Bad Habits

Chapter 24

The house was completely void of any signs of life as I entered the kitchen on Saturday. Grocery shopping that needed doing desperately had pulled me out of bed early this morning with an agitated grumble. I'd left Ollie snoring loudly in his room, I debated waking him to join me to the store but then thought better of it. No one likes a grumpy brother on the weekend.

Hauling the last of the bags onto the counter I start to pack them away into the required spaces. I wasn't that surprised to see my brothers car missing on the drive when I got back around twelve-ish. He'd said he had a few things to do today after getting off the phone with our parents last night.

They'd mentioned hopefully arriving back home in around two weeks time, as grandmas health had started to get a lot better. They were thinking of arranging a live in nurse for her, in case anything else happened. They did ask if she would like to come back and live with us but she had outright refused, said she wanted her own space without two teenagers blasting their 'shit' music as she so elegantly put it. I'd laughed loudly at that, knowing how much my attitude matched hers. Ollie laughed along with me, his head turning to give me a 'I told you so' look. He's always said that I'm just like her. I didn't see it properly till then.

Placing the large container full of fruit yoghurt into the fridge, I dial Noah's number and press the loudspeaker button before placing it down onto the counter so that my hands are free to continue with the groceries. He picks up on the fourth ring, his voice gravelly and scratchy from sleep.

"Hey Livvs." He yawns loudly, a snapping sound coming right after as he smashes his lips together.

I roll my eyes as I glance at the clock to see it nearing just past half 1 in the afternoon, the sun shining brightly through the kitchen window.

"You just woke up." I say factually instead of asking him.

"Yeah," He chuckles the sound going static for a few seconds before his voice is clear again."I was out at the tracks with Maddox most the night, didn't get back until early this morning."

I frown at that, wondering why they wouldn't ask me to tag along with them. His tone sounding innocent apart from where it raised an octave when he said 'tracks'.

"Oh," I say simply, trying not to sound too upset by that but failing miserably as I place the last of the groceries into the kitchen cupboards, he doesn't seem to pick up on it thankfully.

"Did you win any money?" I ask him a few seconds later when he doesn't say much else.

The sound of a toilet flushing comes through from his end and then he coughs slightly. "Sorry, was pissing." He admits, not sounding the least bit sorry that I might of heard him. "Yeah, got 4K. 2K each."

I nod even though he can't see me as I place ingredients for a sandwich onto the counter, the plastic from the bread rustling as I pull two slices out and place them onto a plate, a slice of ham following after it as I prepare the chopping board to cut up some lettuce and cucumber.

"That's good." I say genuinely happy for them both."You up to anything today? I text Poppy earlier but she's crammed with tutoring and then she's heading out with that guy again. I think she really likes this one." I admit biting my lip as I slice through the crunchy lettuce, the sound of the knife hitting the glass chopping board causing a wince to go through me. I hate glass chopping boards.

He sighs, his voice floating away with him after he places his phone down and puts me on loudspeaker so he can get dressed for the rest of the day.

"Yeah I know, I met him the other night when I dropped her off at his house. He's actually pretty nice, treats her good, ya know?" He says, the sound of him shuffling around as he opens drawers and moves things around.