The Nerd Owes Me Cupcakes [Editing]

Chapter 48: You're Sick And I'm Hopeless

His dark brown beady eyes land on me. From his indirect eye contact I can register his lazy eye.

"What do you want?" He barks, spit flying from his mouth. I flinch at the drop of saliva that landed on my cheek, but I don't let this unnerve me. I adjust my glasses, gently wipe it off and regain my composure.

"I'm here to see Carter." I answer, my voice dripping with an ounce of confidence I mustered on the journey to the door.

The man scans me. "I'm Mark."

Carter's step - dad

I'm a hundred percent aware that I didn't ask him for a name so I just nod and give my name in return because it's the polite thing to do and how I was raised. 

"Cerise Brookes."

"I don't know how that good for nothing turd gets girls coming to him like some sort of charity fair everyday." The man - named Mark - says awfully loud. "He's just like his old man. Can't keep their-"

Mark's sentence is cut short. His eyes move upwards to where I remember their staircase being and he glares heavily at whatever or whoever is there.

"You have a visitor." Mark smiled like the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland.

"I don't need a damn secretary." A familiar voice says roughly.

Then Carter appears, in all his V - Neck and sweatshirt glory. He looks tired, drained, exhausted, but he still manages to look handsome as ever. I feel like I haven't seen his face in a million years. A fulfilling wind rushes through me and I can't help smiling. It's an action  I wish Carter would copy, but instead he and Mark are exchanging heated glares, boring invisible holes into the other.

 This goes on for about a few more seconds until I clear my throat, submerged in the unbearable tension. 

Mark pushes past him, bumping his shoulder and it doesn't take a genius to identify the bad blood between them.

"Cerise?"

I almost forget how nice it sounded to hear my name exit his mouth. It feels like I haven't seen him in weeks and it may have been that long and all I can say is -

"Hi."

His brow moves upward in curiosity. "What are you doing here?"

I then go on explaining how his mother stopped by the bakery with an order, recognized me and insisted that I bring him his missing school work since he was supposedly out sick. Afterwards, I patted my book bag on my shoulder for emphasis.

"Well,  I'm glad she recognized you." He says, allowing me to enter inside. 

This makes me feel like he hasn't developed any bad vibes from the whole Byron's trunk situation. And as if he  read my mind as we ascend the steps he starts discussion on about that night and I just want to shrink into my shirt and disappear as each word leaves his mouth. He goes on as we walk the long hallway.

"In other words, I'm not mad at you." He finally says, turning to face me as we stop at his bedroom door.

"You're not?" I ask.

"No, I'm not. And being away from school has made me realize a whole lot." He pushes the door to his bedroom open and I follow close behind. It's neater than I remembered, still the home of numerous football related items.

I remove huge back breaking workbooks out of my bag that include all of the assignments he's missed. I even took the liberty of tagging the necessary pages with various colors of sticky notes. Once I'm done, I put the empty bag back onto my shoulder.