Chapter 20 – Pranked Presents and Personal Problems (not proofread).
We were all sitting cross legged, staring at our pile of dwindling money with disbelief.
“That’s just…” Alfie trailed off, lying back on the floor with a huff.
“Crap?” Lee offered.
“Ridiculous?” Hunter added.
“A totally unpredictable event that has all of our minds reeling?” I said casually. Hunter raised an eyebrow and I was greeted with silence. I shrugged, leaving an air of tension around us once again.
My dad’s credit card was nearly out, my budget becoming closer and closer to the end. Overnight, we’d managed to travel to Rome, all of us taking shifts behind the wheel. The hotel that we were staying in was booked for four days, leaving us with nothing but 60 Euros to our names. As Ron Wealsey would say ‘bloody brilliant’.
“There are seven of us, three of you know how to pick pocket and the rest of us know how to dance,” I replied. Nobody looked overly enthusiastic but it wasn’t as if we had a choice. There was so much to do in Rome that we couldn’t possibly live on just 60 Euros. Let alone petrol money and food costs.
“I can’t do either,” Alfie grumbled. Lee sighed, blowing out through his lips, making his nose look even bigger.
“Let’s stop moping and get to it, shall we?” Kenzi asked, bouncing to her feet with a grin. I followed suit, trying to look happy about it. Hunter shook his head.
“I nearly got called out last time.” Lee and Seb let out a chuckle.
“Losing your touch?” Seb teased, holding the door open for us. I decided to leave the boys to their arguing, grabbing Dylan’s hand.
In the end, after all the disagreements and taunting, we went out in pairs. Well, apart from the thieves. Dylan and I went our separate ways, leaving Kenzi to try to teach Alfie some basic dance moves.
Dylan and I found a shop that was playing music, but it wasn’t loud or very exciting, so we resorted to grabbing the car and attaching Dylan’s iPod to the speakers.
“What routine are we doing?” he asked, pulling himself out of the car. I shrugged, looking around us. We didn’t have much to work with, but then, we didn’t really have much at any clubs, either, apart from somewhere reasonably soft to land.
“Let’s just work with each other, okay? We’ll mix the bash routine with the flash one and improvise in between. Got it?” he said it so quickly that I didn’t catch a word of it when he reached over to press play and then grabbed my hand.
I yelped when we first started off, our dance moves out of sync. It wasn’t until the second song that we found our feet and managed to move to the music properly, using each other as ‘props’. We started off with a reasonable amount of team work, dancing together with a range of twists, slides and grinds, but after, we just danced off, which earned us more of an audience.
After about an hour and a half of straight dancing and cheering from our small audience, we called it a day, collapsing into the back seats of the Skoda.
“Dear Lord,” I groaned, rolling out and falling onto the floor of the car. If it wasn’t so dirty, I’d of happily stayed there and slept.
But, I didn’t, so Dylan drove us back to the hotel to have a shower and count our winnings.
Seb and Lee were already back when we’d arrived but nobody had come home within the time it took me to have a shower, change and reapply some mascara.
“I’m going to kill Andy for this,” I heard through the bathroom door. I grimaced, peering out of the door to see Alfie walking through. Well, more like limping through.
“We got our revenge, don’t you worry,” Kenzi chirped, walking in behind him. Hunter was also with them, juggling a wad of bills.
“What revenge is this?” I asked, closing the door behind me. Kenzi just shook her head, hiding a smile as everyone took a seat. Due to our room not being one of the best, there was only one three seat sofa. I managed to grab a place on Hunter’s lap and Kenzi did the same with Seb, but we’d had another problem with beds. There was only two, making us all play another rather competitive game of knuckles. I won a bed and so did Alfie, keeping us both at bay for a night.
“Well, you know what you said about kids?” she asked. I frowned, my expression matching Hunter’s.
“Yeah,” I said, drawing out the word suspiciously.
“Alfie and I have decided to help you along,” she started, grabbing the bag from behind her. Lee was chuckling, obviously already in on her little ‘present’.
I’d expected something stupid, like maybe a whoopee cushion or a baby photo. What I didn’t expect was a doll. That was crying. And had an eye hanging out.
“Get that thing away from me!” I squeaked when she came towards me with it, grinning from ear to ear. Hunter ‘s look went from curious to disturbed within a matter of seconds when the baby was dropped onto his lap.
“That, Andy, is your baby for the next four days,” she announced proudly, settling back on Seb’s lap.
“You’re kidding me, right?” I asked, picking it up and studying it.
“No, this isn’t something I’d joke about,” she said. Although, it wasn’t easy to hear her over the roaring laughter, coming from the dipshits on the couch.
“But it’s so ugly,” I choked out, prodding its loose eye and lips, where the paint had worn away.
“Takes after its mother,” Hunter chided from behind me. He was answered with an elbow to the gut and a baby doll to the chest. It had stopped crying for a moment but the piercing sound started up again as soon as Hunter grabbed it.
“Right, we’re going shopping, take care, mummy,” Lee taunted, pushing himself to his feet. And just like that, Hunter and I were left alone with the child of Chuckie.
Hunter hadn’t managed to stop his crying, but he had found a control board on the stupid thing’s back. Unfortunately, Kenzi hadn’t left us with the key to stop it crying, so we resorted to pressing the food, sleep and burping button, eventually shutting it up.
I put it down carefully on the sofa, leaving it there and sneaking away.
“It’s like the babies that we had at school,” I hissed. Hunter raised an eyebrow.
“You had a baby at school?”
“Yeah, like, these remote control babies! I never had to do it because I didn’t take the child and healthcare diploma, but they sounded like little buggers whenever anybody spoke about them.”
Hunter just eyed me curiously for a moment before slipping his arms around me and down into my back pockets, pulling me against his chest. I sighed, giving in and wrapping my own arms around his neck, pulling his head down to meet my lips. Because Hunter was so tall and I was about as short as a bloody elf, I had to get on my tip toes to kiss him properly. Hunter used to bend down but then told me it gave him back cramps so I had to do all the work.
“Maybe this is a good idea,” he offered but I narrowed my eyes, shaking my head.
“That is not a good idea. That is a horrible idea. I don’t even know where she managed to get one,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the creepy thing.
“It’s looking at me,” Hunter said with a shudder, biting his lip.
It didn’t take me long to pick it up and shove it under the covers on the bed to prevent its beady little eyes staring at us.
“Where’s Bernie?” Lee asked when he strutted through the door, carrying a plastic bag. I gestured towards the bed, leaning back against Hunter’s chest. His fingers were caressing my upper thigh lazily and his chest was moving up and down slowly with his deep breaths.
“It’s Bertie,” Kenzi corrected, looking at the lump under the covers. “And that is no way to raise a child,” she scolded. Hunter chuckled.
“I don’t think he wanted to see what Daddy did to Mummy.” Kenzi scrunched her nose up and turned away, putting her bag on the table. Lee and Alfie bundled through afterwards with Seb trailing behind, all of them carrying bags.
“No more takeouts, it’s costing us too much,” Alfie said, nodding towards all the bags. I got to my feet, starting to look through the bags. Hunter was more the cook in our relationship, I just tested the food, so looking through was probably pointless.
Well, I thought so until I found a bag from the chemist. I glanced around before taking a peek and pulling out so anti-biotic gel and it didn’t look like it would go on your legs.
“Right, who’s got crabs?” I asked, waving the gel around. Lee’s eyes widened and he shot forward, grabbing it.
“It’s not crabs,” he muttered, taking it away. I laughed, joining the rest of them when Lee went red.
“What is it, then? Herpes?” Seb asked and Lee shook his head.
“A slight… discomfort and itch,” he grumbled, only causing everyone to start laughing again. It got to the stage where we were all laughing so much that no sound was coming out and we all were just standing there, looking like retarded seals, clapping.
“C’mon, Seb, stop transmitting your stuff around, would you?” Hunter asked. Seb narrowed his eyes and Lee smirked.
“I got it from your girlfriend, mate,” he teased. I thwacked him round the back of the head, making him yelp.
“Go and put your cream on, itchy,” I sniffed, only causing another round of chuckles as I turned to the cupboards to help Kenzi unpack.
A/N: Sorry updates have been bad, I've been stressing about getting my exam results. But, for those that are interested, I passed everything!:D So expect more frequent updates again, thanks! Let me know what you all think!:)