We didn't realise we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.
—winnie the pooh
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I Want to Write You a Song - One Direction
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AUDREY
"Who on earth do you think you are, arriving at my house like this without warning?!" I bawled, descending down the steps of my porch and reducing the distance between us.
His eyes flicked to the Jerry depicted on my hoodie and I couldn't have mistaken the slight tinge of suppressed amusement flash through his expression. I ignored it.
"I did warn though. Didn't think it'd take you so long to see my message," he answered innocently.
"Oh yeah?!" I wondered at the nerve of this boy, incredulously. "How do you know my number anyway?"
He shrugged. "Magicians don't reveal their secrets."
I huffed loudly, shaking my head in marvel. "You truly are something else. . ." I trailed off, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose.
I was a little annoyed but, in all honesty, felt too lethargic to be indignant at him. So I just let it go.
"Okay look, whatever. You're here already anyway so let's get this done and over with. I'm gonna get my stuff. You wait here," I spun around, leaving him behind.
"Can I not come in?" His voice was drenched in confusion and incertitude.
I leered at him over my shoulder. "Nice try, Alvarez."
When I returned, hugging the French books and my white laptop with one arm, he was lounging on the steps of my porch. "Nice little riddle you've got for me over here, princesa. How are we supposed to do a project together if I can't even come inside?"
I ambled past him, disregarding his question and shooting a laconic "follow me" in his direction.
I rounded the house, reaching the backyard and heading towards the coziest place in this world— our gazebo. After plunking my stuff onto the round table, I turned around to witness Cameron's impression.
"Welcome to the 'cozy corner' of the house," I proclaimed, feeling proud of being the co-designer of it. The hammock, for instance, was specifically my idea.
"Wow," he breathed out in an undertone, wide eyes roaming. He was impressed, I could tell. "This is. . .nice." He paused. Then: "So you're a neat freak?"
"Nahh, not really. But I have been called a perfectionist multiple times," I pointed out with a raised index finger, opening my laptop.
"Yeah. Why am I not surprised?" he asked rhetorically.
"I don't know, why aren't you?" I mumbled without lifting my eyes off the laptop. He was timidly approaching the hammock, staring at it the way an art enthusiast stared at the Mona Lisa his first time at the Luovre. I smirked, adding "Don't be shy, Cam—I mean Cameron. Be my guest and make yourself comfortable on it," referring to the hammock.
He accepted my invitation eagerly, the five-year-old inside of him manifesting as he jumped onto the hammock and sprawled himself out on it. Smiling inwardly, I wondered if boys knew how unsuccessful they were at pretending to be mature.
"You can call me Cam, Audrey. It sounds darn cute coming out of the petite, rose-pink lips of yours. Like everything that does, really," I heard him say overtly as he swung on the hammock.
I hid my head behind the open laptop, which hopefully concealed my bulged-out eyes and the cerise blush forming at the apples of my cheeks.
* * *
One kind-of -a productive half-hour later I was stretching my arms out while satisfiedly staring at my nearly finished PowerPoint presentation. Cameron must have taken my "get comfortable" offer too seriously. I could deduce that from the way he hung from the hammock in an upside-down position while still swinging on it and managing to balance his laptop on his lap. Its screen displayed an open Google Translate tab.
"Here's a thought," he spoke up, "how about we swap for a change? You do my project and I do yours."
"You meant, I do yours while you do nothing?" I rephrased his suggestion blankly, "cause mine's practically done."
"You're done?" He seemed shocked, his parted lips reinforcing that idea. He adjusted his overly comfortable position slightly so that he could face me. "I'm on my second slide."
"Well, at least you've started. Knowing you, I could've easily thought you were just chilling for a solid 30 minutes. Which you sort of were." I added the last phrase in a low tone.
"You're beginning to sound like Madame Deschamps."
With a tight-lipped smile, I went on tapping the keys of my laptop deftly, working on its final touches. "What have you chosen French for anyway? Isn't your subject combination more like, mathematically inclined? Don't see how a foreign language fits there."
He looked to his left, pensive. "Mmm, cause it's interesting. And useful."
I tilted my head nonconsciously, considering his reply. Maybe there was more maturity in him than I thought.
He suddenly lifted his head up and his eyes twinkled in a surprised manner, as if just realising something. "How do you know what subjects I'm taking, you creep?" He teased in a lighthearted tone.
"I'm more observant than regular people," I replied, a knowing smile creeping onto my lips.
With a quirk of his head, his eyes aimed their attention at something behind and above me. I followed his gaze, twisting my head.
"Is that guitar real?" He asked, pointing at the classical rosewood guitar hanging from the top left corner.
"Yeah." I almost forgot about its existence. The poor abandoned thing.
"May I?" He hesitated, after standing up and reaching for it. He received a consenting nod from me and took it. "You play?"
"Not me, no. My sister used to. But she doesn't even live here anymore. Gosh, it's been ages since she played on this thing—I bet it's painfully out-of-tune," as I explained, my mind floated back to the memories that this guitar carried with itself. A wash of nostalgia plunged into my heart, making me realise how much I missed Hailey.
He began plucking its strings and twiddling its knobs thoroughly, in an attempt to tune it. Twangy notes came out as he tested. I recalled that the first time we met in the music shop he had been checking out their guitars. A thought, that surprisingly never did before, occurred to me: "You know how to play?"
"Uh, well, I used to. Doubt that I can remember much but let's hope."
He struck a chord and started to play, a peaceful tune drifting out on us from under his long, nimble fingers. I swayed my body a trifle to the soothing melody.
Unexpectedly, he also began singing.
I wanna write you a song
One as beautiful as you are sweet. . .
My breath hitched. I held it as I attentively listened to the notes pour out of his lips as smoothly as hot caramel poured out on ice-cream, making it melt at the contact. I was mesmerized.
. . .I wanna lend you my coat
One that's as soft as your cheek
The look in his eyes was as delicate as the sun's glow on a rose petal. His voice sounded like the sun itself — warm and captivating. My insides were about to melt.
Before I knew it, the song came to an end — much to my displeasure. I could listen to him play and sing all day.
"Is that your idea of not remembering how to play?"
He smiled and looked down at the guitar, strumming it casually.
"Seriously though, that was outstanding. Magnificent, I—I don't think I can even find the right word. And the singing? Blimey! You never told me you could sing!"
"Cause I can't. Not properly anyway. C'mon Audrey, thanks of course, but I'm not that good."
"Are you kidding? You know how many people would kill for a voice like yours?"
His sour laugh conveyed that he didn't believe me. "Woah, you're really overplaying now. That's enough praise for now. Give my ego a rest," he said and plucked at a random string. The sharp sound hovered in the air between us.
"What can you not do? I don't know, you skateboard, play guitar, sing and you're smart as heck—"
"Oh, heaps of things, trust me. I'm generally useless when it comes to the important skills," he interrupted, holding back a laugh at himself. "Wait, are we having 'hobbies and interests' small talk? I thought we were beyond that now."
"It's not small talk to me. I'm pretty passionate about my hobbies and interests."
Cameron crossed his legs and adjusted his hold of the guitar. "What are they?"
"My hobbies? Mmm. . .well right now, mainly baking."
"Sounds like a great hobby. See, that would be one of the many areas I'm utterly useless at. Baking, cooking and whatnot. I think the best I could do is boil an egg," he snorted at himself, "yeah, two-minute noodles can become lifesavers. Pretty embarrassing for a high school senior, no?"
"Nah but you don't need to be a master of the culinary arts to do the basic. And you'd be surprised to know just how much of said basic there is. For instance. . .I don't know, pancakes."
He stared at me with pursed lips, stationary.
"No way. . .you've never made pancakes?!"
He made an ashamed face expression, leaning back into the soft polka-dotted cushions. "I told you I'm useless!"
Now that we've entered my field of expertise, I suddenly felt bold, making a rather rash decision. "Say no more," I held out my index finger to him, standing up. "Come!" I exclaimed, already far in front of him.
Somewhat bewildered, he followed me into the house through the front door. I lead the way into the kitchen.
"Okay then," I clapped my hands together, weirdly excited. "You ready for something fun?"
Cameron's unsure form reflected confusion.
I lifted my head, proudly. "Welcome to my master class. Today I will be teaching you how to make pancakes!"
I squealed internally.
Cameron took his hands out of his pockets, a tentative smile crawling onto his fine lips.
Did he find my exuberant state amusing? Most likely. I couldn't have blamed him though, it did look pretty freaky I guess— how extravagantly ardent I was feeling about making pancakes.
I spotted the mug of Earl Grey still standing on the countertop, now cold. Right, I'd totally forgotten.
"This might not be the best idea," he said, scratching the back of his head and wincing a bit.
"You joking? Pancakes it always the best idea," I replied, taking a large bowl out of a cupboard and preparing the ingredients.
"Not the pancakes particularly. I mean the whole thought of teaching me how to cook."
I didn't answer anything, just proceeding to prepare the ingredients.
"I'm telling you, it's gonna be hard," he continued.
"I'm counting on it," I said at last, placing all of the ingredients on the island counter, "no, but seriously, it's actually super easy. You'll see for yourself in a minute. So," I clapped my hands again.
I told him about the importance of proportions as I added all of the dry ingredients into the bowl, finalizing with baking powder. He watched and listened attentively as I blabbed on. I poured the wet ingredients in and mixed it.
"Okay, so now comes the slightly complicated bit. We need to stir the batter thoroughly, to get rid of any lumps but not too vigorously to not deflate the air bubbles," I asserted confidently, turning around to face him.
It was almost funny—the way I had to lift my head up to compensate for our height difference while being supposedly the one in charge of the situation.
"Here," I handed him the whisk.
"I do it?" He stared at me, his hazel eyes startled. I nearly snorted. He was taking this way too seriously.
It was cute.
"Yes! Who's the one learning how to make pancakes here, me or you?" I went all strict-instructor on him, in a teasing way.
"Okay, okay," he took it from me apprehensively and started stirring. "Like this?"
"Uhmmm, a tad bit more energetic. There're still a few lumps we need to get rid of."
He lifted his gaze to meet my eyes, with a faux miserable expression, "this is hard."
"Oh shut up, we haven't even gotten to the frying part yet."
"Oh, so this isn't the hardest part?"
I shook my head at him, arms crossed. "Okay, this is enough," I pointed at the batter and got the frying pan out. "Here comes the cool part."
I placed the pan onto the electric stove pouring a little oil on its surface. Then, I scooped some batter and dropped it onto the pan—it frizzled in response.
"Alright, in about two minutes we're gonna need to flip it around," I grabbed the black nylon spatula, "the proper and civilized way to do it is with a spatula but—"
"But what's the fun in that, right?" He interrupted, with the kind of mischievous smirk that usually means no good. I knew exactly what he was suggesting and along with that, how stupid and reckless the idea was.
Ironically enough, it was that attitude that persuaded me to let go of the spatula and smirk back at him. "Right." We were going to toss this pancake.
I gripped the pan handle tightly, noticing the bubbles start to appear on the edge of the pancake—a sign that it was just about ready to be flipped. Cameron also reached for the handle from behind me and his gentle hands were on mine as we lifted the pan up. Gulping, I tried to ignore the fact that, in practice, this looked like a hug from behind.
"You do know how likely it is for this to end as a disaster, don't you?" I asked, although it sounded more like an affirmation.
"That's the whole point, isn't it?"
"On the count of three?" I giggled nervously. I was actually giggling.
"One," he began, his voice confident.
"Two," I joined in, fully aware of the fail that was most likely awaiting us.
We prepared to throw the pancake. "Three—"
Holy shitake mushrooms.
I certainly miscalculated the strength of Cameron's arms plus mine— the pancake soared up with a ridiculous force, almost reaching the other side of the kitchen.
All I knew was that my abs were hurting. I doubled over, unable to hold back the eruption of laughter I had exploded into while watching Cameron run around the kitchen, chasing a flying pancake.
He literally dived onto the island counter to reach it in time, and he almost would have if it wouldn't have bounced against the pan. He rolled around to a bizarre upside-down position but eventually caught the darned piece of dough.
"Hey! I caught it!" He exclaimed, struggling to not fall off from the counter. I was still cachinnating like crazy. When he stood up to face me, his eyes darted somewhere specific behind me and he suddenly seemed stunned. Slowly and unassertively, I turned around.
Standing in front of us and smiling confusedly, was my mom.