TEN REASONS
Chapter 8 - Why not to make Aneki laugh
Not one second after we had finished our perve of the penthouse and shown our rooms, the elevator chimed indicating someone had arrived. Max and Tyson eyed each other momentarily before racing down the hall to be the first to greet the visitors. Luckily Kai was stationed on the lower floor, otherwise he probably would have come after them with a steak knife. Hil, Em and I sighed stridently as we stepped over the tangle heap also known as Max and Tyson to greet the new comers.
"Wrong floor?" queries a familiar tanned skin bluenette woman as she glanced at the scramble on the floor.
"Aneki?" I state raising an eyebrow. Next to her patiently stood Kenny, Caramel, Rosemary and Lora.
"Hi Mariah," she greets.
"Um no offence, but why are you here?" I ponder out loud somewhat lamely.
"Oh, I was at Rosie's helping her go over some of the acting techniques we learnt and lost track of time and they all arrived to pick her up for the party. Turns out it's a very small world and that Lora, a friend of mine from the American Women's soccer team is Max's cousin…," Aneki explained bluntly.
"Where is she going to sleep?" A voice questions from behind us, belonging to none other than Kai, obviously pissed off from not knowing there was going to be an extra guest.
"She can share my room!" Lor solves happily as if there was no problem to begin with.
"Then where will Mariah sleep?" he asks with the same tone of voice as before.
"Um… I'll sleep on the couch," Aneki offers. Kai's usually expressionless eyes clearly read in bold highlighted letters, 'you will?'
"Don't worry about it, I'll share with Tyson," I deal, smiling inwardly at my genius. Watch out Bill Gates! Kai's eyes still wore that look only now Max, Kenny and the girls had joined the club. "I've basically lived with him for the last week in the same house, so sharing a room for two nights won't kill me," I reassure.
"It probably will…" I faintly hear Em mumble. I, ignoring it, carry on.
"Is it okay with you Tyson?"
"As long as you don't snore, steal the blanket or kick in your sleep its cool," he jokes.
"Tyson you do all of those," Hilary snaps, triggering the others into a fit of laughter excluding Kai of course.
"Yeah try and imagine two of me trying to share a bed," he reasons seriously.
"We pray everyday that never happens, Ty," laughs Max.
"It's settle then, Tyson and Mariah will share a room." Kai concludes with a tone of finality in his voice.
I gather my stuff and transfer it to Ty's room with his help.
"Good one Mariah, good one," he compliments, kissing my cheek before exiting the room.
"Thank you," I beam.
Tyson's POV
Lunch time had finally struck. Mariah, Lor and Rosemary were making lunch; Hilary was hunting for the salad bowl which I had hid in the freezer unknown to the others but Aneki. Kai was fetching some drinks from the bar fridge, Kenny and Cara were snuggling on the balcony and Aneki and I were suppressing our giggles whilst trying to figure out what to do so we retreated to sitting there and looking pretty. By god we were doing a pretty good job too.
Eventually the aromas of the food lured me to attempt to snatch only one mere micro size piece of cheese and Lor snapped my fingers with the tongs.
"Lor this works better," Hilary informs pulling out a rather painful looking hammer used to flatten meat. Mummy?
Kai re-enters the modern hi-tech kitchen both hands bearing two vodka cruisers and glances over to the cooks, me and back over to the cooks. "The knifes are in the second drawer." He threats scathingly.
"Okay I get it don't touch the food," I exhaust rather cheesed off. No pun intended of course.
"Right!" Lor and Mariah chimed in unison.
"Er… Hilary, I think I found the salad bowl…" Rosemary voiced rather worriedly. Aneki and I collapse to the ground in laughter leaving the others to raising their eyebrows at us.
Finally lunch arrived! It was a cold meat buffet. With chicken, ham and some seafood as well as a heap of crisp salads. They all chatted about the good old days, beyblading (I mumbled through my gob full of food that I was the best and currently world champ) and high schools, jobs etc. Not a second after we had finished washing the dishes Michael, Eddy, Steve and Allan popped around, talk about perfect timing. Their plane had arrived an hour ago and they had booked a unit, two streets down for the weekend. After half an hour of debating on what we should do with the remainder of our afternoon the majority of us decided on the beach. Mariah looked like all her Christmases had come at once. Correction, I think they have.
We all changed and strutted our way down to the vacant beach as it was still a work day for most people. Scampering to our chose 'base camp' we hastily planted our towels down and relieved our feet from the scorching sand. Eddy stabbed the blue and white stripped beach umbrella into the golden sand and our towel island was complete. We all then drown ourselves in sunscreen excluding Eddy who is teasing Michael about his fair skin and Max and Emily who were expressing their artistic flair, drawing smiley faces on each others backs. Once it all soaked in Mariah darted across the sand straight into the deep blue sea.
"She must really love the beach," Allan concocts.
"You have no idea," I reply thinking back to the other day…
"Are you guys lizards or something and spend all your free time basking in the sun or are you going to hop in?" Mariah yells standing up in the surf. The sun glowing of her absolutely saturated body which might I add isn't a bad look on her at all. I heard Kai mumble a yeah and Cara 'that's me to a tee!'
"I would but I don't wanna have my feet amputated!" Lor whined in a rather stuck up manner.
"And up we go!" Michael cheers as he scoops the blonde up in his arms and daringly sprints across the sand. Murmurs of 'ooh, looks like Mikey likes somebody,' fluttered in the faint breeze. Than my evil side kicks in…
"Oh they're asking for it," I intrigue the towel islanders rather slyly before I bolt off after them. As soon as I caught up to them I gave Michael one big heave and they toppled over heels over head into the Pacific ocean. Shooting off down the shoreline to avoid revenge, the towel islanders' laughs fading as I made distance between myself and the unofficial couple.
"TYSON!" Lor and Michael cry in a war like tone. I'm so dead.
I dive into the ocean and double round to meet them; luckily the current was on my side. Unfortunately Mikey spotted me and relived WWF. Some how Lor ended up on his shoulders brutally attacking me and soon Mariah was upon mine in some kind of tag team rumble. Cat calls from the towel islanders hollered how much our pairings made perfect couples. Aneki was already shot gunning being Lor and Michael's maid of honour… we however being to pre-occupied in our skirmish left their comments ignored. Max, Em, Aneki and Allan made their way over and ganged up on us. Michael and Lor teamed up on us and World War Three literally broke out.
"Aw man I'm stuffed," I panted heavily, lying down on the now not so hot sand.
"Sand castles anyone?" Lor offered as if she was taking our order.
So we made sand castles; Michael thought it would be hilarious if he smashed my castle. So I demolished his. So he pegged a sand ball hitting me smack bang on my nose. Damn baseball pitchers!
"Falcon!" Eddy chorused with a hell of a lot of volume. Hilary almost wet herself laughing and toppled over the beach umbrella in her epileptic fit. So I threw a sand ball at her. Yes I pick on the weak…
"GRANGER!" Kai bellowed his eyes on fire. Oh that's right the over protective boyfriend, forgot about that.
That's when I realised I hit Kai instead of Hilary…Fuck, I really should have written out my will…
I did the only thing one could do when Kai was angry. Unfortunately I didn't have a gun… So I piss bolted. Amen I'm a good running, Regional Champ in high school in fact. I dived into the shelter of the sea and when surfaced saw Lor curse loudly and violently as a sunscreen bottle whammed her in the… er… chest… I thought it was impossible to top Kai's death stare but dude she came close to it. She than pegged it back missed Kai by like 8 metres and whammed Rosemary in the back of the head.
We all froze. If we were playing statues none of us would be tapped on the shoulder and told to leave the game. Hitting Rosie was like farting in front of the Queen; it should never be done and the culprit shunned for the rest of his/her life and forced to live a life of exile in Norway and hunt fish for a living. Rosie's just too sweet. Hope you like catching fish Lor.
"I'm so sorry Rose. Are you alright? I was aiming for Kai and I just have the worst aim ever. I didn't hurt you did I? I'll get some ice…" Lor rambled like some old grandma.
"Lor, I'm fine," she voiced softly lifting her head up to face Lora.
"I saw a corner shop not to far from here on the drive up. I'll just go – you're fine?' it finally hit her, no not the sunscreen bottle, Rose's words.
"Yeah," Rose smiles sweetly.
From then on we were heaps more cautious, like babies wrapped in bubble wrap. All fat and made popping noises when we sat down. Well not exactly…. Yet even without our vicious ways the day still went a blink of an eye, the beach, dinner, seconds, thirds, I've actually lost count on how many helpings, dessert, dessert seconds, the spa and pool and bed.
Mariah's POV
Ty eyed me as he departed to bed; reading his mind I stayed up, chatting to Aneki, to avoid any 'conspiracies' about Tyson and I. Em and Max informed us they were leaving to bed to get some cough rest. Apparently Hilary and Kai and Kenny and Cara used the same excuse too. Earlier I plummeted the others with the sole question of how Kai and Hilary got together. Allan hypothesised that their annoyance of Tyson brought them together but the true answer still remains a mystery. Lor and Rose went to bed when Michael, Allan, Steve and Eddy left, which was my bluenette friend and mine's current topic of discussion.
"Did you see how fondly Michael and Lor were looking at each other before he left?" Aneki stated excitedly.
"Un huh! Some serious eye candy was going on between those two," I giggle.
"And at the beach," she drawls out. "Speaking of the beach, you and Tyson seemed to be kind of cosy…" she whispers lowly.
"We did?" I question as if this was fresh news to my ears.
"Put it this way, you two ganged up against Michael and Lor in the surf… and when we were playing tiggy in the pool… and, he let you have the last slice of caramel cheese cake." She spoke has if presenting her evidence before a court.
"Aneki can you keep a secret?" I whisper curiously so it is barely audible for no sensitive ears to hear. She nods both eagerly yet offended at my doubt.
"Tyson and I are getting married next Thursday in Las Vegas," I joke.
"I thought you were going to say you liked him, bitch!" she yells, whacking me with a cushion.
"Shut it!" I grit through my closed teeth, gagging her with the avocado green cushion, "the others are asleep!"
"They're 'asleep'," she corrects as she eyes me, "particularly Emily and Max…" and we both burst out in a fit of giggles. I calm down but Aneki, she just can't stop giggling.
"Chicken," I randomly speak innocently and she laughs even harder.
"Shower," I continue.
"Marigold, Carpet, Porcupine, bat winged, door knob headed, bubblegum bum wombat." Tears stream down her face and her ribs look like they are going to crack any minute. I fall silent the room echoing with laughter giving up my charade.
"Look just breath," I groan, over my little game and she falls off the sofa and onto the floor, her face turning purple.
"Right don't breath die," I mutter sarcastically and she rolls on her back much like a beetle stuck on its back legs flying everywhere and coughs every now and then as she struggles to breath. Lor and Rosemary walk out, lured by the noise.
"What the hell is so fun – gosh Aneki your face looks like an eggplant," Lor exclaims recklessly. Aneki with one big laugh rolls over and bangs her fists into the floor.
"What happened?" Rosemary ponders out loud curiously.
"I said chicken and sentenced her to an endless eternity of laughter," I explain. Actually her laughter reminds me of Hilary this afternoon when Tyson got falconed.
"Chicken?" she repeats astonished at why the bluenette rolling on the floor found this hilarious. Aneki laughs even louder, her tears glistening her entire face as a result of rolling down on the floor.
"I'm going to get my camera," Lor gloats.
Ten seconds later Lor is back and trying to get a descent picture, wasting almost a whole film, no thanks to Aneki's steam roller impressions all over the floor. Rose and I pinned her to the ground successfully. Her hair had fallen out from its pony and strewn all over her face. I hurriedly brushed aside the soggy hair drenched from her tears.
"Say Fuji!" Lor quoted the well known ad sending Aneki into another psychotic fit of laughter. With all of the film used the three of us sat there waiting patiently for my model friend to shut up but it seemed every time her eyes caught a glimpse of us she would start giggling.
Ten Reasons why not to make Aneki laugh
1. She never stops
2. It'll be the cause of her death one day
3. It does nothing for her complexion
4. It totally messes up her hair which isn't good for an aspiring hair model
5. It gives all personnel within a twenty metre diameter of her a killer headache
6. She loses control of everything like some drunk
7. She'll break her rib cage
8. Not to mention any furniture in the surrounding area which is why we have propped cushions all around her. Praise fort Aneki!
9. You can't talk to her! One word and you bury her deeper inside the grave of endless laughter
10. There is no cure for it. I repeat NO CURE!
"Oh I give up! I'm going to bed," I announced bored with Aneki's endless laughter.
"Night," Lor and Rose reply. Aneki struggles to say good night but ends up sounding like some broken record player and sends herself back into the land of giggles.
I enter my bedroom careful to lock the door and snuggle next to Tyson, to lazy to change my clothes. That boy is really rubbing off on me laziness, carefree, childlike. He makes me forget about all my worries like some drug and it's addictive too. Oh well at least I don't eat like him.
"What was all that racket?" he yawned as he drew me closer.
"Aneki," I sigh hopelessly.
"I thought it was a blubbering hippopotamus," he speaks sleepily.
"Don't tell her that," I faintly giggle. "Or she'll never stop laughing."
"You know Ray arrives tomorrow," he reminds, his voice now more awake.
"Yeah…" I mumble.
"You're not completely over him yet, are you?" He questions, his finger tracing my hair line at the back of my head.
"No Ty I am. Its just he just hurt me, not intently but still hurt me," I whisper.
"The only thing that can heal that is time," he advises.
"I know Ty," I quietly reply. We go silent, he plays with my hair twisting it around his fingers, braiding and upbraiding it. It's rather soothing. "You know what I like most about you Ty?" I voice.
"Mmm what?" he ponders curiously.
"You're so wonderful…"
Tyson's POV
And in like some soap opera she fell asleep. Typical I mutter, I kiss her forehead and tighten my embrace around her fine frame, drifting off into a dreamless sleep.