Porter's POV
“So let me get this straight, not only did you spill water on the poor boy, but then you manhandled him, and bolted?” my mom clarified with a grin, barely containing her laughter. She handed me another plate and I placed it in the cupboard before giving her a scowl.
“What was I supposed to do?” I replied. “You know what happens when I stay in one place for too long. He should feel lucky I wasn't holding any hot coffee.”
“Well at least he got a nice pat down from a pretty girl out of it,” she replied with a laugh. I threw her a look and grabbed the cup she shoved my way.
“You know most normal mothers would feel mortified on my behalf,” I told her as I reached up on my tiptoes to place the cup next to the other ones on the top cupboard. I heard her snort behind me and I rolled my eyes.
“Well, that ship has sailed, honey, so I'll just stick to embarrassing you. That normal enough for ya'?” she asked and I turned to give her a resigned look.
“Do I have a choice?” I asked.
“Not really, but I like to give you a false sense of security now and then.”
“Gee thanks, mom, that's really nice of you.” I grabbed a kitchen towel and dried my hands before tossing it at her, she caught it right before it landed on the floor in front of her and did the same, tossing it on the counter once she was done. “I'm gonna grab my stuff and go out to the garage.”
“Did you finish the last painting you were working on?” she asked and followed behind me as I made my way to my room.
“No, not yet. I'm just not feeling it with that one, so I'm gonna continue the one of our old house that I started yesterday,” I replied as I entered my room and gathered as many painting supplies as I could carry, before tucking the half done canvas under my chin. Praying that I didn't drop anything, I made my way to the garage.
“Okay, I'll leave you to it, I'm gonna go watch some porn,” she answered, nonchalantly and I almost stumbled on my own two feet as I made my way to the garage.
“Mom!”
“What? God, don't be such a virgin.” I shook my head as I closed the door leading out to the garage, effectively cutting off anymore of her crude comments. Walking over to the large wood table leaning against the wall on the right side of the garage, I carefully placed my brushes and paints on it. Making sure everything was away from the edge, I grabbed my canvas and placed it on the black easel, carefully moving it until it was facing the garage's sliding door. When I opened it, the sunlight would hit the canvas just perfectly.
Once I had the garage door open and the sunlight was giving me the perfect lighting to work in, I was slowly slipping into the state my mom liked to call 'spacey Porter land'. It was, in her words, the land where anyone could sneak up behind me, place a chloroformed-cloth over my nose, drag me out of the garage, kidnap me and I'd wake up wondering when I'd left my garage.
And that was exactly what happened to me that day. Well...except for the chloroformed-cloth...and the kidnapping part...and the bewilderment. But definitely the sneaking up behind me part. That part did happen.
“I think you need more black on the bottom part,” a deep voice said behind me, making me jump up off my stool at an ungodly speed, a shriek leaving my lips as I spun around, a brush with green paint on it in my hand. My hand flew to my chest as my heart hammered in my chest, my breaths coming out in loud huffs.
My eyes widened as they fell on the two faces in front of me. Standing in my garage were the hurricane twins. One splattered with green paint, his jaw set in an annoyed glare, while the other stood staring between us in gleeful disbelief.
“Is she gonna spill something on you, every time we see her? Because if she is, and please say she is, I volunteer to be witness to it,” the lucky twin who for some reason seemed to escape my path of destruction every time we crossed paths, grinned and swiped his finger through one of the green dots on his brother's face, making it a bigger smear.
Turning his scowl on his brother, the poor unfortunate soul who seemed to somehow always end up in my path of destruction, slapped his hand away.
“Um, oh god, I'm so sorry...well, actually...you kind of walked into that one...I mean, who the hell sneaks up behind someone when they're alone in a garage?” I mumbled, mostly to myself, as I rushed over to the table and fumbled around, knocking some of my stuff over, until I finally found what I was looking for. Heading back over towards them, I handed him the damp towel.
He nodded his appreciation, before stepping around me. “I still think you need more black on the bottom, right...here,” he said as he pointed out the spot he was talking about. Letting out an indignant huff, I moved pass him and grabbed the canvas off the easel, placing it on the table, facing the wall and out of their sight.
“Um, are you two lost?” I asked, my eyebrows drawing together in confusion. It was the only reason I could fathom as to why they would be standing in my garage.
“I don't think it's possible for anyone to get lost in this place,” Golden boy Cavanaugh, replied, seeming genuinely concerned with whether anyone could get lost in this town. Now that I thought about it, it was next to impossible. There was nowhere to go.
His brother however seemed more interested in what I was wearing. I felt my face start to get hot as I shoved my hands in the pockets of my large overalls. Somehow under his scrutiny they felt too large, the crop top under it, too small, and my lack of footwear cavalier. I didn't know why it bothered me so much that he was seeing me like that, most days he was just another face in the hallway at school. So why was I discreetly trying to tuck away any stray hairs that had managed to escape my bun?
“How exactly did you two end up in my garage, again?” I asked them as I walked past them towards the wood table that held my stuff and made myself busy by rearranging my brushes and paints. I could feel their eyes on my back and I fought against the urge to run to the door next to the table and hide in my house until they left.
“We need your help, well, not we, actually, Brady does. I'm just here to laugh at him when you tell him to crawl back to whatever hellhole he crawled out of this morning,” Caden, I assumed as my back was turned to them, spoke up. It was next to impossible to tell their voices apart. It was almost as if the gods decided that one of them wasn't enough to torture us mere mortals. Two. Two of them. It was almost like a sick little joke.
“You do realize we're twins, right? If I crawled out of a hellhole, its most likely you did as well,” the other one retorted.
“That might be so, but I still managed to look good doing it.” I rolled my eyes and whirled around with a scowl.
“Um, hello? Remember me? Yeah, I still don't know why you're here,” I said, raising an eyebrow when they both calmly turned towards me and gave me blank stares.
“Right. I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend,” one of them answered. I was able to tell which one by his clothes. Although identical and almost impossible to tell apart, the twins had one very obvious difference; their personalities. That personality was reflected in their style.
While one-Caden; golden boy-wore mostly jeans, his Letterman jacket and sneakers, the other one-Brady, rebel without a cause-always wore a black leather jacket, dark shirts and chealsea boots. If the pictures in the hall of fame were anything to go by, Brady followed his dad's footsteps in every sense of the phrase. Even wearing a jacket that resembled the one his dad wore on the day the pictures were taken.
I stared at them dumbfounded, his words hitting me like a brick. I waited a few seconds for them to laugh and yell 'Ha, got ya', sucker!'. But none of that came. Instead, they stared at me expectantly, almost as if waiting for me to work it out in my brain and go along with it.
Yeah, no, that was definitely not happening.
“This is a joke, right? Haha, you can drop the act now, I get it. You're getting revenge for the water. Funny. Very funny.” I looked around the garage. “So where are the cameras?”
They gave each other a look before slowly turning back towards me. “It's not a joke, Porter,” Brayden chose to speak up.
“H-h-how do you know my name?” I nervously asked him, my palms starting to sweat.
“You're kidding, right?” Caden laughed in disbelief and I raised an eyebrow.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing, he's an idiot. I was the favorite, my mom dropped him on his head every day,” Braden replied, throwing his scowling brother a look before turning back to me. “Anyways, you and me, pretending to date, sound good to you?”
“W-what?”
“Where is your room?” Brayden replied, throwing a glance at the door behind me. I moved into his view to block the door, subconsciously and he gave me a blank look, seeming almost bored. “We should probably discuss this in private. Is your mom home?”
“She's watching porn,” I replied before I could stop myself, groaning when they both gave me curious looks.” I swear we're not a family of deranged perverts. I don't even watch porn...at least not as much as she does. Not that I would know my mom's porn watching habits. We don't watch any together or anything...that would be weird.”
“No weirder than this conversation,” Caden mumbled to himself with a chuckle.
“We're not here to judge, we're porn people. I mean, who isn't? It's a really good way to relieve stress,” Brayden added.
“Um,” I mumbled, shifting on my feet, “are you high?”
“Your room, where is it?” he asked again, ignoring my question. My eyes shifted away from him when his brother moved toward the stack of unfinished paintings leaning against the back of the garage. Brayden's eyes followed mine and he sighed, impatiently. “Hey, nut sack, she doesn't like you looking at her paintings. Get the fuck away from them and go sit in the car.”
Caden turned around with a raised eyebrow, “You do realize that I have the keys and can leave you stranded here, right?”
“I'll rip your arms off if you do, so go ahead, make my day,” Brayden replied with a challenging stare. His brother gave him the middle finger as he headed to the car, throwing me a wave on his way out the garage, and leaving me alone with his brother.
Uh oh.