Mr. Brightside

Mami's House

"My, my. What do we have here?" My grandmother smiles ear to ear as she pinches his cheeks.

"He's a catch, if I may say." She winked at me, " You best keep him." I blush hard and rolled my eyes.

"He's just a friend, Mami." I glance at Will, whose face was a little more than red. As I speak he turned to me and fakes shock.

"Just a friend? I thought," he fake sniffles, "we were best friends." I grin. Will could find the bright side of anything, and make anything brighter. Which is why I dragged him on this trip to the middle of burning Texas to the most boring summer vacation ever: Mami's house.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Mami. But she's eighty-nine, partially blind, and extremely overprotective. I'm about to turn seventeen and she still won't let me go to the grocery store without checking in on me every ten minutes.

Hopefully, Will will change that. He looks super trustworthy, mostly because he is. He swears he would give his life to save mine and I wouldn't doubt it.

He's amazing and I'm extremely lucky to have him as a best friend. That's all he is, a best friend. That's all he'll ever be, because I don't like him like that. Or maybe I do, but I won't say a word, because he's my best friend and I absolutely could not stand to lose him. I'll best stay quiet and keep my mouth shut.

It definitely does not help that his mother hates me with a passion. She told me if I ever tried to date Will, she would hide my body so well no one would ever find it.

I've never understood why she dislikes me so much. She's best friends with my mother, I've never been disrespectful towards her, and I'm pretty sure I treat Will right. I guess that's a mystery for another day.

Today, I'm just trying to survive without blurting out, "I love you" to Will. Best of luck to me.

Will smiles at me and I feel a giggle rise up inside me. Ugh. Stupid girly-girl. I thought I buried you years ago. But when he runs his fingers through his dirty blond hair and those dazzling emerald green eyes catch mine, I can see why she'd want to come out to play.

"Will," Mami says, "do me a favor and go pull the the car into the garage?"

Will grins that fabulous grin and says, "Yes'm." He starts to walk out, thinks better of it, casually strolls over to me, pokes me in the side, yells "Tag!", and runs out. Wow. What are we, ten? I side-eye the door he just walked out of and started to sneak over like a ninja. I reach for the doorknob, whisper-yell "Hiyah!", and scream as Mami's arm jets out to smack my hand away.

I fall back onto my butt and stare up at her. Mami just rolls her eyes, reaches a hand down, and picks me right off the floor.

"Listen, we've got to talk about this Will problem you've got."