Authors note: Yay! Chapter ten! Haha for some reason I really like that number so hopefully this will be a good chapter. I have had a little confidence boost lately when a certain famous author by the name of 'campervangirl2000' had a look at my book and gave me some encouraging words. She writes my favorite books so go read them and I have decided to dedicate this chapter to her!
So here you are Lauren (campervangirl2000). Chapter 10 of The Devil Next Door. Enjoy :)
Chapter 10// Childish Games
Emily P.O.V
"Ready or not, here I come!" I call into the small, quiet park, my voice echoing slightly off old oak trees and the playground equipment. I creep like a spy to the blue tunnel and pop my head inside. Not here.
"Come out come out wherever you are." I call again, sneaking over to a large tree stump. I jump on top of it and find a little girl hiding on the other side.
"Got ya Molly!" I exclaim.
"Aw damn it, no fair." She complains.
Sore loser, just like her brother. I just giggle and she follows me to find the other two. I uncover Seb hiding in a big green bush.
"I'm so hungry." Is all he can say.
Now just one more. The three of us begin searching the playground and in all the other bushes. We have completely no idea where he could be hiding. Then I start to shift into a state of panic.
What if he was stolen. Oh shit. Oh crap. Oh my god.
"Ok George, we give up!" I call with urgency and worry in my voice. I hear a thump behind me and I spin to see my brother landed on the ground. My body relaxes.
"I win suckers!" he boasts, throwing himself a party.
That little devil climbed the tree. Surely there are rules against that. I sigh in defeat.
"Oi Sweetcakes," Seb gets my attention, "What's for lunch?"
My blushing cheeks don't make me feel any better in this hot weather.
"I don't know. What does everyone feel like?"
"Ice-cream!" Molly suggests hopefully.
"Yeah ice-cream!" George seconds. I look up at Seb who is smiling.
"I third that motion." He adds.
"Ice-cream it is then." I declare, grabbing my purse from the park bench and heading towards the road.
My parents thought it would be a good idea that 'us kids', spend some quality time together and spend the day out today. We began with the playground this morning, playing 5 rounds of hide-and-seek which I was left being the person to 'seek' every time. Me and Seb didn't really want to play (obviously since we're 17) but we played for our 8yr old siblings' sake.
I lead the others down to the Main Street in search of some kind of sundae bar. A rainbow colored window caught my eye to the left. The sign for the shop read 'Sally's Sundae Bar'. Perfect. I tugged on Seb's sleeve to follow me inside the shop. Molly and George ran straight for the large freezer with all the different flavors of ice-cream. They licked their lips hungrily and if we waited any longer I was sure they would start to drool.
"Seb, you take care of you and Molly's orders and we'll do ours." I instructed him, handing over half the money that mum had givin me.
"You can have two scoops." I told George as he scanned the toppings.
"I'll have one scoop raspberry and one bubblegum." (Why does he always choose the weird flavors?). "And I'll have some chocolate sprinkles on top." he added.
I cringed at the thought of all those flavors together. I simply choose a scoop of banana and a scoop of chocolate with no toppings. I was served by a skinny guy with ginger hair. He looked older than me and was much taller. He got our ice-creams and we stepped away from the crowd waiting for Seb and Molly. They finally joined us and we sat at a small green table.
This place was quite busy and full of little kids with mouths covered in different colored ice-cream. I noticed that Molly had three scoops of ice-cream while the rest of us had only two. George was next to pick up on this and began his complaint.
"Hey! How come Molly gets triple-scoop!" he wails at Seb and I.
"Because I owe her for something." Seb explains, winking at Molly. She happily continues to eat her multi-flavored ice-cream and George grumpily shovels his into his mouth.
"Have you been speaking to Claire lately Seb?" I ask when I remember a conversation I had with her on the phone earlier. He keeps his head down and shrugs.
"Yeah of course. We are all friends aren't we?" He shakes my question off.
"I mean, chatting-up talking. Flirting talking. That kind of thing." I rephrase. He is silent for a moment and the noise from around the shop gets louder.
"Yeah I guess you could say that. Why? Has she said something to you?"
"Nah not really. She just mentioned you two were messaging a lot. That's all." I hid. He nodded and finished up his ice-cream. We all soon finished as well and left the sundae bar.
As we walked down towards the beach to cool off, I watched George and Molly admire the sights of Takana Island.
*****
I remembered when me and Sebastian were their age. We had just began to hate on each other full time and were no longer innocent family friends. Despite this, our parents continued to push us together and make us get along. We would always fight and argue but our parents ignored it and played happy families. And I guess as the two of us grew older, our fights became more private and we would play nice around the rest of the family. Of course our relationship wasn't like that at school, where everyone knew that we were like a bickering old couple all the time. All the girls were swarming at me by grade 9, asking about 'that hot friend of mine Seb Cooper' and I would correct them saying that he was definitely not my friend. Every girl wanted to date him by that age and I was there 'go to' source since they knew our families were close. I remember telling Tori how annoying this was and that I would soon sell Seb on EBay just to get rid of his adoring fans.
All that sort of wore off last year as Seb became a well known 'player' and all the girls finally got the snog they had been waiting for. It was understandable though, Seb is a very attractive guy, probably one of the most in school. But they only saw his outer layer, and I had seen underneath it. Of course there were still those few girls who haven't yet boarded the 'Seb Cooper' train, and I feel sorry for the ones who have.
I don't mean to be mean. I can see he regrets all those hookups and bad dates. I have things I regret as well. But he has grown tiring. I have to keep up with his life because we are constantly connected by our family and its exhausting in a way. I just want things to be simple again. Like when we were little.
*****
George softly splashed the crystal clear water towards me and I laughed, holding up my hands in defense. He giggled back and turned to begin talking to Molly. I felt a splash from behind me and my denim shorts were now saturated. I spun around quickly and angrily to catch the culprit.
"Oohh you are so dead Cooper." I warned before he began to run out of the shallows and back up the beach. I raced after him and leapt onto his back, gripping with my legs around his stomach.
"You got me soaked!!!" I complained in a squeal, struggling to bring him to the ground. He stammered around on the sand laughing. He was to strong for me to actually bring him down but I kept trying, his laughter making me even more furious.
After about 2 minutes of me struggling, Seb effortlessly unwrapped my legs from around him and pulled my arms away. I fell flat on my ass on the warm sand. My butt ached and now it would be covered in sticky sand. Seb came and stood in front of me, looking down on me and blocking the sun from my eyes. I gave him a cursing look.
"Now now Princess, lets not get into a fight when there are small children around." Seb teased in a soft tone, gesturing to the other families with kids on the beach. I poked my tongue out at him childishly before standing up and brushing off my bum. I called to George and Molly to say we were going home.
I'd had enough of this devil for one day.
They came running up the beach laughing and followed me and Seb towards home. They make me smile, how they are so full of life and how they get along to well. I envy their relationship in a way, wishing I could still have that with Seb. But it is to late for us now, haha. That ship has long sailed.
"Good afternoon everyone," Laura greets us as we all enter the kitchen. You can see where Seb gets his big brown eyes from.
"How was your day?" My mum asks.
"It was so fun!" George and Molly agreed. I had smartly told the two of them before not to mention that we had ice-cream for lunch.
"Where is Dad and Chris?" I ask our mothers as they sip red wine.
"They just left to go fishing. Your father wanted to try out his new rod." My mum replied with a smile and another sip. She turned back to Laura and they continued to chat happily.
Us four separated to either the lounge or upstairs to our bedrooms. I went to my room and flipped open my laptop, ready to send Tori an email.
I'll tell her about how much me and Brax have been messaging. And how me and Seb are fighting on and off as normal.
I miss Tori. And its only been two weeks. I knew I would but I wish she could just be here for one day to see what it was like so I don't have to write it all in an email. I'm sure she is thinking something similar with how school is going. She mentioned Ash looked clueless without Seb. And that was about all the news she could give me.
I wonder if Seb misses him.
---------------------------