My Happily Never After

Chapter Twenty-Four: Making Deals LIke the Little Mermaid. But not.

Quickly shooting out a hand to grab my wrist he pulled me with him, almost making me fall over due to my natural lack of grace.

When we were out of his way Mackenzie walked past the pair of us. I was pretty sure I caught him rolling his eyes from the corner of my eye. But I didn’t say anything. That was his usual grouchy self.

“So what is your test on?” Jake asked, taking back my attention as he took textbook from my hands.

“Maths.” I told him, as he read the cover. He grimaced and skimmed over the pages of the book.

“Grim.” He said pulling a face.

I laughed. “Trust me. I know.” Taking the textbook back from him I tucked it into the crook of my elbow, holding it to my chest as I ran a hand through my hair.

Jake gave me a soft smile. “Well if you want I could always help you.” He offered kindly.

I returned his smile, hiding my wince. “You don’t mind?” I asked, not turning down his help. Even though I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to help me – everyone who had tried in the past always failed, including Rachel and Isaac and one school appointed tutor – I wasn’t in a place where I could really turn down freely offered help.

“Not at all.” He told me easily. “I’ve been through it all before, how hard can it be?”

_ _ _

“This is so stupid.” I groaned, pushing my maths book off of my lap and onto the ground. I landed from the short fall with a surprisingly loud thud.

Jake who was sat next to me gave me a sympathetic smile. It turned out that Jake didn’t remember as much as he’d hoped. We’d both spent hours poring over my unorganised notes and textbook, getting nowhere.

That’s a lie. I had gotten somewhere, but it didn’t feel like nearly enough for how long I’d been revising for. I’d been at this for just over two and a half hours.

As soon as I got the hang of it I would forget it all over again. It was frustrating.

From where Mackenzie was slumped in the seat of the sofa he raised an eyebrow at my statement, his eyes going from my newly abandoned textbook to me. “Yeah. Maths is the stupid one.” He agreed sarcastically.

Helpful.

I threw a huffy glare at him. “Sod off.” I grumbled. “It’s difficult.”

Mackenzie didn’t respond straight away. Instead he leant over plucking the Maths textbook with ease from the ground. “It’s not so bad.” He said easily, flipping over one of the pages in the textbook.

I rolled my eyes, lifting myself up to take the textbook back. “You’re not the one doing it.” I said smartly. “I bet if you were you wouldn’t be so quick to say it’s easy.”

A laughing smile grew on Mackenzie’s lips. “Yeah, and how much would you be willing to bet exactly?” He asked arching an eyebrow at me.

Unease twisted my stomach at his unshaken confidence – but I didn’t want to lose face by backing down. “An entire bag of Jelly Tots.” I suggested, trying to make the prize sound bigger than it was.

Mackenzie gave me an amused look. “Really?” He asked. “Come on Taylor. If you’re going to make a bet you have to make it interesting. Think bigger.”

I pursed my lips unsurely. “Bigger?” I repeated.

“As in more.” He said simply, making me roll my eyes.