The Boys Next Door
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Chapter 12
Saturday 10th September 2011
9.15am
*Stephenie*
I woke up and my head felt heavy and my eyes all groggy, like when you don’t take all your make up off the night before and you end up with panda eyes, and your eyelashes all stick together because of the mascara. I could see faint light between the slits in my eyes as I squinted. I tried to lift my legs up but I couldn’t. Something heavy was on top of them. Or should I say someone.
I ended up rubbing my eyes, which was a bad idea as now I would definitely have panda eyes and I would probably have bits of old mascara floating around in my eyeballs. Great. But I could see now, so I guess that’s all that really mattered.
Jeremy was practically laying over my legs at the bottom of the bed. No wonder why I couldn’t move them. He was snoring slightly and I could feel his breath tickling my bare leg.
I shook my head... he was nuts.
I felt something ticklish on my neck as well so I turned slowly to find Cole’s face infront of mine. He was also sound asleep like his brother. It must have been his breathing. I took in every inch of his handsome face; from the high cheekbones to the strong jaw and that tiny scar at the top of his forehead where he fell over a few years back and a stick stabbed him in the head. I laughed quietly at the memory, we were playing cops and robbers, he was the cop and he had a stick pretending it was one of those batons. And it was that stick that made that scar.
Ha that sounded a bit like Harry Potter. Except all we needed to do was change Stick to Wand.
My gaze drifted downwards towards his lips. Those lips that kissed me only a few days ago. I wanted to feel them against mine again. Velvety soft and just amazing. Maybe I could just give him a quick peck? He wouldn’t know. But then again Cole was a light sleeper. Unlike most boys I knew who could sleep through a hurricane.
Maybe it’s best if I didn’t, but then I couldn’t help but remember the song he had sang to me last night. It was the most beautiful song I had ever heard and it felt as if he was actually singing the song to me, about me. The emotion he put into it, was brilliant.
Jeremy jerked slightly in his sleep and before I could do anything he rolled of the end of the bed. “Ooomph!”
“Ouchh!”
I widened my eyes slightly, trying to contain the laughter that was threatening to escape me.
“What-what was that noise?” stuttered Cole who had abruptly sat up and was also rubbing his eyes. He looked so cute just then, his blonde mop of hair all messy and his face showing signs of having just woken up. When he saw Jeremy slowly picking himself up from the floor his mouth lifted up into a ghost of a smile.
Myself, I was surprised Jeremy didn’t sleep through the falling off the bed.
“Why are you on the floor?” Cole asked looking sleepily amused. Jeremy stretched and yawned.
“Isn’t itobviouss. I justfell off thebed.” He slurred. Wow, how much did he have to drink last night.
Cole suddenly looked at me and then at our proximity on the bed, his eyes widening. Then I just kind of realised what this looked like. Well nothing happened. I mean I still had my clothes on. It’s all good! And plus Jeremy was lying on my feet.
“A little help here?” murmured a voice on the floor. I peeked over the side of the bed to see Cindy lying on the floor. Jeremy must have fallen on top of her.
“You crushed my leg!” she accused Jeremy whilst he was beginning to haul her up. She turned to me. “Your boyfriends a big fat lump.”
I laughed, “oh yeah, he was practically lying all over my leg. I can’t feel the circulation now.” I complained. It was true, I had pins and needles in my feet.
Only just then did I realise that me and Cole were still pretty close in the bed and Cindy was in here. I was supposed to be dating Jeremy! I stealthily moved away a couple of inches from Cole. He frowned a little but didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, great party last night! Like always!” Cindy said enthusiastically.
“Ummhmm,” agreed both the boys. They looked as if they were ready to fall back to sleep again. Well it was only nine. On Saturdays they usually wandered out for some breakfast at about eleven, and that wasn’t after a wild party. I, on the other hand had to be at work for the lunch shift which meant that I should probably get up and start to get ready.
Cindy had already bounded out the room, I seriously don’t know where she got her energy from. I was about to get up and follow her when an arm grabbed mine pulling me backwards slightly.
I saw Cole smirking at me. “Where you going? Don’t you want to have a little lie-in?”
“No, some of us have to go to work, remember?” I said, noticing that he hadn’t actually let go of me yet.
“Yeah, but that’s in a couple of hours. Just five minutes?” he put on a sweet little puppy dog face.
“Why?”
“Because your warm and snuggly.”
I burst out laughing. “Snuggly? Is that even a word?”
“I have no idea, I think I’ve heard it before, but it sounds a bit weird doesn’t it?” Cole said laughing to himself as well.
“Okay five minutes. That’s all.” I said and before I could say anything more I was pulled further back and was leaning against Coles chest.
It felt so nice and comfortable just laying hear, feeling the rise of his chest and his heartbeat, whilst he played with the tips of my hair. I could get used to this, fast, and at the moment I was in real danger of actually falling asleep and missing my shift.
I purposely tried to keep myself from falling asleep by counting his heartbeats. I got to about 400 before slowly moving off of him and propping myself up on one elbow to look at him. His eyes were closed again and I was guessing he was asleep. Okay time to go Stephenie, so that no one comes in and thinks that your some creep staring at your ‘boyfriends’ brother.
I managed to get myself of the huge kingsize bed and stumbled towards the door, avoiding the leftover pizza and the beer spillages. Yuck, I’ll leave them for the boys to clean when they woke up. Once outside the room I gained my senses a bit and found that we had all ended up in Jeremy’s bedroom so I turned left down the hall.
Then I made my way into the bathroom where I found one dude sleeping in the bathtub. Nice, I didn’t even know who half the people were crashing at their house. Probably Cole’s university buddies.
I squinted in the mirror and took in my reflection. Man, I looked bad. I cringed at the thought of Cole seeing me like this. I shouldn’t have because he’d seen me looking like crap a lot of the time. But somehow, this time it mattered. I turned the tap on a bit and scrubbed at my black eyes. Once satisfied that I had got most of the make up off I ran my fingers through my knotted hair, but they got stuck so I left it and sighed. I would go home and have a nice long shower then go off to work. Hopefully my father would still be asleep. He liked his lay-ins as much as the boys did, so there shouldn’t be a problem. But weekends were always the worse. Whenever I got home from work, and especially Sundays.
Saturday 10th September 2011
9.25am
*Stephenie*
I made my way out of the house, jumped over the fence and slipped in through the back door of my house, being extremely quite not to wake anybody. I tiptoed up the stairs to get my uniform then back down again to get to the bathroom. We had an odd house. It used to be a bungalow so they had everything they needed downstairs until they put the extension up. I did have a bathroom upstairs but it didn’t have a shower.
I was just making my way down the hall when I heard a voice clear behind me.
“Where have you been!?” my father demanded, his face was red and obviously hadn’t got much sleep. Maybe he had got in late from his drinking outing last night and realised there wasn’t anyone at home to hit. So now I was so gonna get it.
All the blood drained from my face. “Urghh...They had a party next door. Every year...” I faltered.
“I don’t care. Why didn’t you come home!?”
He was getting closer. I really didn’t want to get hit...the bruises still hurt from a couple of nights back.
“I fell asl-“ I started but was cut off by the doorbell.
My father ignored it at first probably assuming it was the postman and that Sinee would get it. I heard her opening the door and voices coming from around the corner.
“If you ever, ever don’t come home again...I will-“
“Stephenie! You has a friend at door.” Sang Sinee’s shrill voice.
“Tell them Stephenie’s busy,” muttered father.
“Oh but she has to go to work. He says.” Sinee said again.
“FINE.” Father said through gritted teeth.
I almost died of relief. He was about this close to hitting me, or whatever. I scooted past him and saw Cole standing in the doorframe. At that moment he was my hero, I could have just ran to him and given him the fattest hug in thanks. Not that I wouldn’t mind doing that anyway, but you know, probably not the best idea infront of your angry father. So much for that shower, but then again I would take being sweaty over a beating from my father any day.
“Thank you.” I mouthed at him.
He nodded ever so slightly, his gaze on my father behind me. He looked pissed and like he wanted to hit something.
“Should we go?” I asked him tugging on his arm, pulling him away from the door as I stepped past him. I didn’t want him to start a fight or anything.
“I guess.” He said through gritted teeth and reluctantly turned around, breaking the intense murderous gaze he had with my father.
“You look like a murderer. You know that right?” I joked, trying to lighten the situation.
“I would be if you’d let me kill that idiot.”
“Why do you care so much?”
“Stephenie, he’s hitting you. Of course I care about you. And I don’t know if I can just stand there and watch it anymore.”
“You aren’t watching it.”
“Might as well be, I mean I’m not exactly doing anything about it,” he muttered.
“You can’t do anything about it.”
“Why not? You haven’t actually told me why you won’t tell someone.”
“I can’t.” I sighed. “I’m not eighteen Cole. If I say something, I’ll be shipped off to live with my aunt who lives in Scotland. I won’t even get to see my friends or any of you again.” Especially you, I added in my head. “I don’t want to leave you guys. You’re my family as well.”
This dawned on him too and I saw his face form into a small frown again, like earlier when I had so subtlety scooted away from him on the bed.
“But as soon as your eighteen?”
“I’ll tell someone. I promise. But you can’t beat him up. I can’t have you going to prison for beating up my father. He’s not even worth it.” I said as we made our way over the fence.
“You don’t understand how hard it is for my not too. Even now. He’s- You have bruises all over your shoulders and arms Stephenie.”
“Cole! You are not under any circumstances to hit my dad. Clear?”
“I don’t follow rules.” He muttered.
“Cole!”
“Fine.”
“Why are you even up this early?” I asked. It was too early to go to work. Cole had just used that as an excuse for me to get out of the house so we made our way back to his house. Maybe, if we kicked the bathtub boy out, I could have a shower here.
“You went, and I could only assume that you went home.” He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the whole entire world.
“But you were asleep.” I said.
“Light sleeper remember,” he said smiling slightly. “I could tell the difference when you went. You’re surprisingly warm.”
“You said I was warm and snuggly.”
“I was half asleep and delirious,” he said. “I sometimes say things that are complete and utter crap.”
“So I’m not snuggly and warm?”
“It seems on this occasion I was right.”
“Well I have to say that you are rather snuggly and warm too.” I laughed lightly which caused him to laugh and too accidentally step on someone’s foot.
“Watch it!” the guy yelled from the floor. Did these guys just seriously choose a spot on the floor and just lay down and sleep?
“Well that’s what you get for using my house like a campsite,” challenged Cole. The boy on the floor grumbled and lifted himself off the floor and slouching out the door. “And that’s how you get rid of them.” Cole said looking bemused.
“That’s mean. You’re the one that stepped on him. You should apologise.” I scolded him.
“I don’t apologise, except on the odd occasion to my mum or you.”
“Aww. I feel so special...to be in the same boat as your mum.” I said holding a hand over my heart.
“You should be.” He said smirking.
“I really am.” I fluttered my eyelids. “And since you are so amazing at getting rid of unwanted people, could you please chuck out bathtub boy. I really need a shower.”
“Putting my skills to good use. I like it.” He said with a wink and ascending the stairs with me behind him. “Speaking of, like me to join you? You might have some trouble washing your back...” he raised his eyebrows suggestively making me laugh again yet also making my heart race. If only he actually meant that for real?
“Umm, I think I’m good actually. And if I did, I would ask my boyfriend. Not you. Sorry...” I said back, biting my lower lip.
“Damn. Oh well, looks like I’ll have to use my other amazing skills. Like making toast! How many pieces of bread?”
“Two please...butler.” I said.
“Butlers don’t cook.” He looked at me deadpanned.
“Shut up.” I said and scowled.
“As you wish ma lady.”