Smoke And Steel

• Twenty - Heart Flip •

"A boy," I said, trying to prevent him from digging a deeper hole for himself. "He didn't expect you to be a boy."

"I'm definitely one of those," Avery said with a lopsided smile.

"Well you are the first boy Eb has ever had over, but also you're -"

"English!" I interjected as I took Avery's arm so I could get him inside and away from my dad who I'm 99% sure was trying to tell Avery that he's unexpectedly hot.

"I'm that, too," Avery replied. "You have such a lovely home," he said, flashing my father a million dollar smile.

"Thank you, although I can't really take any credit for it." My father was looking at Avery in awe, or at least in a way that didn't say 'touch my daughter and I'll castraste you with my bare hands' (although I'm sure that was probably implied). He'd been here for a total of two seconds and already he had my father in the palm of his hand.

"I guess I'll leave you two to it, just uh, don't do anything your grandmother wouldn't approve of, and if you go to your room keep the door open."

"Sure, but dad, you're logic is flawed," I said, smiling at his protectiveness.

"Why?"

"Grandma owned a brothel, she approved of everything as long as both parties were willing and you payed enough. Plus, we're just friends."

"Oh right, well, just don't do anything that you wouldn't do if I was in the room, then. Or just use your other grandmother as your one to look up to. And so were your mother and I when we first got jiggy."

"Oh my god, dad!" I exclaimed, trying to shake the image out of my head. Avery was busy sniggering under his breath. "Go Paperwork or something. Now."

"I'm just sayin'," he said, holding his hands up in defense before returning to his office. How embarrassing?

"Sorry about that," I said, turning to Avery.

"It could've been worse," he said with a shrug of his shoulders and a grin.

"Well come on then, I'll show you the rest of the house."

***

I felt a bit self-conscious before showing Avery my room. I mean, it's basically the inner workings of my mind. Regardless, I pushed the door open, but instead of the weirded out expression I expected to see on Avery's face, all Of saw was wonder.

_________________________________

Avery

Her bedroom was interesting to say the least.

Fairy lights were strung across the white walls, and the whole ceiling was covered in those little glow in the dark stars. Posters of quotes and various pieces of art were tacked to the walls, and an entire wall was a floor to ceiling book case, overflowing with novels and CDs. On top of her drawers were, like, 20 snow globes, all from different places.

I skimmed over the collection on her book case, seeing that on terms of books we had similar taste, but when it came to music we were polar opposites. Where I loved pretty much exclusively grungey rock, she had everything from Mozart, to Death Cab For Cutie, to City And Colour. Not a genre was missed out.

"Whoa, you have so many CDs," I said as I fingered through them. "Did you buy them all yourself?"

"Most of them were someone elses," she said, biting her lip and turning her head away.

"Well this is a seriously good collection, I mean, shit there's just so many great bands. What made them give it to you?"

"They died," she said, her eyes going glossy with tears.