, my stomach forming into a knot. "How . . . lovely."

He grinned mischievously. "Great! Let's put it in."

"That's not fair," I tried to argue, "you know I couldn't watch it because --"

"You got scared?" He asked, poking my nose, "I thought you didn't get scared."

Literally. Kill me. Now.

"Uhm, no." I took the movie out of his hand, "let's watch it."