Thirty-whole minutes. That was the total length of time my dad spent lecturing Sebastian and me after catching us trying to sneak Sebastian out after he'd spent the night.
Sebastian's face got redder and redder throughout the whole talk. I tried multiple times to explain to my dad that I'd slept on the floor and barely even touched Sebastian, but he seemed to be buying into none of it. Which was arguably, understandable after what he'd walked in on the other day...
My mum, a lot more liberal-minded, made a small attempt at trying to calm my dad by explaining that exploration and sex were a normal part of life, even for teenagers. Though she was just trying to help, it made the situation ten times more humiliating. The last thing any teenager on this planet wants is for their parents to think they are having sex. And I wasn't!
Long story short, Sebastian and I ended up being extremely late for school and I was hardly able to look him in the eye the whole ride there. It was becoming a joke how many people assumed I was having sex with him. I might as well just go through with it at this point. But just to be clear I wasn't - no reality existed where I would have sex with him. No reality at all.
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Wednesday afternoon rolled around sooner than I thought it would and instead of driving home like I normally would, I instead got into Sebastian's car. Surprisingly, he was actually the one who'd driven me to school this morning.
He'd asked me the day before if I minded coming home with him to help him look after his little sister while his parents were out for the evening, and for whatever, reason I found myself saying yes. And maybe, deep, deep down, in the incredibly diseased part of my brain, I kind of liked hanging out with Sebastian. Just a teeny, tiny little bit.
After we'd picked little Izzy up from preschool, Sebastian drove the rest of his way to his house. Once we'd arrived, Sebastian lifted Izzy out of the car seat and the two of us headed over to the house. I couldn't help but think that if anyone were to see us, we would kind of look like a little family.
As usual, when Sebastian opened the door, we were met with the sight of their family dog barking at us in excitement while turning around in circles. Sebastian lowered his little sister down to the floor with a smile who immediately started patting the dog.
Then standing back up again, she turned back to face Sebastian with bright warm eyes. "Come, let's play Barbies," she said as she grabbed Sebastian by the hand and started leading him up the stairs.
I let out a light snicker as I saw the very unimpressed look that crossed Sebastian's face at the mention of Barbies. I used to try and get him to play that with me all the time when we were kids, and he hated it then, and it appears he seemed to very much still hate it now.
"Okay, fine," he mumbled. "But only fifteen minutes."
"Fifi, you come too," Izzy called out to me as well.
Little Izzy led us the full way up the stairs and into her pretty pink bedroom. She threw herself down on the floor next to her playbox and started pulling out a large array of different shapes, sizes, and colors of Barbies. I didn't get a proper look, but it looked as though she had fifty in that ginormous box of hers.
Sebastian sat down cross-legged beside her. "Can I not have an ugly one this time?" Sebastian piped up rudely.
I reached across and slapped him on the leg before turning back to Izzy with a smile. "Ignore him, I'm sure all your Barbies are beautiful," I tried to assure her.
"No, they're not. Margret's ugly, that's why I give her to Sebby," Izzy giggled.
"See! I told you she does it on purpose!" Sebastian argued.
"Well, in her defence, they are her dolls," I shrugged, refusing to feel any sympathy toward him.
"Here's Margret," Izzy said as she held out a little doll for Sebastian to take. The second I saw the doll; I instantly knew why Sebastian wasn't too fond of her. Barbie had spiky red hair that was balding in places, and her entire head looked like it had popped off once or twice too many in its lifetime.
"Yay," Sebastian said drily.
"And this is your doll, Fifi," Izzy said as she presented me with a cute little Barbie doll with big brown eyes and long black hair.
"Of course, she gets the nice one," Sebastian muttered bitterly.
Ignoring him, I looked over at Izzy fondly. "She's a very pretty dolly. In fact, I think she kind of looks like you," I said with a smile.
Izzy smiled a great big grin before turning around and starting to rummage back around in her box. Pulling out two more dolls, she presented both of them with a smile. "This one's Sebby", she said as she shook a black-haired, tan-looking male doll. "And this is Fifi," she said as she shook a girl doll who was brown skin with long braided black hair. I stared at them with wide eyes in silence, finding them suspiciously accurate. It was giving me flashbacks to that time with Blaire and the voodoo dolls.
"Well, this took a turn...", Sebastian murmured from beside me.
Izzy cleared her little throat. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," she said in a deep voice, impersonating Sebastian's doll. Then moving my doll's hand over her mouth, she made her giggle.
Sebastian made an awkward glance over to me, clearly not expecting this weirdly personal plotline.
"I want to put a baby in you," Izzy giggled in a deep voice as she pretended to be Sebastian's character. Getting deeply concerned now that this was genuinely what Izzy thought of Sebastian and I's relationship, I watched on in silence.
"Erm...yeah, I'm pretty sure my doll wouldn't say that since my doll is only eighteen," Sebastian said with a nervous laugh.
"Shh, yes he would, I've heard you say it before," Izzy snapped at Sebastian before sticking her tongue out at him.
I immediately turned to look at Sebastian. "Erm... She's heard you say that before because?" I questioned slowly as I looked him up and down through deeply concerned eyes.
Sebastian rolled his eyes. "Oh calm, down. It was a joke. Rember that time you were at my house, and I jokingly asked you if I could put a baby in you. She's just talking about that," he explained.
Remembering the time he was talking about, I nodded, forced to let him off the hook.
Izzy re-cleared her throat once she had regained back silence. Once again, she made my doll giggle. "Of course, you can't, but I'll happily spit on you instead," she made my doll reply. I immediately bit my lip and desperately fought back the urge to laugh.
"Amazing," Sebastian spat sarcastically, looking less than pleased.
Ignoring him, Izzy continued and made Sebastian's doll get on his knees. "Please, you're all I think about. Just let me put one baby inside of you. I'll pay you I'm so desperate!" she made Sebastian's doll beg in a deep voice.
"Yeah, okay, no, I think we're done playing this game, Iz," Sebastian randomly announced with a forced smile.
"No, way continue, I was really enjoying it," I admitted with an honest laugh.
Sebastian shot me a daggered look before turning back to Izzy with a smile. "How about we watch a movie instead, huh? You can pick anything you want," he suggested softly.
Izzy immediately dropped her Barbies and started eagerly nodding her head. "Yes, yes, yes! Let's watch Tangled!" She said before leaping up to her feet in excitement.
"Yay," Sebastian muttered slightly sarcastically. I snorted, remembering that this was the movie that he was telling me that Izzy was constantly getting him to watch.
"We can watch it up here, I'll just go get my tablet," Sebastian sighed as he climbed to his feet.
The second he left out the door, Izzy looked up at me with a head tilt and smile. "Don't tell Sebby I asked, but how exactly do you make a baby?" she asked with a double blink.
My eyes widened in surprise. "Well...erm...," I started, tripping over my words. In panic, I wondered what stereotypical answer to go with – the stork, by magic or I'll tell you when you're older.
"Is it by kissing?" she boldly asked.
In a panic, I nodded my head. "Yes, definitely, that's how people typically make babies," I lied.
Luckily for me, Sebastian returned in quick time before she got a chance to sprout out another awkward question.
"Okay, found it," Sebastian said as he waved around his tablet.
Joining us back on the floor cross-legged, he placed the tablet in front of the three of us, and after pressing a few buttons, the movie soon started up on the screen.
"Yay," Izzy smiled. Then crawling over to Sebastian, she plonked himself down on his lap in the cutest manner known to man. Sebastian just chuckled and held him to her tight.
All three of us watched along in peaceful silence with Izzy occasionally singing the odd line along to a song. When it was only about half an hour into the movie, I felt a tap against my thigh. "Phoebe?" I heard Sebastian whisper.
Glancing over at him, I saw to my surprise that little Izzy was tucked up in his arms fast asleep like a cute little baby.
Sebastian gently adjusted her in his arm. "Do you want me to put her to bed so we can do a bit of studying in my room?" he whispered.
My heart jumped stupidly at the word studying, for some reason, in a way I didn't like. I blinked back at him twice, as I collected my thoughts. "Yeah, why not," I whispered back with a shrug, figuring it was never a bad idea to get a little ahead on homework.
On that word, Sebastian slowly climbed to his feet, with Izzy still tucked up in his arms. Walking over to the bed with him, I helped him draw back her covers so he could lower Izzy under the covers. Once in, he tucked the covers snuggly up underneath her chin before placing a soft kiss against her head.
As he made quiet steps towards the door, I followed after him and closed the door gently behind him.
Grabbing my bag that I'd left in the hallway, I followed him as he led me into his room. Sebastian wasted no time before flopping back on his single bed with a sigh.
"I'm so glad she fell asleep, I genuinely couldn't watch another round of Tangled," he muttered while staring up at the ceiling. Letting out a light snort, I took a seat at the edge of the bed beside him.
"Well, if you didn't want to watch Tangled then you should have let her continue playing Barbies then, shouldn't you have? I teased.
Sebastian shot me a flat, unimpressed look. "Don't even remind me of that game," he muttered drily.
I shook my head in amusement as I thought over some of the things she'd said. "I can't believe some of the things that come out of her mouth," I mumbled with a laugh.
"Tell me about it," he scoffed.
There was a moment of comfortable silence as Sebastian stared off into space while I did a nosey glance around at his room. I knew I should probably be using this time for studying but I couldn't resist having a little peak around.
That's when I spotted an adorable picture of him at nine or ten on the shelf, standing next to his older sister. He had a gap in his tooth from where he'd lost it and he looked like a cute boy version of Izzy. "Wow, it's so weird how much you've changed now," I mumbled as I stared off at the picture reminiscently.
Sebastian rolled around to face me and propped up his head with his hand. He looked me up and down in amusement. "Is that code for saying you think I'm hot now," Sebastian teased.
I rolled my eyes. "No, you're average at best," I lied quickly. What could I say, it was a necessary lie. The second I told him he was good-looking; his head would grow to the size of Jupiter itself.
Sebastian let out a light snort as though I'd told a joke. "You're such a liar, I know you're attracted to me. Any time I'm shirtless, you're always staring and when I pressed up against you and touched you when you were playing snooker, you completely lost your shot," he laughed, his eyes sparkling teasingly.
Embarrassed that his effect on me had been obvious enough that he'd noticed, I struggled to look him in the eyes.
I cleared my throat to gain back confidence and looked him up and down in unimpress. "I only got distracted by those things because they caught me off guard. But anyway, all I know is your ten times more attracted to me than I'd ever be to you," I scoffed.
"Really?" Sebastian said with a smile as he lifted an amused eyebrow. "What I think is that you think I'm just as attractive as I find you, but you just won't admit it," he stated boldly.
"Well, I guess you're stupid then," I shrugged childishly.
Sebastian looked me up and down as though sizing me up. "How about we play a game then to test that theory."
Curious to what he meant, I eyed him up and down carefully. "What game? I asked slowly.
"A game where we get equal opportunity to try and physically come on to each other. The first person to touch the other person back is the loser," he explained with a smile. It was a planning smile, a cunning one, and definitely a smile that I certainly should have said no to.
The two of us engaged in a silent stare-down for several seconds and before I knew it, my stubbornness had me slowly nodding my head. "Deal, you're on."
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Next Update: Thursday