The Way ✓

Chapter 3

I love the way

You make me feel

I love it

I love it

I was sitting in the school library, trying to concentrate on the project for Mr. Addison’s class but the only thing that was running through my head was Maggie’s new favorite song. Why did she have to play it on repeat the whole morning?

“You sound terrible!” I heard and turned around to look at whoever was at the table behind me.

Oh, God!

Trevor.

“Are you just going to gape at me like that? Because that’s kind of creepy, Ape.”

My face flushed bright red. Hell, even my toes probably were the color of embarrassment now!

The nickname “Ape” brought me four years back to the time Trevor’s family had moved in opposite us.

I watched the brown-haired man get the boxes out of the back of a rental truck. I wondered who else was going to move in. I’d heard from my mother that it was a family of three and that the boy was my age.

“Do you think the boy will be cute?” Maggie asked, also gazing out the living room window and making a bubble with her pink gum. “If he’s anything like his father, he will be,” she added after a while.

I gave her a disgusted face. The man was in his thirties and she was thirteen! I was just about to tell her she better had meant that as a joke when she gasped.

“Oh, my God! He’s such a hottie,” she squealed enthusiastically and pulled her top downwards. She barely had any breasts back then but she wore a bra with paddings. I gazed outside, ready to make fun of her newest crush (she had a lot of those), but the moment I laid my eyes on the new neighbor boy, I was left speechless.

He was picking up a box and his already slightly muscled arms were bare as he was wearing a singled. His jeans were plain and blue, nothing special, but they looked absolutely amazing on him. He carried the baggage to the porch then turned around. That was when he saw us. He seemed surprised at first but then he flashed us such a bright smile that I had to take a step back and lean on the couch; I just couldn’t trust my legs to support me.

“He’s coming this way, he’s coming this way…” Maggie started jumping around. “Quick! How do I look? Oh, why am I asking you? You know nothing of fashion,” she sneered just as our bell rang. “It’s open!”

The boy walked in confidently and greeted us with another smile.

“Hi! I’m Trevor. We just moved in,” he explained, waving his hand to the window through which we could see his parents still moving their belongings.

“Hi!” Maggie chirped, strolling towards him, trying to shake her ass on the way. “I’m Maggie Pool. Welcome to the neighborhood!”

She bit her lip the same way her female idols did on TV. Trevor seemed amused by her behavior and took his time checking her out. When he finally turned his gaze at me and smiled again, all I thought was “Thank God this couch is behind me; I feel like I’ll faint!”

“And you are?” He inquired.

It took me a while to realize I had to respond to that. I opened my mouth but I seemed to have lost the ability to be coherent.

“I-I… Ap… Ape…”

“You are an ape?” He laughed and all the blood from my body made camp on my cheeks.

“Never mind my loser of a sister,” Maggie waved me off. “Come on, I’ll show you around the neighborhood!”

“Bye-bye, Ape!” Trevor said, following my sister outside the house.

“Hey, Ape!” His voice brought me back to the present.

“Don’t call me that!” I muttered, looking down. I heard a chair screech and the one next to me was pulled back. Trevor took that seat and nudged me with his elbow.

“You know I’m only messing around, right?” He asked but I still avoided his gaze. “Except when I told you that you sounded terrible when you sang; that was true. And I’m not saying this just because I hate that song.”

“I didn’t realize I was singing out loud,” I explained and turned to him but looked away almost immediately.

Brown. That was the color of his eyes. Such an ordinary color so why could I never hold his gaze? Why did I always shy away?

“Didn’t really think that song was something you’d like,” he went on. “It sounds more like Maggie’s style.”

“It is Maggie’s style. She had this grammatical nightmare on repeat.”

“Grammatical nightmare?”

“I’m thinkin’,” I started to enlist. “Singin’, pickin’… Do she love me? Everyone knows the correct way to say it is does she love me…”

“Wow! You must be so fun at parties,” he joked.

 I turned to him with a pout and my eyes narrowed.

“That’s better,” he noted, leaning back in the chair.

“You wanted me to glare at you?”

“No, but at least you are looking at me now.”

“Why are you in the library anyway?” I changed the subject, tired of him using me as means of an entertainment. He was always pulling my leg so why did my heart go crazy at the sight of him?

“I have to write some things down for the project Addison gave us. I got partnered up with Todd but he’s an idiot so I prefer doing it on my own. Are you working by yourself as well? You did get paired up with Tyrell after all.”

“How did you know that?”

“We have the Addison class together,” he answered in a this-is-so-obvious tone.

“Yeah, but you don’t pay much attention in classes…”

Or to me, I added in my mind and tried to focus on the project.

“I have an idea,” Trevor commented. “Call it a mutually beneficial proposal if you will.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

What was he getting to?

“Since we are both partner-less, how about we team up and help each other out?”

“Y-you want to do the project together?”

“Yeah.” He smiled and ruffled his brown hair.

Stop going so fast! I ordered my heart but it didn’t listen.

“We’ll have to do two versions then: one for you to present to Mr. Addison as yours and Todd’s and another for me and Tyrell.”

“We better get on with it then!” He turned in his seat and took his things from the table behind us. “Here’s what I got so far…”

I couldn’t help but smile.

I think I’m going to enjoy this project after all!

*****

A/N: I plan a story with a grown up and less spoiled Maggie (with April and Trevor showing up occasionally). It will be called Maggie Pool, PI and you can read the summary to it in chapter 13 of my Upcoming Projects. I’m posting the cover to it in the multimedia section to this chapter of The Way and a link to it in the comments and as an external link. Feel free to check it out and tell me what you think! :)