Chapter 23
Aaron quickly jumped away from me and lunged off the couch into a standing position but not quick enough as my father walked into the Cooper residence in time to see out whole awkward dispute.
"Dad!" I said surprised. "What are you doing here?"
My father's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as he looked between a shocked Aaron and myself. "Well, I got home from work early but of course, I need a key to enter my own house! Which, I don't have because I wasn't expecting to come home to an empty house. I suspected you might have been with Jason.. but here you are with the other Cooper.." By this point Aaron bailed on me and left the living room with my dad. "Aaron Cooper, get your ass back in this living room right now!" He shouted towards the kitchen.
Aaron slowly returned to the living room, "Mr. Lee?" He asked cautiously.
"Do I want an explanation of why you were making out with my daughter on my neighbour's couch?"
"Dad, seriously, that's not what was going on!" Yes it was..
"I don't need an answer from you, Ebbs, the guy i always the one to come up with the excuses - it's a common fact!"
"I'm.. I apologise, Mr. Lee, it won't happen again." What? That's not what I want to happen! It was entirely the opposite of what I wanted to happen! He looked at his hands guiltily, as if he had been the one to steal out of the bon-bon jar.
"Calm down kid, of course it will. There's always been far too much sexual tension between you two. This was bound to happen!" My face dropped and so did Aaron's. Just don't knock her up or you're a dead man, Cooper. You hear me?" Aaron's eyes bulged out of their sockets. Did my dad seriously just say that? There was no sexual tension between us at all! Well, maybe a little.. "Guys, come on, close your mouths, you'll catch a fly!" He said chuckling. He walked over to the recliner and plopped himself in it, his feet up.
Aaron's mouth snapped shut. He was almost right to be afraid of my dad. He was a policeman and he was the one to restrain any criminals who acted up in the prison cells. A tall, baldy, strong, round man with the strength in his hands to squish a squirrel, but had a heart as soft as an 85 year old woman baking pink cookies for her grandchildren, when it came to his family. His only family was myself and my mum which caused him to be extremely over-protective when it came to us, but of course, he wouldn't hurt Aaron at whatsoever, especially as he was the son of his best friends. Sometimes i wondered how my mum and dad ended up married and having a child when they were completely different but the same also. He was a big friendly fatty with a bit of a temper and she was a small fragile woman with all the good sense of the family. We were all he had since he lost his parents in a car crash when he was 10 and he was an only child. Put into care, he was a very hard child to deal with and no foster parents could handle him, also not aunts or uncles could take him into their family when they had their own children. So this is why he was part of the police force, because he wanted to make a difference to other people's life and give them the best opportunity they could possibly have at life, and so he did this by taking out criminals which I respected and loved him for, although I rarely saw him. This was also the reason why I told my mum about all my problems because my father was way too over-protective of me, and this is was my mum was surprised when i first went out with luke - grr - because she had thought my dad scared everyone off way back in primary school when he picked me up from school with a scowl on his face, staring at each child in case they hurt me. Yeah, he was crazy, but we loved him all the same.
"Dad - leave!" I yelled at him.
"Aw, kid, you're really going to deny me my youth? I'd much rather stay here and annoy you both, plus, this couch is seriously comfortable!" He nodded appreciatively to Aaron who automatically looked away, Yeah, so my dad could be intimidating sometimes.. all the time actually!
"Bye, dad!" I said again.
"Fine, but I'll be needing that key.." He stood up and walked toward me with his hand out in front of him and a satisfied smile on his face, knowing he had embarrassed me and Aaron enough probably!
Once he left, Aaron turned to me and sighed gratefully. "Your dad is and intimidating man!"
"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that.." I looked around the room, at anything but Aaron, thanks dad for the awkwardness and unnecessary comments! "I should be going. Um.. I'll call you later?" It was almost a question. "Bye." Aaron just nodded and i left the house, leaving him alone looking terrified.
When I opened the door to my house, my mum bounded up to me with a huge knowing smile on her face. "Is it true?"
I played dumb. "Is what true mum?"
She rolled her eyes at me and grabbed my hand, towing me to the kitchen. "Come help me put away the groceries. We need to talk." Once in the kitchen, she picked up a bag from the floor and began handing me food items to put away. "So you and Aaron.. is it finally happening?"
"What do you mean finally?" I asked her, whilst putting tins of tomato soup away in the cupboard.
"Aw, you know, you and that boy were meant to happen. We've seen it for years! Me, your dad, Kirsty and Ronny. I think Jason somehow suspected, too, you should see his face when Aaron looks at you!"
"Wait up, what are you on about? For starters, me and Aaron are not together no matter what dad says!"
"Well how come dad saw you two have a smoochy session on kirsty's couch?"
I scowled at her. "We were not." were too, but she didn't need to know that, not until I found out where we stood with each other. I mean, that couldn't have been nothing, so what now?. "He tripped on something and I just happened to be half-sleeping on the couch." Lies. "Anyway, secondly, you've been talking about me and Aaron with his parents? What on earth is wrong with you all?"
She laughed at my comment. "It's no big deal. We - me and dad - have thought all along that you two had a connection and we wanted to know what you two were like at kirsty's to see if we were right, so i asked her. She agreed.. Ta da." She smirked at me. Connection.. really?
"That's wrong on so many levels. And we really have a connection?" Uh-oh, word vomit. I put my hand over my mouth to shut myself up. That completely sounded like a smug little girl who had a crush on someone.
My mum smiled at me. A genuine happy smile it was. "Yes! Do you like him? If you do you should really go for it!"
"No! Mum, shut up!" But I did, I knew I did. And somehow that light kiss I had seemed like it wasn't enough. I absentmindedly touched my lips with my right index finger and I could still feel his cold breath brush against my face. I'm so pathetic!
"Did you kiss!?" My mum squealed, looking at my hand against my lips which i abruptly dropped.
I sighed. "Yes." I looked to the floor for a moment and when i looked back up my mum was looking at me like a kids looked at their new bike on Christmas day. "Don't look at me like that!" Her grin spread wider across her face. "Look, don't say anything to Kirsty or Ronny. It might get to Jason and if he finds out he will kill us. Me and Aaron that is." Why was it that i like the thought of 'us'.
"I won't! My lips are sealed.. until you let me tell them.." she saw my face and immediately held her hands up in the air. "Fine, I won't tell them anything."
"Good, because there is nothing to tell!" I walked out of the kitchen then, being sneaky and leaving my mum to put away all the food that I would probably eat.
I walked passed my dad in the living room, sprawled across the couch watching TV. He turned it off when he heard me coming. "Hey, kid, anything I should know." He raised an eyebrow, obviously amused. I rolled my eyes and continued towards the stairs, heading to my room.
I fell down on my bed exhausted. I looked at my clock to check the time but it was only three o'clock. Three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and I had nothing to do. I picked up my phone that I had dropped on my bed and realised there was three text messages that I hadn't checked. I opened my messages, one from Brooke, one from Luke and one from Aaron which was sent only 2 minutes ago.
Brooke's message said: phone me, we need to talk gossip. I'll be over in an hour if you don't reply and I WILL wait for you.
I sighed and answered: I'll phone you soon. Not long in. worst date ever.
Luke's message said: I'm so sorry about today. Let me take you out and I'll make up for my ignorant behaviour xx
I deleted the message, hoping that if i deleted it i could somehow delete him! What a prick, there was no way I would fall for that.
I opened Aaron's with a lump in my throat. I reluctantly dragged my eyes to the screen. I didn't know what to expect whether it would be a good or bad thing. it said: we need to talk. My family are going out for an early dinner when Ronny gets home so I'll sneak through your window around 8 if you like it or not. See you then x
Yeah, Aaron didn't like his dad so referred to him as Ronny. He was a nice man but Aaron always claimed that his dad preferred Jason to him which was kind of true, because Jason was the nice one of the two. He behaved and was polite, he treated girls nicely and he didn't dress like a scary biker dude. I loved the biker look on Aaron and even though I hated to admit it, the bike was sexy as hell! i didn't reply to the text. If I said he shouldn't come over, he would come anyway, although i did want to see him.. And if I said 'yeah, please come over' he'd go all cocky and arrogant with me because he would know I wanted to see him. I knew him too well!
An hour later, Brooke became fed up with trying for answers about the date over text and phoned me. i didn't want to speak to her though, well not about what happened anyway. "Little bitch! I cant's believe he did that to you! Ugh, Luke is an ass!" She screamed down the phone. "When I get a hold of him I'm going to mangle his face so bad that not even a pug will recognise him!"
I smiled to myself. That was Brooke back to herself again! I laughed lightly to myself. "I don't doubt you will, Brooke, but there's no need to harm the poor boy anymore, I think he humiliated himself enough by simply texting me, I mean who does that after acting like a total prick?" Who was I kidding, I wanted Luke to be embarrassed further, he deserved it!
"But he deserves it!" She whined. Great minds think alike! "By the way.. How did you get home?"
Uh-oh, the dreaded question.. Answering this means I would have to spill my guts on how exactly I got home - including my detour because I wouldn't be able to keep it from my best friend. She knew me too well. "Well.."
"Eboni..?"
"I might have phoned Aaron.. but don't you dare jump to conclusions!"
"I already have jumped to conclusions! I can tell by your voice that there was a conclusion! So would you mind telling me how it ended!?" I could almost hear the smirk in her voice. Little bitch!
I sighed, internally whacking myself repeatedly with an iron pole. "Fine.. he picked me up on the bike..."
"The lovely bike that you adore so much? I can already see how this will end! He does that, you know. Purposely brings the bike to where ever you are so you can hold onto him desperately because he knows you're terrified of it."
To shut her up I replied, "I actually love that bike." But automatically regretted it because I just knew she would have some witty come-back to say and annoy me with.
"You like the bike? Are you being serious? Look what he has done to you already! How did it end? Him seducing you, probably." She trailed.
"No! That is not what happened!" I couldn't lie.. "We kind of kissed." I bit my lip, waiting for her response quietly.
"What? You kissed!?"
"I said kind of!"
"What on earth is that supposed to mean? Only you could get yourself into a 'kind of' situation!" I knew she would be rolling her eyes by now. She sounded mad, though.
I sighed - again - I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "Right, okay.." I went on to tell Brooke exactly what happened, leaving out nothing. I started from the hug and ended all the way yo the text which I never answered. She stayed silent the whole time and I had to ask at a few points if she was still on call to me because she was so quiet. "So now he's coming to speak to me and I have no idea what to say to him."
"Well how do you feel?"
Stupid question? "I don't know! On one hand I want to be with him as much as I possibly can and soak up every second I have with him gratefully. But then i think, well, he's the school bad-boy, school hottie, one of my best friend's brother, my next door neighbour and also my mum's best friend's son. It's awkward."
"In all fairness, the next door thing is useful for sneaking in at the middle of the night for a quick snog, feel and hug." I gasped quietly, although it was very useful! "He is a bad-boy, and I know that's why you are attracted to him - always attracted to the arse-holes." That, I rolled my eyes. "At least your parents trust him if he is their freinds' son." True.. "You can always get around Jason because he'll have to cave at one point."
"Very true." I noted how she missed out the hot part. "Brooke, can I ask you something?"
"Mmmm?"
"Will you answer honestly?" I pressed.
"Spit it out!" She said sarcastically and laughed for a second.
"Are you okay with the whole 'me and Aaron thing'? Whatever that is, I mean."
She was quiet for a moment which made me think she wasn't actually okay with it. He broke her heart.. "Yes. Why wouldn't I be?"
"I donno, I just thought I should make sure."
"Well, yeah. As long as you remember to tell me everything!"
"Deal." A smile spread across my face. I really hope she was okay with all of this.
We spoke on the phone for a little longer. I purposely didn't ask anything about her dad or the debt because I couldn't risk upsetting her although I did want to know. If she needed to tell me something she would do it in her own time when she was ready and whenever that was, i would be here for her as always.
After dinner, I made my way up to my room, telling my mum and dad who were cuddled up on the couch that I was going for a shower and watching a movie in my room before and early night of sleep. I took my usual shower and pulled my wet hair into a loose curly ponytail. I also put on loose black jogging trousers which were three quarter length and a dark purple strap top. I considered it as a same bet in stead of putting on pyjamas and waiting for Aaron.
I watched Lee Evans for a while until it was 8 o'clock and i realised that small stones were hitting off of my window at precisely the time Aaron said he would arrive. My heart thudded in my chest. I had no clue what he was going to say to me and i was desperate to find out! I anxiously made my way to the window and pulled it open, revealing Aaron standing underneath with a handful of stones in his hand. He dropped them when he saw me and began climbing up the gutter. "Be careful you idiot!" I hissed and stood aside the window for him to get in. It was almost too easy for him to climb up and land in my room. "Have you been practising that?"
"Of course! How do you think I manage to sneak in the house at the early hours of the morning?" He said seriously. I just nodded and walked over to my bed to sit on the edge. He followed my lead and sat beside me. "We need to talk."
I pulled one leg up on the bed, leaving the other dangling, and turned to face him. "Go on."
"I don't know how to say this.." SAY IT! "Whatever happened earlier, you have to forget it. We can't be the way we were back then." Wow, punch to the face much? I wasn't expecting that at all"We just have to stay friends, Eb. Is.. are you okay with that?" I nodded and tried to dodge eye contact with him but it was difficult because his eyes were boring into my own, like he was searching for my soul. "Look at me, Ebbs. Please." I looked to his eyes, seeing only pain and anger. What was going on? Confusion. "I'll be here for you whenever you need me, okay?" I nodded again and he leaned in to give me a weak and emotionless hug before he climbed back down the gutter and went next door to his own house.
I continued to sit, staring at my own hands, not knowing what to say or do.
Aaron's POV
I punched my room door with enough force to make my hand bleed. What had I just done? I had waited so long to finally have a moment with Eboni that we shared this afternoon, so why did I feel like I had to throw it all away!? Being as much of a wuss as I was, I can admit to myself that I was crazy about her - always had been. Ever since my mum took care of her after school at the beginning of my primary 6 because her parents worked.
Everytime I saw her, I wanted to hold her, kiss her, just hear her voice. Even looking at Eboni was enough. She was the perfect girl and I needed to be with her. But I wouldn't allow myself to be her 'reboud guy' after her horrible day with Luke the Sleaze. I knew she would regret it because what she felt today wasn't how she would feel tomorrow if I had gotten my own way. I would regret it if I knowingly pushed her into a relationship that I wanted but she didn't need. How could I live with myself if I had?
But I needed her in my life. I would be only her friend if that's what it took. As long as I was in her life in some way. I know, how much of a complete douche am I, becoming this crazy about her. My friends would tell me 'she's just a girl' but she wasn't just a girl, she was the girl. The one I needed to be with, with all my heart. Maybe some day she would need me in her life as more that a friend and I could wait until that day happily if that's what she wanted.
"Dude, what happened to you?" Jason asked, standing at the foot of my door and bit into an apple, crunching loudly.
"Punched the door." I replied, taking my right hand in my left and examining the damage.
"Why?" He scoffed. Crunching the apple loudly again - probably trying to make me snap.
"None of your business! Get out, now!"
"Don't get your panties in a twist!"
"If you don't leave in the next three seconds, I will hurt you!"
He laughed loudly and i stepped towards the door angrily. He took the hint and fled out of my sight leaving me alone. I ran my hand under the cold tap, shouting curse words through my teeth with the pain.
So that's chapter 23, ta-da! any feedback will be greatly appreciated whatever it is! Vote, comment, fan, bla bla bla! Until next time...