Today was the last day of school for me! Yay! Until further notice, I will be updating every other day.
I was thinking about this story a bunch and I finally have it all planned out in my head and I have to tell you that I am SO EXCITED to write it! Please tell me of what you think of Ian, because he has a big role in future chapters…
Enjoy!
The next morning, I had reason to believe that the world was ending and life as I knew it would forever be changed.
Why? Because Ian actually woke up earlier then 11:00 in the morning. And this was on a week-end. And not only was he awake and fully functioning, he was actually decently clothed (minus a shirt, but still, it could be worse), and was just walking in through our back door when I came downstairs.
"Hey Bail," he chirped as I stumbled into our kitchen, still half asleep.
This morning I had woken up absurdly happy. Why, you might ask? No, it wasn't because I was a huge procrastinator and was really excited about cramming all of my final exam studying into a two day period, nor was it because I had to cook four dairy-less deserts (Mark-from-work was lactose intolerant) for a Kwilting office party. Which, by the way, thanks a lot mom. You couldn't have just signed up for the veggie platter?
Anyways, my reason for smiling as soon as I woke up this morning was because of this:
"Then I'll being seeing you soon."
For some reason, the thought that I might see Seth soon just made me so…so...happy. I knew it was ridiculous. But the thing was, I was hacing trouble finding reasons to care why my feelings for him were so absurd.
"Hey," I said back, stifling a yawn. "Where were you?"
He shrugged. "Nowhere. Out walking."
I snorted.
"Right. You woke up at seven in the morning to take a morning stroll." I scrummaged up a frozen waffle from our freezer and set it in the microwave.
"Yup."
I looked at him. He looked tired. "Ian. I'm serious. Where were you?"
"I'm serious too. None of your beeswax."
"I know you're lying."
"No you don't. Why do you care?"
"Well, I-I don't," I said defensively. "I was just wondering."
"And I told you. I was just… walking."
"This doesn't have anything to do with the phone call you gave me on Wednesday, right?"
"Are you still obsessing about that?"
"I'm not obsessing. I just want to know what's going on." I hoisted myself onto our counter and sat down, watching the little timer on the microwave tick down. Ian picked up one of his boxers from his laundry basket and flicked me with it before throwing it up and catching it with the other hand.
"That's your problem. You worry too much."
"I'm not worried," I mumbled. He didn't say anything for a minute, tossing back up the plaid-checkered underwear again.
"On a completely different note, I got a job."
What? Ian… a job? Where did that come from? He turned fifteen in two weeks- was he even old enough to work?
"Um… okay. Where?"
"Don't get angry, kay? Or tell mom."
Uh-oh.
"Are you selling drugs, Ian?"
"No. Prostitution."
I stared at him, mouth open, momentarily too appalled to speak. He threw his boxers again.
He turned to smirk at me, mid-throw.
"Kidding, Bail. And you say you don't worry too much."
"Oh my gosh," I said, not even bothering to be angry at him in my relief. "You are an idiot."
He laughed.
"No. It's actually at a gas station."
The microwave beeped.
"You're still kidding, right?"
"Nope. But don't worry. It's not that bad. It's the one right around the road, and I get five bucks per hour."
"But… a gas station? Why at a gas station? What do you even do?"
"Not much. That's the best part. I don't have to do anything, but I still get paid. And the reason why I got the job was cause they had a help sign, and so I was like, what the hell? Why not, you know?"
"Ian. It's at a gas station."
"Um. Yeah. We've already been over that."
"Is it one of those creepy ones that sells condoms in their bathroom?"
"Yup." He turned to smile at me. "And lottery tickets."
I shook my head, but couldn't help but smile. I took my plate out of the microwave, burning my hand in the process.
He threw his boxers up in the air again. I wish he would stop. Would if Seth walked in the door?
"Are you gonna tell mom?" I asked.
"She already knows."
"She does?"
…How? Since when has Ian told mom something before he told me?
I knew that there was something he wasn't telling me. I just didn't know whether it was important enough or not for me to push it.
Me and Ian's relationship had always been blessedly easy. One of the things that had scared me most when we moved to La Push was that I would lose Ian. That the friendship we had had been made out of necessity. Safety in numbers.
And what would I do then, if I lost him? He was the only who actually saw it happen. He was the only one who knew everything. Even mom didn't know. Sometimes I wondered if I actually loved her.
But it hadn't changed anything. He had stayed my annoying younger brother who knew why I was so shy, was able to say the right thing on the nights when I would really start to lose it, and was always, always hungry.
He grabbed a granola bar from a pile on our counter, catching site of my poor waffle. I think the box had said 1 ¼ minutes, not 4 ¼ minutes. Oops.
"Um, I think you were supposed to put that in the microwave, Bail. Not the burning fires of hell or something." I laughed.
"I'm serious. Like, what did you do to it?" He pushed it with his granola bar, and it fell onto the counter with a thunk reminiscent of a hockey puck. "I think you dehydrated it."
"Shut up," I muttered, swatting at him.
The door bell rang.
I gasped involuntarily.
"What?"
I didn't answer, shoving past him to get to the window. Yup.
He was already looking at the window, expecting that I would peek out. I shut the curtain, trying to hide my sloppy smile.
I looked back at Ian. Shirtless, and, God bless him, with his boxers on the ceiling fan. I knew I should have told him to stop doing that.
"Oh my gosh, Ian, get your freaking underwear off of the fan-"
"Wait, who is it?"
"Get your-"
"Calm down, Bail. I'm working on it." He took a kitchen knife and reached up, trying to push it off. No such luck. "Who is it?"
"It's Seth Clearwater. Can you please just put on a shirt and-"
"Wait, what?" he looked at me and froze, in the middle of trying to position a chair underneath the fan.
"It's Seth. Would you please hurry the heck up and-"
"Seth Clearwater? Why is he here?" He made a face. I immediately became defensive.
"He came to see me. Do you have something against him?"
"Are you guys dating or something?"
Huh. I wish. "No, we're not dating, but he is waiting right outside our door right now and so I would really appreciate it if you would hurry up and get your underwear-"
"Just hold on a sec, Bail. If you guys aren't dating then why is he even here?"
"Because- I-well-" I struggled for words. Why was he here? At seven in the morning, nonetheless.
"He- he's my friend."
"Really? His sister's a bi- I mean, jerk."
"What? How do you know his sister?"
He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it.
So this was what he wasn't telling me. But what did it have to do with Leah?
"Whatever. Nevermind."
I was getting really sick of this. He was going to have to tell me sometime. But, at the moment, Seth was probably thinking that I had gone and died or something instead of answering the door, and I nearly tripped in my rush to open it.
And just like that, as I opened the door, I was lost for the words that I could find so easily with Ian.
"Finally," he said, standing on my porch in the early morning sun. He smiled at me. "I was starting to worry about you. Can I come in?"
