Finding Beauty

[12]- Chapter Twelve

Dean laid across my bed with his laptop in his lap while I awkwardly sat next to him waiting for him to gather up information about the Gold Rush. I already researched how gold is produced into pennies on my own laptop and wrote a bunch of notes in my Chemistry notebook. But Dean however came to my house without any work done and I wasn’t all surprised, it was just Dean being Dean. Taking out my notebook and a pencil, I leaned over him and noticed that he finally found some information.

“Okay, what did you find?” I asked him as I placed my notebook on Dean’s shoulder and got ready to write. Not that I was wondering or doing it purposely, but Dean didn’t really seemed bothered about it anyway.

“The California Gold Rush began on January 24 1848,” He read as he ran his fingers through his light brown hair, “The gold was discovered by James W. Marshall and it lasted until 1855. Um, it was discovered in Sutter’s Mill and the news of gold brought 300,000 people to California.”

As I wrote all of this information down, I smiled. Maybe we’d actually get a good grade on this project after all and I was glad that he was actually trying to participate. “Good, anything else?”

“Yes, there’s a whole bunch of sh—crap but I don’t feel like saying it all.” Dean replied back to me with an eye roll.

I couldn’t help but to giggle at this. “Well whatever, Dean. I guess that little piece of information was a start and we still have plenty of time.”

Dean sighed. “I guess, anyway I’m hungry. Do you have any snacks?”

“Yeah, follow me.” I said to him and I hopped off of my bed a bit too quickly and fell on the floor. As soon as I collided with the floor, Dean’s deep throaty laughs fill the air and I couldn’t help but to laugh too.

“Are you okay McKenzie?” Dean asked me as he walked over to me and helped me stand up, “Because you looked like a flying idiot.”

“Wow, thanks for caring” I responded back sarcastically as he snickered at this and I smiled. I actually like when Dean laughed, it seemed almost unnatural. Walking over to my door, Dean followed me out and towards the kitchen.

As soon as we approached, Dean glanced around with a smirk on his face. “What?”

“Nothing” He shrugged. I glanced at him a little bit longer and noticed his busted lip looked like it was starting to heal and I smiled at this. His hands seemed like they were healing too and were just turning into a scar. “What?”

I blushed obviously embarrassed that he caught me staring at him. “Uh, nothing” Clearing my throat awkwardly, I walked over to the pantry and opening the door, I pulled a bag of Doritos and gave it to him.

“Thanks but I’m more of a cheetos kind of guy.” Dean told me as he ran his fingers through his hair. I suddenly realized that he ran his fingers through his hair a lot and that he likes the same chips as me.

“Uh, sorry we don’t have those” I lied briskly because I for one loved cheetos and didn’t like sharing them with anyone including Stef. She was more a funion girl anyway but I couldn’t stand those chips.

“You’re such a good liar McKenzie” Dean chuckled sarcastically as he walked closer to me, took the cheetos that I was about grab, and tossed me a cute smirk. He then opened the bag of cheetos and threw the Doritos that I gave him at my face. I huffed and put the bag back into the pantry.

“You’re so rude Dean,” I wailed angrily, “That was the last bag!”

“You sound like a mouse when you’re angry.” Dean laughed as he ran his fingers through hair—again. “And you look like one too.”