Deals (Calum Hood)

Chapter 5

I rolled my eyes, hitting his shoulder for his stupid pun. "Stick to soccer Calum, you don't have a future in comedy."

"You haven't even heard my best material!" He laughed again, exposing his perfect white teeth.

"Okay, then. Tell me your best material, Calum."

"Knock knock."

I rolled my eyes. Knock-knock jokes never turned out good, but I'd play along. "Whose there?"

"Woo."

"Woo who?" I said, preparing for the cheesiness that was to follow.

"What are you so excited about?"

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't help but laugh.

"See, you think I'm funny!"

"No, I think you're stupid. And lame. Stupid and lame." I looked over at him and noticed his lip was in a pout, as he glanced at me.

"You hurt my feelings," he whined. 

"You'll get over it." I said, jokingly.

"I never thought of you as the evil type, Ms. Johnson."

"Oh, shut up. You know you love me." I laughed softly. Sometimes Calum was so ridiculous, it was funny.

"Love you? No, I don't love you. But I definitely do like you." He glanced away from the road again, smiling at me. "I had fun tonight." He added.

The tone of the conversation quickly turned serious. "I had fun too, Cal." I already felt comfortable calling him a nickname and that was odd to me.

"Good, I'm glad. Now get out." 

I didn't even notice that we made it to my house. Calum had parked right on the street, the fence to my backyard was a straight shot from my car door. I opened the door, climbing out and leaning in. "I need your help." I closed my door and Calum walked around to me. "Follow me." I said to him.

He followed my footsteps as I trudged through the grass, unlocking the gate to the back of my house. Calum stepped into my backyard and I closed the gate behind him, walking over to the tall tree that was placed next to my house.

"Climbing a tree? How fairytale of you."

"No, stupid. I'm not climbing the tree. Follow me." I took the steps up to my back porch deck and climbed up to the railing, standing up on it. I grabbed the gutter of my roof. "Give me a boost." I felt Calum's hand under my feet, boosting me up. I clawed at the roof, grabbing onto the windowsill of my bedroom window. I slid my window opened and carefully projected myself in, trying to make the least amount of noise possible.

"Wow, slick." I heard Calum say below me.

I peeked my head out the window, looking down at him. "I had fun." I smiled, leaning against the windowsill.

"I'm glad. See you tomorrow?"

"Until tomorrow."

-

It was hard to concentrate on my book when I was surrounded by talking parents and screaming kids. I had been given the job of taking Dylan to soccer practice again, but with Calum there it wasn't as bad. This time around, I was smart and I brought a small chair so my pants wouldn't get covered in dirt and grass stains like the previous encounters. I was deep in my new book that I had just bought a week or so ago. The title of it was called "The Fault in Our Stars" and it was romance, which was a genre that I didn't normally read but so many people recommended it to me that I had give it a try. I wasn't that far in but it intrigued me already. The main character, Hazel Grace, was a cancer patient and she meets the boy of her dreams at some cancer patient club her mom forces her to go to. The whole book was a little cliche, but I think I just judged it horribly because I wasn't into romance. I wasn't into romance in books or in life. I never paid attention to boys, besides my brother and the occasional male teacher I had at school. It's not that I didn't like boys or didn't want to have a relationship, I just didn't find it important enough to go search for one. If a boy came to me and wanted to take me out on a date, I'd do it. Just kind of like Calum did to me. The more I thought about it the more I realized that Calum was the first boy that was a romantic interest. Even though we were just friends at this point, we still technically did go on a "date".