"Yeah but if you didn't want me to steal it, you shouldn't have left it out in the open where I could see it."
Evelyn was very passionately arguing with Declan about food that she had apparently stolen from the fridge.
"It had my name on it you tiny spawn of satan, don't tell me you're a third-grader who doesn't know how to read."
"I know perfectly well how to read, why do you think I targeted your food?"
"That's it, I'm tossing you in the laundry chute where you can think about what you've done."
"I slide down that thing for fun, you can't threaten me with that," She told him as she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
"Well then, I'm stuffing you in the dryer and leaving you there until you shrivel up."
She let out a scream as he finally charged at her. I found the entire situation amusing and Evelyn was the first to notice me standing in the doorway.
"Rowena, you're here, save me!" She ran behind my back in a flash and wrapped her arms around me.
"Hi," I greeted as Declan saw me for the first time. "Your mo- I mean Julia let me in." She had asked me to call her by her first name anyway.
"Cool, Hey," He said. "I'm gonna need the child behind your back now."
"No!" Evelyn shouted from behind me and gripped me tighter. "He's in a terrible mood Rowena, you really don't want to spend time with him. How about we go hang out instead? I have some Barbie dolls up in my room."
"Oh, you're into Barbie dolls?"
"Only when I can hang them from my ceiling fan and watch them go round and round."
"See? Borderline psychopath." She blew raspberries at him in response.
"Sounds kind of fun actually," I mumbled more to myself than to him.
"So, you really do have to spend time with him huh?" She asked disappointedly. "You don't wanna go outside and play speed bump with me?"
"What's speed bump?"
"It's where you lay down flat in the middle of the street and wait for a car to come by and-"
"No, she can't play speed bump with you," Declan said as he grabbed me gently from the arm, guiding us out of the room.
"Well fine, I'll just ask Parker then."
"Stay out of the street Evelyn!" He yelled as we walked away.
"She is really something else, isn't she?" I laughed.
"That sounds dangerously like admiration."
"You think it's a thing for an eight-year-old to be your spirit animal?"
"I can agree that she's an animal," He responded.
———-—————————
We were set up at the dining room where our last tutoring session was at his house. It was about half an hour into our usual routine when he threw his head back in an exasperated groan.
"Too much math," he complained. "Speedbump actually doesn't sound too horrible right about now."
"Okay drama queen, time for a break then? Let's ditch for some smoothies."
"You driving? My car's in the shop."
"Yeah that's fine," I replied, already getting up and snatching my keys from the table.
The skies were gray when we walked out to my car, looking like they were full of water and ready to burst. Maybe we could beat the rain.
"Is your dad not home again?" I asked, suddenly realizing that it was the second time I had been over and he wasn't anywhere in sight.
"Nope. He's out of town for work again. It doesn't make much of a difference though, he's always working whether he's home or not."
He said it casually, but I sensed something deeper within his tone. Maybe it was annoyance I sensed and I began to wonder how their relationship was.
My music was playing low as we drove to the smoothie shop. There were hardly any quiet moments on the way there as we talked about random shit that led from one thing to another.
Declan wouldn't let me pay for my own smoothie, no matter how hard I insisted. I didn't like it when people spent their money on me unless it was money from my parents.
When I told him as much, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "You can get me back next time," But I knew he didn't mean it.
On our way back to my car from the smoothie shop, the rain started to come down hard. We had to run to where I was parked so our clothes wouldn't soak through.
I didn't want to play any music on the way back to his house, deciding that the rain slapping on my windshield was a melody in itself. I thought Declan agreed too because I didn't talk as much as I did on our ride there, and neither did he.
It was a comforting silence, the kind that you welcomed, as opposed to the kind that you would dread with an awkward stranger.
And when we stopped at a red light and we both reached for our smoothies at the same time, my hand brushed up against his. Then, his eyes flickered to mine and his smile was suddenly contagious.
It was in this moment that I had internally confronted myself to realize the truth that my subconscious was trying so hard to get me to recognize. I liked Declan Montgomery, definitely more than a friend was supposed to.
But there was no chance to explore contagious smiles and risky thoughts as the car behind me honked for the green light, and the silence was welcomed once again.
That is until my car started making a clicking noise. "Shit," I cursed under my breath.
"That doesn't sound good," He said as the speed of my car started deteriorating and the lights on my dashboard started to dim.
"Damn it, that's the battery isn't it?" I asked.
"Yup, go ahead and pull over right here."
The car stopped and I turned the ignition off and twisted it back on again to see if it would start. The engine only sputtered and refused to turn back on. I took the keys out of the ignition completely and tossed them in the small compartment below the radio.
"Will you pop the hood for me? Just to be sure everything else is doing okay," Declan said.
"Mhm," I said, and he went out into the pouring rain to check the engine.
I decided I wasn't patient enough to wait for him to come back, so instead, I stepped into the pouring rain and joined him at the front of my car.
"What do you think?" I asked, raising my voice over the noise of the rain falling hard against the pavement. The water was quickly soaking through my clothes.
It was soaking through Declan's clothes too. His shirt was darker with the water now coating him and the material clung to his toned abdomen.
"I think your engine is ancient," He answered. The insult was enough to snap me out of it.
"Hey, don't talk about my baby like that. She's old but she's still cute."
He shook his head humorously. "It's the battery for sure, everything else looks alright. It just needs a jumpstart, you think Cyrus is free?"
"Let me call him," I replied. I ran around the car and pulled the handle to my door.
But the door wouldn't budge. Thinking the door was jammed, I walked around the car to test the passenger side, giving Declan a nervous laugh as he watched.
When the door was also jammed on the passenger side, it had finally hit me that I may have absent-mindedly locked my car from the inside. It was something I did before getting out of the car when I was too lazy to manually lock it from the keyhole on the handle. Only this time when I did it, I had left my keys inside the car.
"Um, actually Declan... If you wanna call him for me that would be cool," I said as I finished my embarrassing walk of shame back to the front of the car. "And we should tell him to bring a crowbar too."
A/N: Confession time. I once locked my moms keys in her van because my cousin was trying to tell me that when the lock was down, it meant the car was locked. I told him "no, it's locked when it's up" and showed him that I was right.
I was not right. He was right. I was just a dumbass who locked her moms keys in her car.
Anyway YAYYYY, Monday update! I had lots of time to write this weekend💗
If your notifications told you there are two updates, that would be correct. Chapter 21 is available now and ready for you to read! ;)