A/N
Hey guys! I switched up the name Jake to James. I kinda thought of a better story line. Also, thanks for the support on this book. I really hope I can get back to "The Salvatore Sister" soon. Happy reading!
~~~~~
Splash!
Water shoots up my nose. I quickly sit up and cough loudly. What the hell was that? It literally felt like I was drowning. I take a few more deep breaths before opening my eyes.
"Good morning, sleepy head!" He yells.
"I'm going to fucking kill you, Alex!" I scream.
He's holding a huge red bucket. Are you kidding me?! He poured that full bucket of water... on me. My bed must be full of water. I hope this doesn't mean I'll have to get a new one. It's way too early to deal with this! I didn't even get the chance to brush my teeth and this idiot is throwing water all over me.
"Watch your mouth." He scolds.
"Get out!" I yell.
With that, he leaves and shuts the door behind him. The audacity he has to just do that... How did mom not catch him!
Now I have to wash my sheets and pillows. I get up from my soaked bed. He's going to have to answer to mom. I pick up my phone and go to the bathroom. I open Netflix and set it on my sink. I've been watching this one show called Pretty Little Liars.
"Honey, I'm trying to get to the stores early. Come down at around 10:45am." Mom softly knocks on the door.
I look at the time. It's 9:55am. That's enough time for a quick shower. Luckily, we live in Miami. It's always pretty hot out. It won't matter if I wash my hair. I'll just have to put it up in some braids.
~~~~~~
It's 10:20am. I'm already done. I glare at my bed. Just looking at it makes me so angry. Quickly, I pull the sheets and put it straight into the washer. Luckily, my bed wasn't drenched. It's fine. I shut the washer and take my time downstairs. It smells like mom made some waffles. Yum. I get to the dinner table. To my surprise, Alex is sitting on my seat.
"Nice." I roll my eyes.
Alex smirks at me. One of those mocking ones.
"Where's Chris?" I ask Jason.
"He left a couple minutes ago. He's still heartbroken." Jason rolls his eyes. "She wasn't that important anyway."
Oh? So mom and I weren't the only ones who felt that way. That's good to know. I still don't understand why she'd let her come over.
"Will you shut up already? Jessica made him happy. Don't you remember how heartbroken you were when Victoria dumped you? You never stopped crying like a little bitch." Dylan snaps.
"You really want to go there? You haven't even dated a girl. A little suspicious to me." Jason argues.
"To ovoid times like these." Dylan sips his orange juice.
"Boys! Enough! We do not curse in this household." Mom scolds.
I take my plate of waffles, eggs, and bacon and sit next to Dylan. The only spot left in the table besides the last corner chair. That's always going to be mom's seat. I pour myself some juice and take a bite of my eggs. I still feel a little tense around Dylan. He never answered my question. He just left.
"How's Miami?" I get a text.
It's from my cousin, Tyler. He never texts me unless he's bored. I guess this is one of those moments.
"It's crap. 😒. How's New York?" I text back.
Alex notices me typing. He drops his fork and clears his throat. Oh great. I can just imagine what he's going to ask me. Sometimes I wish I had a sister. Or be at least the oldest in this house. My brothers don't let me breathe and mom does absolutely nothing.
"Who's that you're texting?" He raises an eyebrow.
The rest of my brothers snap their heads to me, waiting for an answer. Let's have a little fun. It'll be the highlight of my morning.
"A guy." I shrug.
I can see my mom giving me a disapproving look. Doesn't matter anyway. They'll look stupid once they see who it is.
"It's shit. Miss you ☹️." Tyler replies.
I smirk. That's a lie. He's a good person to be around but I know he doesn't miss me. Our entire family is over there. Again, he's just bored. We never even hung out as much as people would think. We're not close. He's that part of the family where you'd see for family gatherings and birthdays. Not much else.
"A guy? What's his name?" Jason asks.
"His name is... none of your business." I lock my phone.
Jason gets up and walks over to me. My smirk quickly fades. He opens up his hand and reaches over for my phone. I quickly hide it in my back pocket. Then, at great timing, my phone vibrates. It'll loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Grab her." Jason orders my two brothers.
I look over to my mom and see her smirking as she takes a sip of coffee. I move my hands to my phone and try to keep it in my pocket as best as I can. Alex and Dylan both come over to me and grab my arms, pulling them away from where I had them. I try to wiggle my way out of their grip but they keep me in place.
"Mom!" I scream.
No use, anyway. All she did was take another sip of coffee. Jason leans behind me and grabs my phone. I can feel it slip out from my pocket. Dylan and Alex still keep me held down. Probably just in case I don't jump on top of him.
Jason puts his finger print and goes straight to my messages. I'm guessing he hasn't read the contact name yet.
"Are you ——"
"Shush." Alex interrupts me.
I give up. "It's Tyler."
They all get relaxed. Just to make sure, Jason goes through every social media app I have, all my contacts, and all my messages. After about 5 minutes, he hands my phone back to me. I burst out in laughter once I actually realize everyone's face. It was priceless!
"You should've seen your faces." I eat a piece of my bacon.
"By the way, Tyler said he's going to text some chick. This is why guys are a no no for you." Jason informs me.
My face falls. There's no way he said that.I grab my phone and pull up the last text he sent me.
"There's this really cute girl I'm texting. She just sent me some great pics 😉. Gotta go, cuzzo👋."
I roll my eyes and lock my phone again. It's just Tyler. I'm sure not all guys are like that. Plus, I'd never send nudes. It's too awkward.
"Finish up. I want to leave before 12:00pm." Mom says.
~~~~~~~
We're at Target. We all just scattered the place. We agreed meeting back in about an hour. We're all in a group chat, if anything. I already got my book bag and most of my notebooks. I'm just roaming around at this point.
"Need help looking for something?" Someone asks.
I turn to face a boy. Probably my age. Does he work here?
"You work here?" I ask in disbelief.
"No, actually. I just needed an excuse to talk to you." He smirks.
Wow. He could've just went up to me. That was a lame pick up line. Point for effort, though. Wait, I almost forgot about my brothers. This conversation better end quickly.
"I'm not interested." I quickly say.
"What? It's not like you're ever going to see me again." He shrugs. "One conversation isn't going to hurt."
He has a point. For all I know, he's probably here on a vacation. Hopefully he is. What could we possibly talk about? I'm here for school shopping. What's he here for?
"I'm school shopping." I start.
We begin to walk down an aisle full of school supplies. I'm easily interested in a lot. I keep picking stuff up, then putting it down. Unless I actually like it. Then I put it in my cart. Anyway, with that conversation starter, maybe he can relate with me or say that he's on vacation.
"Explains why you're in this aisle." He points the obvious.
"Right..." I trail off in embarrassment.
I wonder if I look like a red tomato. Why else would I have a cart full of school supplies? That wasn't the answer I was looking for though. I quickly take another look around. No signs of my brothers. I can't be here too long. We're all school shopping. They can easily march into this very spot.
"I'm Lea." I introduce myself.
"James." He says.
Alright. At least I know his name now. Suddenly, my phone goes off. I look at the caller ID. Shit. It's Dylan.
"Yes?" I answer.
"Where are you?" He asks.
I thought he'd know about my whereabouts. He never lays his eyes off me. I take a deep breath. This means they're looking for me. I take a quick look at the time. It's about to be an hour. They probably already got their things. I should lie about where I am. That way, that gives me time to say goodbye and reroute myself to the cash registers.
"I'm near the clothes section." I lie.
"Okay. We're almost done here. So start wrapping up." He suggests.
I quickly hang up.
"Why lie?" James asks.
"Because I can." I answer. "Alright, James. It was nice meeting you but I gotta run. We have a lot of shopping to do." I force a smile.
"How do I know it's not one of your lies?" He ask.
"I guess you'll never know." I say.
He looks at me up and down, then into my eyes. I move one of the strands of my hair behind my ear. Am I flirting? I can't even tell the difference anymore. Last time I had a boyfriend was in 7th grade. I'm a freshman now. It's been a while.
"I'll see you around, busybody." He smirks.
Busybody? That's not even clever. I'm not busy, anyway. There's just a lot to get done. Lea, that's literally the definition of busybody. Pull yourself together.
"Same to you, stranger." I nickname him back.
I push my cart to the front of the store. I find mom and hand her my cart so she double checks what I brought.
"100 colorful pens? Really?" She raises an eyebrow as she picks up the pack of pens.
"They're cute." I shrug.
"You have another pack of 10 pens... put the 100 pack back. Keep the 10 pack." Mom negotiates.
I nod. She keeps searching for new stuff to take out. Somehow, she finds a reason on why I wouldn't need them. It always makes sense each time.
I start to randomly smile. It's because of James. That look he gave me... oh jeez. We literally just met. I don't even know if I'm ever going to see him again. And even if I did, my brothers would complicate everything.
"Done." Mom smiles at the new pile.
That snaps me back to reality. Thank god she didn't see me randomly smile. I'd have to fill her in on what happened.
"And the boys?" I ask. "It seemed like Dylan was done when he called me."
"He was. He just went back to the car. He's not much of a shopping person." Mom reminds me. "Alex and Jason are finishing up with what they want."
She pays for everything. I look over and see Jason with Alex bringing over a cart with supplies. Just in time. Mom picks most of their stuff out as well. I just put the supplies that were pulled out and put it in a close basket thing. I didn't bother putting them back. That's a lot of work.
"Successful shopping?" I ask my brothers.
"Very. We met some girls back there. Hopefully we see them in our school." Alex nudges Jason.
I can feel my face burn. I met a cute guy named James. Sucks he's only here as a vacation. At least, that's what I think. I should've asked if he lived here.
I turn my head slightly to the right... my eyes grow wide when I see James standing there with, who I assume to be, his dad.
"What are you looking at?" Jason asks me.
I snap my head back to my brothers. What can I say? I stumble on what to say. All I could say was ...
"Nothing."
They don't think much else of it. I turn back to mom who's done paying the supplies. Each of us grab a good amount of bags. Today was very successful and a close call.
I really hope James is just visiting.