Issues

Issues - Chapter 16

I put a muted shade of red on her nails and then started on her hair. I decided to curl it for the dance - why not try something different? Then I put on some light make-up that made her eyes pop.

The whole process took almost the whole afternoon. It was six, when I finally had her get changed and we went to present it to the whole family. The dance started at seven, but Hailey said she needed to be there early since she was on the dance committee.

"Introducing," I said to the rest of my family. We were all waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Hailey to come down and show herself. "Miss Hailey George!"

She walked down in her silver kitten heels and everyone clapped. Anthony was even there to witness this event. Hailey's smile stretched from ear to ear and I admired my work. She look stunning and I knew that Alex kid was the luckiest guy in her grade.

"You look great Hailey!" My mother gushed. "Let's get a move on, bye Kaya. Bye Anthony."

"Bye," we said together and in a rush everyone went outside and drove away leaving me and Anthony alone.

"What are your plans for tonight?" I asked him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"What do you mean why? I was just asking so I would know if I had to deal with you for too much longer!" I shot back.

"What are you doing tonight?"

"Working on a project."

"With who."

"My partner."

"Who's your partner?"

"Taylor," I admitted defeated.

"Where are you guys working on this 'project'?" he asked skeptically.

"It's for cooking and here! Stop assuming things," I scolded him.

"Then I'm staying here to babysit you and make sure you kids work on your project." He was starting to irritate me, even though he was trying to be a good big brother.

I sighed. "We don't need a babysitter. We've been going out for a couple of months now kiddo."

"Don't call me kiddo and I know I was just kidding. I have a party to go to."

"Mr. Popular, of course," I teased him. He just laughed and soon enough I was left alone to call Taylor over.

He arrived in record time.

"Anthony just left, along with the rest of my family. So we have some peace and quiet to work." I led him into my basement. I already had my laptop and cooking instruction sheet down on the futon ready for us.

"Sounds good," he said as we sat down.

I sat cross legged on the computer opening the things we needed from our teacher's website. He sat facing me on my right side. We worked for over an hour before I finally looked away from the computer screen.

"We have a solid part done," he chuckled.

"I didn't think it was that hard." I laughed along with him.

"Yeah, do you want to stop now?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"No, we can finish Day two and three though, that way we'll have almost half done tonight."

He sighed. "Okay, but this is getting boring."

"I know but I don't want to fail cooking." I laughed.

"True."

We went back to working, but about ten minutes I was interrupted. Taylor started kissing behind my ear and he wrapped one of his arms around the front of my waist.