"Ryan," the voice buzzed in his ear. He thought that if he ignored it, it might go away. "Ryan!" No such luck. He swatted at the noise, the way one would swat at an annoying mosquito. "Ryan!" Dammit.
"What the fuck do you want Taylor," he asked, not opening his eyes or lifting his head from the pillow. God that girl was annoying. What happened to staying on each other's side of the house?
"Wake up! The lawyer is on his way! He just called and said he was leaving the office," she whispered. At least she had figured out that when the person you were talking to had a hangover, it was best to avoid loud noises. She can be taught, he thought to himself.
"So?"
"So?! So?! It's our first visit of many from him. I don't want him coming here and seeing what a mess you've made of your side of the house and calling my mother or your guardian and telling them that the house has dropped in value do to our inability to keep up with the simplest of chores, then have my mother come home and tell me for the umpteenth time what a disappointment I am, and then…" Ryan interrupts her ramble by placing an extra pillow over the top of his ear, in an attempt to drown out the noise. His head was throbbing. Great. Now she was smacking him on the back, over and over again, hoping to get him up. He'd had enough of this shit. He grabbed her last swing, catching her on the wrist and closing his hand on it painfully. He heard her let out a tiny, "Ow."
"Stop. Now," he simply said, rolling over to look her in the eyes. Her hazel eyes were wide, locked onto his. He saw that split second look of fear pass through them, and then watched as it disappeared. He released her hand and sat up, rubbing the sleep from his weary eyes. He heard a sharp intake of breath come from above him and looked up, hoping that he hadn't hurt the girl. Her wrist was cradled in her hand, but she didn't appear to be in pain as she was currently blushing. He smiled inwardly as her tongue darted out to lick her lips, remembering he was wearing nothing more than his boxer briefs. He ran his hand through his hair and pushed on the lump of covers next to him. "Wake up. You need to leave," he said in its direction.
"Why," a feminine voice asked from underneath the lump. Ryan looked back up at Taylor and noticed that the blush had deepened. Instead of looking like she wanted to jump his bones, however, she now looked like she wanted to break them. All. "It's too early," the voice whined.
Taylor's face continued to turn a darker shade of red as Ryan thought that her glare had graduated from angry to murderous. She smacked him on the shoulder again. "Rule two! Rule two," the girl hissed, smacking him again.
Her voice brought the woman sleeping next to him fully out her slumber. "Who is that?"
"My sister. Now go. My mom and dad are coming home."
The woman sat up in shock. Ryan took a good look at her and immediately wished that he hadn't. With her eye shadow smudged, lipstick smeared, and blush rubbing off, she didn't look like the sexpot that he had picked up the night before. Now, she looked like a Ringling Brothers reject.
"Your sister? You still live with your parents? I thought you said you were 25 and you lived in this huge mansion alone?"
"Sorry to burst your bubble. You should go before they get back," he said, pointing to her discarded clothes on the floor.
The woman took one look at Taylor's evil glare, grabbed her clothes from the floor, and made a mad dash for the stairs. Once she had left, Taylor turned to find Ryan standing in his under shorts, pulling on pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. Catching him in his drawers again momentarily distracted the girl and by the time she had recovered, Ryan had already exited his room. She finally caught up to him as he was descending the staircase.
"Where are you going now, hmm? Do you have another girl waiting down in the study for you, Lothario? Casanova? Don Juan?" Ryan ignored her attempts to anger him and continued to descend the stairs.
"Breakfast," he said as he walked into the kitchen. Ryan opened the door to the refrigerator and removed a bottle of tomato juice, a bottle of beer, and a single egg. Retrieving a cold glass from the freezer, he set that down on the counter as well. He looked up to make sure he had Taylor's full attention and, seeing that he did, he poured the tomato juice into the glass, followed by the beer and, to top it off, the raw egg. Tilting his head back, he drained about a third of it in one chug. Wiping off his mouth, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his pack of cigarettes, placing one in his mouth and lighting it.
"Oh. My. God. I thought you were having breakfast?"
"I am."
Ryan slowly drank his Red Eye, finished his cigarette and headed back for the stairs.
"You know, if you really wanted to go with the whole 'bad boy' look, you could at least grow a decent moustache."
Ryan refused to be baited into an argument with the teenaged Newpsie, and continued to walk in the direction of the staircase. He heard Taylor let out an exasperated breath.
"Are you going to help me clean up?"
He replied without any hesitation. "No," he said, and continued to climb the stairs.
*************************
Knock, knock.
Ryan opened the door to see his guardian's lawyer standing on their stoop, briefcase in hand. "Mr. Bradford, I assume," he asked.
"I'm guessing you must be Mr. Atwood," the man said, pushed past Ryan and walked into the foyer. "Where's Ms. Townsend? You haven't killed her already have you?" Ryan rolled his eyes at the man's poor attempt at humor. It seemed everyone around her wanted to make the obligatory shooting joke. "You'd think you would want to take advantage the large allowance Mr. Nichol is leaving you two for at least a few months before you allowed your violent tendencies to take over," the shark continued.
Ryan rolled his eyes, ignoring the comments from the idiotic lawyer, instead trying to calm himself down by counting to ten in his head. He followed the man around the house as he conducted an 'inspection' of the area, which basically consisted of him frowning and making disapproving noises as he furiously scribbled notes into his notepad. "I'm sure Taylor is up in her room changing, if you want to wait for her."
"Changing, hmm?" Ryan could see the look in the man's eyes and, instantly, his anger for the asshole returned.
"She's only 16 you dick," he spit out through gritted teeth. He saw the challenge in the other man's eyes and was about ready to toss out a very impolite offer, when Taylor chose that exact moment to appear.
"Mr. Bradford, how nice to finally meet you!" Ryan looked back and saw Taylor descending the stairs. She had her biggest smile on as she walked over to the older man.
"You must be Taylor," Mark Bradford said as he took her hand in his and kissed the back, causing Taylor to giggle. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well, my dear."
"Well, Mr. Bradford-", Taylor began, only to be stopped by the lawyer.
"Please, call me Mark."
Taylor blushed. "Well, Mark, where should we begin our inspection?"
"Why don't we start with the young man's room," he said, pointing to Ryan. "I'm interested to see what condition his room is in."
Ryan exhaled in frustration as he followed the two in the direction of his bedroom.
Later
"I have to say, Mr. Atwood," the lawyer began, "I'm very unimpressed as to the sad state of affairs in your room. If it wasn't for Ms. Townsend promising to keep you in line with cleaning and upkeep," Ryan looked over to see a grinning Taylor, "I would probably have to greatly consider revoking your weekly allowance. As for you Ms. Townsend," the lawyer said, turning to Taylor, "you've done an admirable job attempting to keep your present company in line…" Ryan tuned out the rest as they lapsed into the French they had been speaking the entire time. He had had about enough of those two, making jokes about him all afternoon. He may not know French, but he was sharp enough to realize when he was the butt of a joke. He gradually picked up the conversation as he realized it was about ready to wrap up.
"Mr. Atwood? Here is you're weekly allowance," he said, handing Ryan a bundled wad of twenty dollar bills. "Remember what I said, and I had better see some improvement in your room before next week or this stack will be significantly smaller next time." Ryan snorted in amusement and the man frowned. Turning to Taylor, his grimace turned back into a smile. "Ms. Townsend, here is your weekly allowance. I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to the café in town? We would be able to discuss Nin's poetry in much greater detail without the intrusion of lesser intellects." Ryan didn't fail to miss Mr. Bradford making a slight motion towards him with his head.
"Oh, I would love to!" Taylor placed her bundle of money into her purse and grabbed her jacket as she prepared to follow Mark Bradford out the door of the mansion.
"Try not to burn the house down, Mr. Atwood," the lawyer said with a wave, which caused Taylor to burst into a fit of laughter.
"Vous êtes un homme si plein d'esprit," Taylor said, still giggling.
Time to put a stop to this, Ryan thought to himself. "Oh, Taylor?"
His roommate turned back to face him, impatience apparent on her face at being held up from her afternoon lunch date. "What do you want, Ryan?"
"I just wanted to make sure that you didn't forget your Valtrex. You don't want a flare up to happen in the middle of your lunch date, do you?" Ryan watched as Taylor's face flared up to the brightest color of red he could imagine. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she tried to find her voice. Ryan looked over at Mr. Bradford, whose face had also changed color. Instead of becoming a bright red, his had changed into an ashy, white color.
"Oh, uh, Taylor," Mark said, looking down at his watch, "I don't think I'm going to be able to do that lunch date after all. I just remembered that I've got an afternoon meeting with a, uh, very important client." He grabbed his suitcase and practically lunged for the door, almost making it out before Taylor grabbed him.
"Why don't you give me your number, that way we can reschedule," she begged the older man.
"Yeah. I'll, uh, call you. Sometime." He finally succeeded in getting himself loose of Taylor's tight grip and slid out of the door, slamming it behind him. Ryan walked over to the window and watched as the man threw himself into his car and peeled out of the driveway. That would keep him from hitting on underage girls for awhile and it would keep him out of the mansion for the remainder of Caleb and Veronica's vacation. He imagined the rest of the 'inspections' would be conducted long-distance. He turned back around and caught the murderous look on Taylor's face. "What," he questioned.
"You ass! You hypocrite!" She began to smack Ryan's arm again. He quickly grew tired of that and grabbed Taylor, sitting her down roughly on a foyer chair.
"Sit down and shut up for a second, Taylor," Ryan commanded. He walked over to the other side of the foyer, grabbed another chair, and sat down across from her. "First of all, there is a big difference between what I did last night and what you were about to do. The girl I brought home last night was only 21. Or maybe it was 22," he asked, more to himself. "Whatever. Mark Bradford is at least 35."
"Who cares," Taylor interrupted. "He liked me and he was cute and he knew all about Nin's poetry and we had a very good talk about French philosophy while he was complimenting me on my taste in books-"
"Shut up, Taylor. You are a sixteen-year-old girl that weighs all of about a hundred pounds. If he wanted something from you that you weren't willing to give, do you think you could honestly stop him from taking it?" He watched as Taylor thought for a moment. "Exactly. You want to go out and bang or blow some high school kid, you go right ahead."
Taylor made a horrified face. "I'm not going to have sex with some…child! I want my first time to be with somebody that knows what they're doing."
"Whatever. Just stay away from men that could do whatever they wanted to you and get away with it." He got up and walked in the direction of the garage, stopping as Taylor's last words finally caught up to him. "Wait. You're a virgin?"
Taylor blushed and looked away. "That's none of your business."
"You're right, it's not." He turned back towards the garage.
"Where are you going," Taylor asked.
"Why do you care?"
"I don't," Taylor said, arms crossed and a taunting expression on her face. "I just want to know where to direct your former friend, Seth, if you're not back in a few days. I'm sure the Cohens would be glad to know that you've finally expired. Tell me, how long has it been since they have called? You know, you'd think that if they missed you, they'd really try and contact you more often."
Ryan's face fell and he slammed the door on his way into the garage. Finding the key rack, he sorted through the many pairs hung there. Thankfully, Caleb had forgotten to place the keys in a more secure place, which meant that Ryan was free to…borrow Cal's vehicles to go out for the night. He just had to make sure they were returned in the same condition that they left in. He reached up to the key rack and removed all of the hanging key chains. Pressing the lock button on each, he walked through the garage, checking out each vehicle as it beeped. Unfortunately, Caleb and Veronica had taken the Bently, so that wasn't available. Ryan pressed the button on one remote and watched as a motorcycle flashed it lights at him. "A motorcycle? Are you serious," he mumbled to himself. "Who the hell rides a motorcycle anymore?" He threw the keys back at the workbench. He pressed the button on another remote and tossed those keys back as well, unimpressed with the meager BMW offering. Pressing another remote, he whistled through his teeth as he came upon the vehicle that the remote belonged to. The Aston Martin V12 Vanquish was silver in color and in pristine condition. At a cost of about a quarter of a million dollars, this baby was Caleb's pride and joy. And Ryan was going to drive it.
Later
Ryan drifted sideways into Caleb's private driveway and slammed the humming car into park. Stepping out of the car with his cigarettes and beer, he admired the ride that he had just used to tear apart the streets of Newport. He promised himself that he would clean it up tomorrow, and he walked with his purchases into Caleb's house. Locking the front door behind him, he walked into the kitchen and almost set his entertainment for the evening in a large pool of blood on the kitchen counter. As he looked around the counter, he spotted a large knife with more blood around it. Realizing that it was odd that he hadn't heard from Taylor since he had been back, he left the kitchen in a hurry and began to run up the stairs, yelling her name. "Taylor," Ryan called, and charged into her room to find her sitting on her bed, crying and cradling her wrapped and bleeding hand.
"Go away Ryan. You just violated rule four and made an unauthorized trip into my part of the house's territory."
"Jesus," Ryan said as he leaned back against the doorframe. "I thought you were dead. I saw the knife downstairs with the blood and everything and I though someone broke in." He walked over to inspect Taylor's cut hand, only to have Taylor push him back with her good one.
"I said go away. I don't need your help."
"Bullshit, Taylor. You're already soaking through that rag. If you don't stop the bleeding, you'll eventually pass out and die from blood loss."
"I can figure it out, Ryan. Why don't you go get drunk and hit on some shit-faced barfly at some crappy…bar."
"Godammit, Taylor! Stop being so fucking hardheaded and independent. You need help and I'm here to give it. Jesus," he said as he shook his head in exasperation. "I'll be back in a second." He returned a moment later, bearing a bottle of peroxide. "I need you to take the rag off of your hand for a second, Taylor." She does and Ryan sees the deep gash on her palm. "Shit Taylor. What were you doing?"
"Cutting up vegetables for dinner. Is it bad," she asked the boy, a concerned look on her face.
"Well, it's not great. Can you move your fingers?" She flexes her hand a small amount. "That's good, that means you didn't sever the tendons in you hand and you won't need surgery. Now," he held up the small bottle in front of her, "this is going to hurt a bit, but I need to clean the wound out so you don't get an infection." Taylor nodded and Ryan poured the acid into the wound. Taylor screamed as it killed the bacteria. She hit Ryan in the chest as she cried softly. "What was that for," he asked her.
"That…hurt…you…ass," she said around sobs.
"I know, but it's important to do that so it prevents infection. I'm going to put this gauze on your cut so you need to remember to change it every now and then. Make sure that you keep it tight against the palm of your hand in case it starts to bleed again. If it bleeds too much, let me know and we'll go to the hospital." Ryan stood up and began to walk downstairs, before Taylor could stop him.
"Wait!"
Ryan stopped walking. "What?"
"Did you do all of that because you were worried about me?"
Ryan paused a moment before answering. "No, I just didn't want to have to call the cops and answer questions about why another teenager died while in my company." Having said that, he began to walk back down the stairs.
"Asshole," Taylor called down after him.
"Bitch," he yelled back at her.
Okay so this is my next contribution. Hopefully it's enjoyable. Let me know what you think. Sorry for the short A/N but I'm going to be late for my Philosophy test. Review please!
AZ
Author's edit: I have to clear something up that I forgot to put in the first time. For those that were wanting more Cal/Ryan interaction, don't give up. He only went on vacation. He's going to come back. And I'm not planning on doing a day by day retelling of Ryan and Taylor's time. You'll get your Cal, that I promise.
