Chapter Thirty Seven – Show Time
We raised our glasses of orange juice. "Cheers!" We toasted. The sound of the clinking reverberated around the room. Ella giggled.
"This is hilarious. We're drinking orange juice on a Saturday night, toasting like it's wine," she said.
It was just the two of us and the four badboys sitting around in a circle. Of course, there were no textbooks in sight. Dean's mum had gone out of the house for dinner with friends, so the house was basically empty.
"The tree house still up?" Hunter asked.
"You bet your ass. It's never coming down. Riley wants to drag it out, but whatever," Dean replied, quickly shooting Dylan a glance with the mention of Riley.
"Let me show you something," Hunter said, holding out his hand.
All eyes were on me as I got up. I simply followed him, keeping my hands in my pockets.
"Cold," he commented.
He led me out to Dean's backyard. There was a huge tree in the corner, its branches reaching over the fence into the neighbour's house. Nestled among its higher branches was a wooden tree house with a green painted roof.
There were wooden planks affixed along the trunk of the tree leading up to the tree house. We climbed up and stood on the branches, leaning on the trunk and higher branches for support. Hunter pulled the wooden board away and I crawled inside.
I was pleasantly surprised when I wasn't greeted by a puff of dust. "It's pretty clean up here," I said.
"Of course it is. Dean keeps it clean. I think he cleans up every week. Back when his parents were still together, him, Riley and their parents built it," Hunter replied, resting the wooden board to the side of the platform outside the 'door'. "They built it so carefully, you'd have thought they'd put in a proper door," he laughed.
There were a few crates in the corner of the tree house. Hunter shifted over and sifted through them, pulling out a variety of videotapes, albums, photo frames and other bits and bobs. A smile appeared on his face when he pulled out a frame.
He dusted off the front and spun it around to show me.
There were four boys on the front, arms around each other's shoulders. The two in the middle – one with dark hair and the other with blonde – had a matching missing front tooth.
"Didn't lose all my baby teeth until year eight," he grinned.
"Glad you have teeth," I replied. "Still don't brush your hair, do you?"
"Effortlessly attractive," he joked.
The question popped up in my head again. Why me? The one I'd been avoiding all this time, in case this was all an illusion that would be destroyed when I heard the answer.
My curiosity got the best of me and I asked all the questions I needed answers to.
"Why me?"
"Honestly?" I nodded. I hesitated, worried that he was about to tell me it was a 'bet that went south' or a dare. It was weird how honesty could be so frightening. "It was all a coincidence," he answered. "The tutoring thing was a joke, but then Mrs Smith picked you. I guess I should go thank Mrs Smith," he chuckled.
"Seriously? I was expecting a little more of a story."
"Yeah. It's a little lame if you think about it, but hey, well worth it," he winked. I looked away as I felt the heat creeping up to my cheeks.
"Why are you showing me all this? Always being so open?"
"I want to show you that I'm being serious. I'm always messing around, and the whole back story is hardly super sincere. I really like you, and I just want to show you who I am, I guess."
My heart thudded. "Hunter, I like you just the way you are. You immature dork," I grinned.
---
Two weeks was over and I was praying I'd done sufficient revision to excel. My first exam was chemistry; it was also the only one I'd see Hunter before. It'd been two weeks and I still wasn't used to the whole labelling thing. We hadn't officially done anything, but we were official.
Swallowing and keeping my breakfast down was quite a task, but the walk to school would be a good chance to clear my head and get some fresh air.
I spotted the uneven mess of blonde hair that was Hunter, waiting outside the exam room. He broke out into a grin when he saw me. I forced a smile in return.
"I'm so nervous," I ended up saying.
He spun me around and put his hands on my shoulders, leaning down so that his emerald green eyes pierced mine.
"You studied. You're a genius. You'll destroy the exam."
"Ok." I let out a little laugh.
"Besides, today, you're playing offence. I'm your defender. I screw up the exam as I usually do, lower the average, chucking you into a higher percentile and ranking. That sound about right?"
"That's not really how the maths works..." He cut me off before I had a chance to explain that with the sheer amount of kids sitting the exam all across the state, him alone would be unable to affect statistics significantly.
"I've got your back."
"Uh-huh..."
"Literally. I'm sitting behind you in the exam. Haven't you looked at the seating assignment? Assuming I have your student number, and my student number correct."
He breathed in for a moment. "Breathe in and out," he instructed. "You're the smartest person I know, and I know you can do this. Okay?"
"Ok. I'm okay," I said shakily.
"You don't look okay..." He mumbled, pondering for a moment.
"My girlfriend is great! She's going to own everyone's asses!" He suddenly exclaimed, pulling me into a one armed hug.
"Please stop!" I shrieked, frantically looking around to see if anyone had heard. They had.
Then I was too embarrassed to have any room left over for last minute stress.
When those doors opened, I could go in, sit down, keep my head down and finish the exam.
The doors finally opened and we were let in according to our student numbers. "You've got his," Hunter whispered from beside me.
It was show time.
---
I DON'T LIKE BADBOYS...SERIOUSLY IS ABOUT ONE OR TWO CHAPTERS FROM COMPLETION (DEPENDING ON HOW I FEEL). I CANNOT BELIEVE IT HAS COME THIS FAR –SENTIMENTAL WEEPY TEARS-
TO SEQUEL OR NOT TO SEQUEL. TO SPIN OFF OR NOT TO SPIN OFF. SUCH DEEEEEP QUESTIONS.
ANYHOO, PLEASE VOTE, COMMENT & STAY AWESOME!