“Are you happy to be on our way back home?” Freya asked me, turning around in her bus seat so she would now be looking at me. “I wouldn’t blame you if you are.”
“Well,” I sighed, crossing my legs. “I’m kind of happy that I get to go back to a town where I know I won’t be hunted down by weirdos.”
Bennett stretched out in seat next to me. “Well, you still have to deal with Maxxon, and he’s a weirdo.”
The aforementioned boy, who was sitting next to Freya in front of us, raised his hand and flipped our best friend off, not even raising his head or looking back at us to do so.
“Aw, come on, Maxxon. Don’t be like that,” Bennett frowned, feigning hurt feelings as he placed his hand over his heart. “You’re breaking my heart!”
The other boy now looked at us over the back of his seat. “I think the weirdo she has to deal with is Mr. Deveraux,” he grumbled now, his eyes narrowed at me.
I was giving him a look that told him I was not in the mood for any of this right then. “Actually, you’re both weirdos. And I have to deal with both of you. So I lose whether I’m here or there.”
Maxxon rolled his eyes at me before turning back around and facing forward in his seat. Freya stayed practically dangling over the back until the bus driver finally told her to turn around.
“I still think it’s cool that Mr. Deveraux saved you,” Freya informed me now. She wasn’t looking back at me any longer, but instead practically talking through her seat instead. “He was like a knight in shining armor!”
I made a face. “Not really.”
“Yes really!” she insisted.
“Can we stop talking about how awesome Mr. Deveraux supposedly is?” Maxxon now snapped, not looking back at us either. “I’m tired of hearing all the girls gush about how amazing he is when he’s just an egotistical jerk who needs to keep his nose out of other people’s business.”
“Someone’s jealous,” Bennett sang, but only quiet enough so I would be able to hear. I rolled my eyes at him.
After we were dropped off at school, I got into my car that I had left in the parking lot three days before and I was on my way home. I was really glad that I would be able to sleep in my own bed again.
After catching nearly every red light, it took me nearly twenty minutes to get home, even though it normally took five. Now, I was in even more of a bad mood.
The first thing I saw when I opened my front door was a suitcase. Then, after looking around, I saw another one. They belonged to my parents, I knew.
“Um…” was all I could say as my parents made their way down the stairs.
“Sadie!” my mother smiled, immediately coming up to me and giving me a hug. “I’m glad your back!”
I had only been gone for three days, yet it felt like months. What the heck was going on? Were they going on a vacation or something?
“Uh, what’s going on?” I asked them once my mother pulled away from me. “Are you guys going somewhere?”
“Well, not just your father and me.” My mother smiled nervously, and I didn’t feel so great about this. “You and Riley are also going to be out of the house for a little while.”
I blinked at her. “Why?”
“We have termites,” my father informed me as he walked by me and out the door with one of the suitcases. “They’re going to be fumigating.”
I had just gotten back, and now I was going to have to be out of the house once again? Where were we even going to be staying?
As if reading my mind, my mother said, “Your father and I will be staying at your grandparents’ while the house is getting fumigated so we don’t have to waste money on a hotel.”
I blinked at my mother now. “But Grandma and Grandpa leave over an hour away. What am I supposed to do about school?”
My father now walked back into the house, and my mother gave him a look. What was going on?
“Well, that’s why your father and I are only going to be staying there,” she continued now, and I could tell she didn’t want to say what she was about to tell me. “And you… Well, Riley got you a place you two could stay.”
I just stared at her. “Alright. Where?”
She said nothing, so I waited. She looked at my father, then looked at me, and stayed silent. This was starting to annoy me a little.
“Mom,” I started now. “Where am I going to be staying?”
“My house,” a new voice now said, and I almost shouted when Ethan made his way down the stairs. “Well, my parents’ house, if you want to be technical, but I live there too, so there’s not really any difference.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or say. They were moving me in… with Ethan? Were they absolutely insane? It was already bad enough that I had to deal with him at school! I didn’t even care if it was only for a couple of weeks!
“You still live with your parents?” I demanded now, my hands moving to my hips. “Are you that much of a loser?”
“Hey,” Riley now called out from up the stairs, making his way down with his own stuff. “I’m still living at home too, you know! Am I a loser?”
“Kind of.”
He pursed his lips, and said nothing in fear that I would insult him again.
I now took a step toward the stairs. “Well, I have to go pack—”
“No need,” Riley interrupted, holding up one of my duffle bags now. “Ethan and I packed for you.”
I blanched. They had been in my room, going through my clothes? Riley didn’t matter to me all that much, but Ethan… Who knew what he had seen? It wasn’t like I had anything to hide in there, but I had things like underwear and bras! That was the last thing I wanted Ethan to see!
“By the way, Johnny left while you were gone,” my mother informed me, even though I already knew this. “But he said he’s going to come back in December to see your dance show and he’s going to bring Elizabeth and the kids, too.”
At least I got some sort of good news. If they had told me I wasn’t going to see him for another year, I would have been even more pissed.
When my mother and father both went outside to go put their things in their car, I turned toward my brother and his best friend and glared. “You went through my stuff?” I demanded.
Riley nodded. “Yeah, we thought it would make things easier on you, considering all the things that happened to you during your trip and stuff.”
My eyes now narrowed at Ethan. “You told him?”
“How could I not?” he shrugged uncaringly. “What if you somehow develop an irrational fear of cliffs… or volleyball, or something?”
How was he a teacher?
Riley rolled his eyes and picked up my duffle bag, making his way out of the house and to what I assumed was Ethan’s car, since his was apparently being fixed.
So now it was just Ethan and me, which made me feel very uncomfortable. Not only could I not stop thinking about our kiss, but he had been inside my room, going through my clothes!
“You have very cute bras, by the way,” he winked at me, and my eyes went wide. “And don’t even get me started on your underwear.”
He made his way out of the house, but I was frozen. Well, now I could never look him in the eye ever again.
I made my way up the stairs, just to make sure the idiots had packed me enough clothes for however long we were going to be out of the house for. I had the clothes I had brought on the field trip, but they were dirty and still sitting in my car. I was going to wash them later tonight, but I guessed that now I was going to have to at Ethan’s house.
When I opened my closet to see most of my clothes were gone, I made a face. Yep, I had enough.
I bundled up other belongings I would need in another bag and made my way down the stairs and out of the house. Ethan and Riley looked like they both assumed I was going to ride in Ethan’s car with them, but I scowled at them and continued on my way to my own car. I’d just have to follow them, considering I couldn’t remember where Ethan’s house exactly was.
It took only five minutes to get there, and it freaked me out a little that Ethan lived so close and I didn’t even know. But now, he was going to be living even closer. Like down-the-hall closer.
This was terrifying. I already had to deal with Ethan while I was at school, and now I was going to have to deal with him before and after. Man, what would everyone at school think if they found out?
I didn’t want to think about that. Rumors would be flying everywhere, and considering that Ethan and I had already kissed twice, I didn’t want to take any chances of anyone thinking that we were actually together.
“Sadie!” Ethan’s mother Brianna greeted me with a hug the second I stepped foot in their house. “It’s been a while since I’ve last seen you! How have you been?”
“Good,” I answered, forcing a smile. I wasn’t sure if it was a lie or not.
Brianna now turned toward my older brother. “And Riley. You’re over here so much that you practically already live here!”
I wondered how much time my brother really spent here. Actually, I wondered how much time both of my brothers had spent here. Both of their best friends had lived in this house when we were growing up.
I greeted Ethan’s father Steve with a hug, and then he turned toward Riley and said, “I think I might have found the problem with your car. Want to come into the garage so I can show you?”
Riley nodded, seeming ecstatic over the fact that his old car was finally going to be fixed. I only rolled my eyes at him as he followed Steve out of the house.
“Ethan, why don’t you show Sadie to her room?” Brianna suggested, and I didn’t like the sound of that.
Ethan merely shrugged, starting up the stairs without even saying a word to me. He didn’t even look back to see if I was following him. I just stood there, staring after him.
“Go on, he doesn’t bite,” Brianna giggled, nudging me in the side gently. “He may seem scary, but he really isn’t. It won’t be so bad living here, Sadie.”
I didn’t believe her. I made my way up the stairs two at a time and finally caught up to Ethan as he made his way toward one room. He didn’t even notice that I hadn’t been behind him the entire time.
“This is your room right here,” he pointed to a door as we made our way closer to it. “It was supposed to be Riley’s, but I felt like it would be a better match for you.”
I made a face and looked at the closed door across the hall from mine. “Is that your room?”
Ethan laughed. “No,” he answered. “That was Zach’s.”
I couldn’t help but wonder how that room looked behind the closed door. Had they kept it the same way it had been after Zach left, or did they redecorate?
“Just a warning,” Ethan now started, leaning against the door of my new room and placing his hand on the doorknob. “An ogre used to live in this room.”
My eyebrows raised at him. “Excuse me?”
He chuckled, but ignored me as he opened the door and let me inside. He came in after me, leaving the door opened as I looked around.
It seemed like no one had been in here in years. There was dust on the shelves, and old books on the desk. Had this been Elizabeth’s room?
“I was really surprised when my mom told me that you were going to be staying here,” he told me now, and I couldn’t help but make a face. “I guess you were really surprised, too.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I snapped. “My parents just spring on me that I have to leave the second I get home. It didn’t help that it was right after the scariest trip of my life.”
Ethan’s eyes softened at the mention of this. “Hey, you’re safe now. Those guys don’t know where you’re from, so they couldn’t have followed you.”
I knew that he was right, but that didn’t mean I still wasn’t bothered by everything that had happened. We weren’t too far away from that beach. We were just a couple of hours away.
“Surprisingly, you’re not the first annoying girl that’s lived in this room,” he informed me, obviously trying to change the subject, and this confused me greatly. When he saw the look I was giving him, he explained. “My sister-in-law used to live in this room.”
“Maxynn?”
“I don’t have any other sister-in-law, do I?”
Well, there was me, but we both obviously knew that I wasn’t the person he was talking about. I rolled my eyes at him, turning away from him and examining the room. “Didn’t she live here, like, ten years ago?” I asked him.
“Twelve,” he corrected, crossing his arms over his chest and letting out a sigh as he leaned against the wall. “She lived here twelve years ago…”
“You have a crush on her or something?” I couldn’t help but question now as he stared at the bed, completely spaced out. “Because, I’m sorry to break it to you, but she’s kind of married to your brother.”
Ethan now looked away from the bed and shot me a flat look. “I didn’t have a crush on her,” he snapped, even though I already knew that. It was just fun yanking his chain. “I’m just thinking about how weird it is that it’s actually been twelve years already. I can remember absolutely despising her when we first met, but now she’s like a sister to me.”
“I can kind of remember how you used to be around her,” I told him now, having to think back to that time. I had only been five, and they had only been around me a few times. “I think I remember you making up a rhyme or something to annoy her.”
Ethan let out a sigh. “I made up a lot of rhymes.”
He didn’t seem to like thinking about the past, which I didn’t really understand. Sure, it was sad that we were now adults, at least in Ethan’s case, but that was how life was. We all had to grow up sometimes.
“Do you miss them at all?”
“No, they visit every once in a while since they don’t live far away, so I still see them,” he shook his head. “Especially Maxynn. But it’s not like I need to see them or anything. She’s an ogre anyway.”
“I hear someone talking about ogres!” a new voice now called out as they made their way inside. “It must be Ethan talking about me, right?”
Both Ethan and I were surprised to see Maxynn, her hands on her hips as she smirked at her brother-in-law. She looked the exact same, only older. Her black hair was down like it always was whenever I had seen her before, and she was wearing short sleeves so you could see the scars on her right bicep.
“What are you doing here?” Ethan finally asked her.
She shrugged. “Visiting.”
Ethan now looked at me. “See? I told you.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Honestly, I wasn’t so sure how well Maxynn remembered me. I hadn’t seen her in years, so there was even a chance that she wouldn’t even recognize me.
“Your mom called and told me two people were moving in for a couple of weeks,” Maxynn now informed her brother in law as she now wrapped her arms around him in a hug and kissed his cheek. He reluctantly did the same to her. “I felt like visiting just to see. Maybe it would bring back some memories.”
“It should bring back memories,” Ethan muttered. “Zach’s the one that showed you this room twelve years ago.”
A wide grin now emerged onto Maxynn’s face. “And now you’re showing Sadie this one. Maybe you two will be the ones getting married next.”
So she did know who I was. But that didn’t change the fact that I now felt very uncomfortable. Was she unaware that Ethan was now my teacher, or was she totally ignoring it?
When she noticed the awkward looks Ethan and I gave each other, she seemed to notice that something was up. Her eyes went wide, and she suddenly gasped. Ethan and I glanced at each other before we waited for her to say something.
“Are you two already married?”
I nearly fell over. Was she being serious? I wasn’t even eighteen! It was illegal!
“Damn it, ogre,” Ethan groaned, running his hand through his hair. “We’re not married! I’m her teacher!”
Maxynn now blinked at us. “Oh. Well, that complicates things.”
“It doesn’t complicate anything.” Ethan did not look happy. “We’re not in a relationship.”
“You know,” I started now, doing whatever I could to get us off of this topic. “You sound like a little kid when you call her ogre.”
Ethan’s face suddenly turned bright red. Had I managed to embarrass him?
Maxynn now snickered. “That’s because he’s been calling me that since he was a little kid. It’s kind of like a pet name.”
“It’s not a pet name!”
He covered his eyes with his hair, something I knew he did whenever he was uncomfortable or embarrassed. He did it whenever Anna was around. He did it both times after I had reacted badly to him kissing me.
“Well, you’re still her teacher and you’re living in the same house,” Maxynn reminded us, going back to this subject as if we somehow didn’t know. “At least Zach and I were in the same grade when I moved in here.”
I could tell Ethan didn’t want to talk about this anymore, and I finally agreed with him. Maxynn obviously thought something was up, and I didn’t want her to think that anything was.
“You bring your husband?” Ethan questioned now.
“My husband? You mean your brother?”
“Do you have another husband?”
Maxynn laughed. “Same as always, I see.”
It was so strange, seeing them together like this. When we were younger, they didn’t get along, even with their dramatic age difference. They would fight and bicker, and it was obvious that they totally despised each other, even more than regular siblings do. I never knew why, and I never knew how they finally made up.
“Where’s Zach?” Ethan asked again.
Maxynn jabbed her thumb behind her toward the door. “He’s downstairs with your parents and the kids.”
Ethan made a face. “Mom’s probably feeding them and trying to get them fat. You know how she is when she’s around her grandchildren.”
“Hey, you grew up in this house and you’re perfectly fit,” Maxynn informed him now, rolling her eyes and pushing his shoulder. “It’s the same with Elizabeth and Zach. Especially Zach. Let me tell you, he’s very—”
“Stop!” Ethan shouted, now covering his years with his hands. “I don’t want to hear it! Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it! I’m sure it’s something gross that I don’t need to know!”
I’d never seen Ethan act so… childish. Maxynn sure had an effect on him.
“He was like this all the time, when we were younger,” Maxynn explained to me, and Ethan glared at her as he removed his hands from his ears. “Whenever we kissed in front of him, he’d always whine and complain. Obviously, it’s no different now.”
Ethan let out a groan. “Are we going to go see Zach, or not? As fun as this conversation is, I think it’s about time we ended it.”
Maxynn shrugged. “Sure. You lead the way, demon boy.”
I didn’t get where that nickname came from, but I kept my mouth shut and didn’t ask anything about it. I figured it would be the best to just not get myself involved in their spats. Ethan started toward the door, but then turned toward me.
“You want to go see him?” Ethan asked, a devilish smirk growing on his lips. “Or are you too embarrassed to go and see your crush?”
“Oh, yeah!” Maxynn laughed. “I remember how she used to have a huge crush on him! She’d call him Zachy!”
I could hardly remember that. I did remember having a crush on him, but I didn’t know that it had been bad enough that I gave him a nickname. That was almost creepy, considering how much older he was than me.
I followed the two Deveraux’s down the stairs in silent. If I was lucky, no one would even acknowledge me any longer.
“Oh, Zachy!” Ethan called out once we got to the bottom of the stairs, and I felt my face immediately burn up. “Look who’s here!”
“Shut up, Ethan,” I snapped at him, elbowing him in the side as hard as I could. “I haven’t liked him since I was, like, thirteen!”
Realizing what I had just blurted, my face turned even redder when I saw that Zach was looking right at me. He was like an older version of Ethan; the same smirk and everything. It was actually kind of frightening.
“Hey, Sadie,” he greeted, but I still said nothing. “You and Ethan are still the same, I see.”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
Just like Ethan had predicted, two children were sitting on the couch nibbling on cookies. There was a girl with brown hair like Zach, and a boy with black hair like Maxynn. They didn’t even look up at us. They were too fascinated with their food.
Riley and Steve were obviously still in the garage, and I assumed that Brianna was in the kitchen. So it was just us. And two children.
“Guys,” Maxynn gestured toward her children, telling them to get up off the couch. “Be polite and introduce yourself to Sadie.”
The young boy and girl brushed their cookie crumbs off their hands and onto their clothes. Only the girl pushed herself up off the couch and made her way over to me, sticking out her hand for me to shake.
“I’m Jessica Katherine Deveraux,” she greeted, sounding very proper for her obvious young age. “I’m ten years old. It’s nice to meet you. Are you our new aunt?”
I almost choked on nothing as Ethan snorted. “She wishes.”
I didn’t look away from Jessica as I elbowed Ethan in the side. “No, honey, I’m not your new aunt. I’m just a good friend of your parents and your uncle. I’m also your uncle Johnny’s little sister.”
I guess you could call Ethan and me friends… I mean, he had admitted to me that I was an important person to him. Just because we fought all the time didn’t mean I wasn’t his friend.
“Jacob,” Maxynn now called out to her son. “Introduce yourself to Sadie, please.”
“I’m Jacob,” he muttered into his lap, so quiet that I barely even heard him.
Jessica glared at her brother. “Come over here and introduce yourself to her properly, you big baby!”
Jacob’s eyes sparkled with tears as he looked up at Maxynn. “Mama, Jessie’s being mean!”
“Stop calling her Mama, Jacob! You’re not a baby, you’re eight!”
Why did this girl remind me of Ethan so much? The only difference was that she was a lot louder than he had been at this age.
Zach suddenly scooped Jacob up into his arms. “How about you and your sister go help Grandma in the kitchen with dinner, okay?” he suggested.
Jacob nodded and wiggled himself out of his father’s arms, grabbing onto his sister’s hands as they made their way toward the kitchen. Though I knew they were completely different and fought a lot, I knew that the two of them really cared about each other.
“They’re a handful, but I love them more than anything,” Maxynn sighed, watching as her children made their way into the kitchen to join their grandmother. “Jessica’s really mature for her age while Jacob’s really shy.”
“I think they’re just a handful,” Zach voiced.
“Zach!”
“I’m kidding! You know I love them, too.”
Ethan rolled his eyes at his brother and sister-in-law, but I did nothing. I thought that it was really sweet that they loved their children, and each other, so much. I really hoped that I’d have a husband that loved me that much one day.
“Jessica and Jacob are really cute names,” I informed Maxynn with a smile. “How did you decide on what to name them?”
“Well, Jessica’s named after my mother,” Maxynn explained to me. “I got to name her, and Zach got to name Jacob.”
I nodded and turned toward her husband. “Where did you get the name Jacob, Zach?”
“I named him after the first girl I kissed,” Zach smirked, and Maxynn’s face turned red. I assumed this was something they had fought over a lot before.
Only one of my eyebrows rose. “You lost your first kiss to a girl named Jacob?”
“It was her last name, actually.”
Maxynn looked pissed. Ethan, however, looked like he was very unamused with what his brother was saying. He finally uttered, “You didn’t name Jacob after that girl you kissed.”
Zach’s seemed to challenge Ethan with his eyes. “Really now?”
“You’re going to give your wife a heart attack,” he said, gesturing toward his sister-in-law. “You know she hates it when you tell people that.”
Zach’s grin only grew now. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. He was really named after our grandfather, not the girl. It’s only a coincidence that the girl I first kissed had the last name Jacobs.”
“I really hate it when he tells people that he named our son after some other girl,” Maxynn huffed, her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned back into the couch. “So I tell them he really named him after Jacob from Twilight.”
And right then, I knew Maxynn Deveraux was my role model.
The younger Deveraux brother now took a seat next to the older Deveraux. It was so weird, seeing Zach and Ethan sitting beside each other. They would have looked like twins if Zach wasn’t obviously older.
“You should stop ogling, princess,” Ethan called out to me now, and I bit the inside of my lip when I realized I had been caught staring. “It may be something we’re used to, but it doesn’t mean we enjoy it.”
“You’re so modest,” I sneered, my arms crossing over my chest.
“You guys fight like an old married couple,” Zach snickered, but his face then turned into a sudden look of realization. “Wait a second…”
“We’re not married!” Ethan and I shouted in unison.
This was humiliating. Why did my parents think it would be a good idea for me to move in here? Even if it was only for a couple of weeks!
“I just remembered that Ethan’s already married,” Maxynn giggled now, and we all gave her a look. “Remember, Zach? He married Freya, like, twelve years ago!”
“Please don’t bring that up,” my teacher groaned now, covering his hands with his face before removing them to jab his thumb at me. “That’s her best friend.”
“Really?” Maxynn blinked now, turning back toward me. “How is Freya? Is she doing well?”
I nodded. “Yeah. She is.”
“That’s good,” Maxynn nodded. “It was the funniest thing, though, when they got married. Ethan dreaded every second of it.”
Ethan’s head was still in his hands. “And I still do!”
I really liked having Maxynn around. Instead of Ethan picking on me, she would pick on Ethan. And she made it look like it was so easy! Why wasn’t I able to do that? Maybe it was because I was younger than him.
Fifteen minutes later, Jessica stepped back out into the living room. “Dinner’s ready,” she informed us before stepping back inside the kitchen to continue helping her grandmother with whatever else she needed help with.
As I got up from the couch, my toe slammed against one of the legs of the coffee table and I was tripping. Before I could fall down though, Ethan caught me.
“Watch out,” he told me, his grip on me tightening as my face fell into his chest. We stood there for a moment, mostly because I was too shocked to move right away, but I then pushed away from him when I realized Zach and Maxynn were watching us.
“I have no comment…” Zach only smirked, continuing on his way away from us and into the dining room, his hands in his pockets. I was thankful for that.
“Okay, you two might not be married, but…” Maxynn started, looking from the youngest Deveraux and then back at me. “Are you sure you two aren’t going to get married someday?”
Ethan’s face turned completely red. “Shut it, ogre!”
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And finally, it starts to be like Beauty and the Beast a little more, with Sadie moving in and all. I was waiting for this chapter.
I really missed Maxynn and Zach, so here they are. Since the original book didn't have an epilogue about their kids, this is kind of like their epilogue. You get to learn about their kids a little bit. :)
And it's just their luck to have a kid like Ethan...
The song on the side was on the side of the first chapter of Let's Play a Game. D': Memories...
Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN!