MOST of me was rationalizing that if a murderer was to come to my house late in the night and slit my throat, throwing pebbles at my window was probably the worst way to do that. Therefore, I was probably not going to get stabbed in the face.
Unless it was a really bad murderer, and then that could be a possibility, but my logic was betting on a little ghost girl with long dark hair and holes for eyes that wanted to eat my soul doing the pebble throwing.
That was much more probable.
And so I pulled the covers closer to my chest and eyed the offending window with a frown. As if the window itself was the cause of all my problems, and not whatever cursed entity outside, but whatever. I was shooting the messenger. I was going to die, probably.
A couple seconds passed and I kept a keen eye on the window with bated breath, hoping that maybe it was just a strange concoction of darkness and an overactive imagination. I was probably overreacting.
And then another pebble hit.
It was not a scream that followed, but it was not very dignified either.
Swallowing my fear, I slowly slipped off the bed, clutching the comforter to my body in feeble protection against any dark forces that lurked outside my window. I'd already checked my phone and neither Eva nor Savannah had texted me, so that possibility had been shot, not that they would ever resort to pebble throwing at midnight anyway. We all knew I watched too many scary movies for my own good, and so I had already accepted that this was going to be my death. May they say nice things at my funeral.
When I finally garnered the courage to peek outside, instead of death, I encountered something much, much worse. A groan began to climb up my throat, propelled by a thick annoyance I was growing all too familiar with.
Dropping the comforter, I pulled open the window and glared down to the sheepish grin that greeted me. I'd already lost any shame to my bare face and polar bear pajamas since our early morning squabbles, so it was more irritation than embarrassment that welled up inside me.
"What the hell, Powers? What is this? What made you think that in any universe, at any time, this was any kind of okay?" I harshly whispered to the boy below me, the terror quickly being replaced by burning exasperation.
Reese crossed his arms, mouth gaping as if he were shocked by my accusations. "I texted you! There was texting, and you didn't reply! I needed to come get your attention!"
I fixed him with a deadpan look. "That's because I was ignoring you. Because it is 12:30 at night and people do not expect replies in the middle of the fucking night!"
His determination refused to surrender. "I texted you at 10."
Rolling my eyes, I reminded myself that flinging my body outside the window to attack him was probably not what I should do. Probably. "Whatever, leave, I'm trying to sleep. That's what normal people, you know, do at this hour. Sleep. You should try it, I highly recommend it."
Reese did not seem very impressed by my excellently executed sarcasm. "We need to talk. Let me come up there, or you come down here, but talking will be had, Sandoval. I will throw pebbles at your window all night, and don't think I won't! I have no plans! My entire night is free! Just try me!" His arms were gesturing wildly, and it could have been due to the fact I had barely responded to anything he'd said in the past couple of days.
But this was just crossing lines and I was entirely (mostly) justified.
Thinking of Reese meant thinking of Tyler which meant thinking of the fact that we'd barely spoken since I may have essentially punched him in his penis. I clearly could not be blamed, my following actions were perfectly reasonable.
Feeling a fresh wave of mortification crash into me at the memory, I huffed and shoved the window closed again, not even bothering to entertain Reese with a goodnight. At least in my dreams I could enter a world in which I didn't always make a total ass of myself.
But as I began trudging back into the comforts of my bed, another pebble hit my window pane, and I realized that fighting Reese's stupidity was a lost cause. When I returned to shove the window open again, greeted once again by a grinning Reese, I sighed.
"Calm down, Romeo. I'll be down in a second to open the door. Keep it in your pants."
"Hey, if you think I give it up that easy, you better think twice. You've gotta buy me dinner to get some of this, Juliet," he said with a shit-eating grin, apparently easily appeased from before.
Rolling my eyes, I shoved the window shut again and hoped that our conversation hadn't woken up anyone in my house. Despite my mom's usual zen self she was a monster when woken up and my brother would probably insinuate a lot of things that had no business being insinuated.
As I padded down the shadowy staircase, it seemed we were safe, as only silence greeted me outside my bedroom door. Still, I took extra caution to skip the last creaky step, which always seemed to sound a million times louder at night, and darted towards the foyer.
When I pulled open the door, there stood Reese in front of me silhouetted by the pale shine of moonlight, wearing a cheesy grin. "See, now was that so hard?"
"I almost died," I deadpanned and turned on my heel, not even bothering to invite him inside because he had a tendency of doing that himself.
As expected, he kicked off his shoes and followed me upstairs silently, until we were both standing in my room with only a weak table lamp illuminating the space between us. A beat of silence followed, and I sat at the edge of my bed, cocking an impatient brow.
"And?"
He blinked, looking in all directions while standing in the middle of my room before deciding on the computer chair by my desk, collapsing into that. "We really need to keep an open line of communication. We're partners now, you know."
My eyes narrowed at him. "We've discussed no such thing. If anything I'd say business acquaintances. Very impersonal."
"You know, one day you're going to hurt my feelings," he mused with a smirk, leaning back into the chair and eying me with a spark of amusement that I was not too fond of, but irritatingly familiar with.
"Good."
Reese chuckled under his breath, shaking his head but the smile never faltering from his face. Despite the lack of sleep hanging on my shoulders and tugging down my eyelids, there was a vigilant pit burning in my stomach with Reese being in my room.
Even worse, despite how personal my room was, it felt oddly comfortable with him there, and I didn't like that feeling at all. He had this really strange way of making every place like his own personal home, and it was weird.
"Get on with it, your apparently very urgent matter," I urged him, irritation already seeping into my tone. "Despite you having all night, I don't. I've got a very full schedule of sleeping that you're so rudely interrupting."
He placed a mocking hand over his heart. "My apologies, I'll make this quick, princess."
My glare hardened at his new pet name.
"First, I've made two very gracious attempts at setting you up with Tyler, both of which were genius ideas that would have been ridiculously fool-proof if it was literally anyone else. Like anyone else, ever, would have been able to pull it off." He raised his brows at me.
"No please, do go on, I'd love to hear more about what an idiot I am while you're obviously trying to get something from me," I drawled, punctuating with a patronizing smile and my hands clasped in front of me, mostly for the purpose of not slapping him upside the head.
"All I'm saying is, a little appreciation would go a long way."
I scoffed. "Fine. You're appreciated. Now get out." I gestured towards the door, but he made no indication that he had any intention of leaving any time soon. Of course.
Running my hands through my fringe, I slumped farther in my seat. "You never make this easy, do you?"
He continued, unhindered. "I think two solid dates-"
"Arguable."
"- is enough to get like, a little tiny hint about Savannah. Like maybe you could be like, hey, you know, Reese isn't absolutely terrible like I've been probably saying this entre time," he suggested, shrugging innocently with a persuasive hum.
"So lie?" I corrected.
His shoulders dropped. "I'm not absolutely terrible, you know. Maybe slightly not the best at times, but I'm not Satan." He looked to me, those amber eyes reflecting earnestly in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.
I hummed in thought, tapping my chin while purposely looking away and to the ceiling for answers. "You say that, and yet, all I see are horns and a trident."
Reese was betrayed with a snort and grin, and I realized that I was no longer consumed by that tense sensation as before. As my muscles relaxed and the sleepy sensation begin to swathe me whole, I blamed the lack of sleep for any weird things I said or did.
"She loves strawberry milk."
He paused. "What?" Reese's eyes searched my face, causing me to look away at the intense scrutiny and a slight tinge of warmth to surface.
"Savannah," I clarified. "She loves it, if she could, it would be the only thing she would ever drink."
The lack of sleep was making me go stir-crazy, that was it. The moonlight was causing lunacy. I could not be held responsible. He was using nightly black magic to force me to say strange things.
There was a beat of silence that flooded between us, and then he pointed at me with a broad grin slapped across his face "Aha! You-"
"Don't get weird. Don't psychoanalyze this."
"-are totally helping me! I've done it! I broke you down! We are officially partners in crime! You can't run from this now!" he whisper-cheered, shaking his index finger at me with a newfound vigour that I was hoping to avoid.
"I take it back. I take it all back, I regret everything, get out of my house," I demanded, refusing to meet his gaze as I pointed towards the door, feeling an embarrassed surge of heat seize my face. "Now."
His cheesy grin never faltered as he stood up from his seat, still shaking a knowing finger at me. "Oh, this is glorious, Sandoval. I knew this day would come."
"God, get out," I groaned. "Is that all you came here for, really?"
He seemed to be mentally slapped with a reminder as he paused, and I forced myself not to roll my eyes. "Oh yeah, Britta's having a party on Friday. Wyatt will be there, alcohol will be there, you need to be there. It's imperative. Master's orders."
"Please never refer to yourself as master again, and get out of here. Now."
He grinned and waved back at me. "Well good night, dream of sweet, sweet Ryan Gosling tonight!"
I was going to kill him.
***
A million years later...
ALAS I know it's been a while, but school/exams have killed me and it is my resurrected ghost that has come back to post this chapter. I hope you guys are still around! There's more to come! And I miss writing Reese and Stella, haha. Anyways, hope you guys liked this chapter! Thanks for reading!
And dedicated to MonsterXxXx for sticking around with these even though I'm a terrible author, haha!