*~*~* Cate *~*~*
I was woken from my blissful dream by something wet and warm licking my face- and it wasn’t the delicious Ryan Reynolds from my dream. I groan and turn my face away, trying to hide under the blankets, but Cooper paws at my comforter and digs his way under the covers until his cold nose settles against the back of my neck.
“Gerff,” I grumble. It was supposed to sound like ‘get off’ but on this side of midday, I was incapable of forming words. When Cooper starts chewing on my hair, I know it’s time to get out of bed. I smile down at the dog and ruffle behind his ears in the way that Cooper loves so much. “Come on, cutie. Let’s go find your idiotic owner.”
Cooper is the Golden Retriever puppy that Sawyer bought Anna on their anniversary last year. He’s ginormous considering he’s only eight months old, and he weighs roughly the same as an elephant calf, and he has this weird obsession with my hair, but Cooper is utterly adorable. Just one look at his face has your heart melting and he can do no wrong. I couldn’t even blame him for waking me up. No, that honor was reserved for Sawyer, who I was about to kill.
“Sawyer Thomas Eugene Lawson!” I yell as soon as I get downstairs. I bypass the kitchen and head for the family room. I’m briefly aware that Vivian is here and she can see me in my sleeping shorts and cami, but I’m on a mission. I spot Sawyer out on the terrace with my dad, and storm out there to give him a piece of my mind. “You must have a serious death wish, Sawyer. Two Sundays in a row you’ve woken me up so I can only imagine you want to die. Well, today is the day I will kill you.”
Sawyer laughs bemusedly. “Good afternoon to you too,” he says brightly in that tone that makes me want to rip out his voice box too. When he spots Cooper, Sawyer calls the dog forward and lets him jump on the chair with him. Patting his pet’s head, Sawyer starts too coo. “Oh, my little baby. Was Cate mean to you, boy? I know… she’s not a morning person, but that doesn’t mean she can get to be mean to daddy, does it?”
I watch as Cooper jumps up at Sawyer’s face and starts licking him, even at one point sticking his tongue into Sawyer’s ear. I gag and turn to storm away but the sight of my father sitting with TJ has me frozen at the door way.
“What are you doing here?” I say bluntly to TJ.
“Cate,” Dad warns me. “Be nice.”
“I am being nice,” I tell him gruffly. It’s not my fault I’m not much of a morning person. On Sundays I’m not much of an afternoon person, either, it seems. I place my hands on my hips and sigh before turning back to TJ and forcing out a smile which I’m sure looks pretty demonic. “Well?”
TJ tells me that he accompanied his mother over here this morning in the hopes that we could hang out. Vivian was busy talking about table centerpieces for the reception, and it was keeping Libby, Anna and Mom occupied while Dad and Sawyer did some ‘male bonding.’ At this, I couldn’t figure out where TJ fit in. I move towards TJ and pull him up from the chair by his hand, dragging him behind me as we walk back into the house and up to my room.
Luckily, I’m a neat freak when it comes to my own personal space so my room was always clean. As soon as the bedroom door was shut behind us, I walked over to my bed and climbed under the covers. TJ stared at me for a moment and then awkwardly made his way over to my desk chair. He rolled the chair over to the side of the bed and sat there, watching me carefully.
A smile spread across his lips. “You look beautiful in the morning.”
I laugh. Believe me, I’ve seen myself in the mirror as soon as I wake up and I am anything but beautiful. I look haggard and my hair is wild… I look like Eep from The Croods, and that was a nice comparison.
“You don’t believe me, huh?” TJ says as he moves from the chair and comes to lie on the bed next to me. “I wonder how I can possibly prove to you just how amazing you are.”
His eyebrows wiggle suggestively. I laugh. “What was that?”
“What was what?” He asks innocently. He moves closer to me and his hand rests on my hip. “I didn’t do anything.”
Well, that was a lie, because he was definitely doing something to me. My heartrate quickened, my breathing became erratic, and my skin started burning up. My mouth went dry, my palms got sweaty and my vision became blurred. I shivered as a tingle went down my spine, and my body started to move of its own volition.
The next thing I knew, I was straddling TJ Rushing on my bed, my lips crashing down on his as he reciprocated just as greedily. My hands were pressed against his chest and I felt a sting shoot up my right arm, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. The pain was numbed by the rest of my body springing to life as soon as TJ’s hand cupped around the back of my head, tilting our kiss to the side so we could taste more of each other. When his tongue flicked against mine and traced a circle on the roof of my mouth, I gasped.
“What was that?” TJ asked as I pulled away from him abruptly, throwing myself back down onto the bed next to him.
“What was what?” I repeat his words from earlier. I flutter my eyelashes at him and smile. “I didn’t do anything.”
TJ laughs. “Oh, but I think you did,” he says before stealing another kiss from me. I push him away by his shoulders and roll my eyes at him. “I’m gonna have to think about dancing bears now.”
“That’s cruel,” I say as I flinch away from him.
“I know,” he says somberly. Then he winces and rubs his hand over his face. “It’s just… you kinda did something to me and now I’ve got to think of something really sad to undo what you did and-”
“I get it!” I shout as soon as I realize what it is he’s talking about. I scramble from the bed and rush to the bathroom. “That was an overshare. I really didn’t need to know.”
“The overshare was you climbing on top of me and kissing me like your life depended on it,” TJ says. His face contorts into a look of pain as he starts mumbling. “Dancing bears. Drowning kittens. Tasered elephants.”
I shut my bathroom door as TJ continues to list every possible form of animal cruelty. As an animal lover, I didn’t want to hear all about the ways people torture defenseless creatures. I grabbed a quick shower, washing my hair seeing as Cooped had chewed on it, and brushed my teeth to get rid of my morning breath… and the lingering taste of TJ on my tongue.
With a towel wrapped around my body, I stepped out from the bathroom and scuttled into my closet, picking out today’s outfit. I quickly dried off my hair at the roots and took the dampness out of the rest, but I didn’t make an effort to blow dry it all. I plaited my hair into a fishtail and let it fall over my shoulder. I pulled on a light denim shirt dress that came to a stop at my mid-thigh, and slipped my feet into a trusty pair of white Vans.
TJ was sitting in my desk chair as he scrolled through the pages of ESPN. I had to wonder how he had gotten into my account, but then I saw my diary open to the page where I had all my passwords written out. I rolled my eyes and walked up to TJ, wrapping my arms around his neck as I rested my chin against his shoulder. I read the words on the screen but it could have been Japanese for all I understood.
“What’s happening in the world of soccer this week?” I ask out of interest.
“Chelsea lost to Bradford City in the FA Cup,” TJ smiles triumphantly.
“Is that good?”
“Good? It’s epic, Cate,” he tells me as he spins the chair around and pulls me to sit on his knees. “It’s like a weekend football team going up against the Patriots in the run up to the Super Bowl, and the unknowns winning.”
I nod. “You know that went right over my head, right? I know nothing about sports.”
“You know the offside rule in soccer,” he reminds me. I nod. Yeah, I did know that. TJ pats my legs and sighs. “We better get moving, otherwise I’m gonna have to think of more animal cruelty.”
And with that, I jump from his knee and run for the door, too worried to look back just in case TJ sees the furious blush painting my cheeks.
*~*~* TJ *~*~*
“Left hand to green,” Georgie instructs me as I shift my pose to get my hand from red to green. Just my luck that I had to stretch from one side of the mat to the other. Once Georgie was happy that I was in position, she spun the wheel again. “Ok, Cate. Left foot to blue.”
We were currently at Grey’s house playing Twister, and it was getting more and more awkward as Cate contorted her body into a crab position, her hips just inches from mine. I start to count to a hundred in French in my head. I hated French and I barely remembered any of it, so trying to count was the perfect distraction from the fact that Cate’s dress was dangerously close to reaching her hips.
“Greyson put your left foot on red,” Georgie says.
I’m not sure how Georgie became the one to control the spinner, but she had insisted. Cate said she was ok to play with her bust up wrist, but I still made her promise to tell me if the pain became too much and we’d have to stop.
Grey moves his leg so he can put his foot on a red dot. He knocks into me and I lose my balance, crashing down on Cate as I try to twist out of her way. It backfired on me, and instead of landing on her side, I fell on top of her. Everything goes quiet and no one moves. I was convinced that I had just killed Cate, because let’s face it, when you weigh a hundred and seventy pounds- most of which is muscle- and you land on top a girl, you’re going to do some damage.
I felt someone slap my shoulder. “Gerff,” Cate’s wheezing voice tells me.
I jump up onto my feet and reach out a hand to help Cate up. She gratefully accepts and rushes to hide behind me as she rearranges her dress. Once she was sure her dress was covering the top half of her legs she peeks out from behind me and asks what game we’re going to play next.
Here’s the thing about Grey- he’s ridiculously into games. Twister, Texas Hold ‘Em, Monopoly… I don’t think there was a game ever invented that Grey hadn’t played or didn’t own. The only downside to having game nights with Grey was the fact that he always won.
“How about Logo?” Grey asked. From the way he grinned, I could tell that we didn’t have much of a choice. We all gave in to him and he rushed from the room to get the game. When he returned, he set the game up. “Are we playing in teams or individually?”
Before the girls could answer, I shouted, “Individually.”
“Oh, come on,” Grey pouted. “That’s not fair.”
“Individually,” I say again, with more force in my voice this time. “You’re way too competitive to be on a team and you always get mad when your teammate gets wrong. You’re gonna end up winning anyway, so what does it matter?”
Grey shrugs his shoulders and sets out the colors on the board. I was terrible at this game, as was Georgie, but surprisingly Cate was keeping up with Grey. She was only one behind him all the way until they both reached the final square. To win, you had to get all the questions on the card correct. So far, Grey had tried his luck twice but had gotten a question wrong on both occasions. Now Cate was on her second try, and when Georgie pulled out the card, I broke out in laughter.
Shapes.
Grey was screwed.
“What do you call a five-sided shape?” Georgie asked.
“Pentagon,” came the answer.
“Easy question,” Grey mumbled under his breath.
“How many sides does a tetrahedron have?”
“Four,” Cate says with a roll of her eyes. She looked bored as she answered.
“Name four quadrilaterals?” Georgie asks.
“Square,” Cate says as she holds up one finger and starts to count through the rest of her answers. “Rectangle, rhombus and a parallelogram.”
“Wrong!” Grey shouts out as he stands up victoriously. I’m not sure why- he hadn’t won yet. “Parallelogram is not a quadrilateral.”
“Greyson,” Georgie tugs on his arm and pulls him to sit. “It is a quadrilateral. Now, Cate, here is your final question. Can you give the name for a twenty sided shape?”
We all turn to stare at Cate. For a second she looks taken aback by the question and frowns. Georgie waits patiently for the answer and Grey looks as if he’s about to fall off his chair, but I just smile to myself. She’s got this.
Cate smiles fondly. “Icosagon.”
That’s my girl.
“Now you’re just making answers up,” Grey scoffs.
“Correct,” Georgie says, holding out her hand for Cate to give a high five.
The girls smile wildly before they start taunting Grey for being a sore loser. In the midst of the teasing, I shuffle closer to Cate and wrap my hand around her head, bringing her towards me so I can plant a kiss on her soft lips. She smiles against me and lets her hand rest on my shoulder as she bites on my lip playfully.
“Get a room,” Grey sniggers, earning himself a glare from me once I manage to pull myself away from Cate.
We played Blackjack for a while until Cate beat Grey at that game too. He was convinced that the ‘math genius’ was counting the cards and that’s how she was winning. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was just better at the game than Grey was.
We tried to play Monopoly, but Georgie got bored halfway through the first round and deliberately made herself bankrupt so the game would end. Trivial Pursuit didn’t end well either with accusations of cheating coming from all directions. We couldn’t even play Pictionary without a major argument developing.
Eventually, Grey brought out a game he picked up on his last trip to the UK. Mr. & Mrs. He gave Cate and I two paddles- two blue and two pink- and placed a stack of cards in the middle. He explained the rules and they seemed straight forward enough. Seeing as we were all ‘coupled up’ we’d have to answer questions about our partners by holding up the correct paddle. The questions would be simple, such as ‘Who is the most talkative?’ and we’d hold up the corresponding paddle. If the guy was the most talkative, the blue paddle went up, and we held up the pink if the answer was the girl. If both in the couple agreed, we got a point. Naturally, we had to sit back to back so we couldn’t confer.
Cate and I were going first.
Who is the messiest?
I held up the blue paddle. A second later, Georgie put a point on our tally score.
Who is the best cook?
Cate, obviously. We scored another point.
Who is the most likely to trip over?
I laugh. Then I hold up the pink paddle. Seriously, I’ve never met anyone who can trip over and injure themselves as much as Cate Westbrook. From behind me, I feel Cate’s body shaking from laughter. She sighs and drops her head to rest on my back.
Another point goes on the board.
Who is the fittest?
Not to be egotistical here, but I held up the blue paddle. Cate did too. We were up by four points.
Who is the best driver?
Being a guy, I thought I was well within my rights to say that I was the better driver. That, and the fact that I’d only seen Cate drive once since we’d been hanging out. I don’t think she was fussy about being a passenger- unlike me. I was a terrible passenger.
“Five out of five,” Grey says with an impressive tone in his voice. “Our turn.”
You’d think, being the only official couple here, Grey and Georgie would know each other better than Cate and I knew each other, but as soon as Cate started asking the questions all Hell broke loose. Georgie didn’t take kindly to Grey admitting he thought that he smelt better than her. It got worse when Georgie opted to say that she was the funniest in the relationship. Suddenly, as soon as Grey said he was the boss in the relationship, Georgie flipped out and started shouting.
After a moment of sitting there awkwardly, I lean in to Cate and say, “Let’s get out of here.”
“You don’t need to ask me twice,” Cate said quickly as she grabbed her purse and made for the door.
Luckily Grey’s house wasn’t far from Cate’s so we didn’t bother taking a car. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder as we walked back to her place, her head fitting into the crook of my arm perfectly, like she’s been made to fit there. I kiss the crown of her head as she snuggles closer to me.
When we reach her front door, I give her a kiss goodnight on her cheek.
“Hey, TJ?” Cate called out to me. She ran to catch up with me, and threw herself into my arms, making me fall against the side of my car. Her arms went around my neck and her lips found mine. She kissed me passionately before pulling away. “That is how you kiss a girl goodnight.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, before pulling her in for a repeat performance.
*~*~*
It's 20:44 here in the uk. Yesterday I updated at like 16:00 but the notification didn't go out until 22:00 (ish)- that's when I got mine, anyway. Sorry if it got delayed with you too!
Yeah, I agree about the whole Georgie thing. I'm not her biggest fan and I've yet to work out what her motivation is.
Oh, a cultural question- In your country do you have your own version of St. Valentine's Day? I only ask, because here in Wales, we do (yeah, even though we're only next door to England). It's called Dydd Santes Dwynwen (try saying that!) and it happens to be today. So- Dydd Santes Dwynwen Hapus i chi gyd! (Happy Welsh Valentines Day to you all!)
Sarah, xx