I sat down directly across from Bradin and gave him a smile, "These are going to be the worst pancakes I've ever had in my entire life."
He pouted for a moment before laughing and agreeing with me, "Ditto. I think we better stick to woodshop for our elective this year. None of this cooking shit."
I nervously took my fork and cut into a pancake as batter oozed from it, "God, how'd you know I loved my pancakes under cooked? They're perfect, Brae." I joked with him.
"Hey, if I could punch you from here without wrecking this house more than it already is, I definitely would right now. I don't need your comments on my skilled chefs work."
"Yeah, yeah." I replied, laughing as I took a bit from the bitter pancake, scrunching up my face as Brae waited for my reaction, "Delish." I spoke through gritted teeth and grabbed the syrup from the middle of the table, dishing it onto my pancake in large amounts.
Callie was still passed out on the couch, not even the smell of pancakes had risen her from her death sleep. It was rather funny, it was also rather sad, but I appreciated the fact that I got to spend some quality time with Bradin. Hey, at least I get to talk to him before spending my second night here. I thought to myself, wondering how awkward it must've been for him.
"So, Brae, I must ask you. What the hell really did happen last night?" I picked up a soggy piece of pancake on my fork and carefully led it to my mouth, making sure not to drop it along the way.
"Alright, well let's see…" He spoke with his mouth open, in a rather disturbing matter if I do say so myself, but I didn't mind it all that much, "Okay, so you walked in on Callie and I making out."
"Well, that I recall, that was right before my lovely keg stand." I commented.
"Oh, I heard about that keg stand. You, my friend, were the life of the party." He cut himself off another piece of pancake and began using it as a sponge in his excess syrup, "But anyway, you disappeared for a while and then Callie started to throw up. It was really pretty nasty, and it was only something like 10 o'clock."
"Damn those light-weights."
"Yeah, seriously, you downed a hell of a lot more than she did and you're not over there." Brae nodded in Callie's direction, laughing to himself.
"Let's hope she doesn't hear us," I whispered, realizing that the vicinity in which we were in wasn't one that would really block the conversation from getting to Callie.
"Trust me, she can't hear us, and if she can… so be it."
For a moment I had to wonder if Bradin was just an asshole, here he was talking about the girl he'd been with the night before as if she wasn't within 10 feet of where we were sitting. For a moment it crossed my mind that he was always one to get a girl and then let her go, but then I remembered that he'd just moved to Playa Linda and already he was claimed. It wasn't something that anybody would enjoy, seeing as they'd just gotten to a new surrounding and hadn't had any time to check out the 'new merchandise.'
"Haha, you're right." I nodded, "So continue with what happened."
"Oh, right. So I went to drive Callie home, because she was a royal mess and I really didn't want to put up with it, and there I was… driving down the street when I see you. Well, I didn't see you at first, but after a moment or two I finally realized that there really was a person in front of me and when I tell you that I swerved, we're talking some crazy ass Hollywood stunt swerving. You wouldn't even move. I couldn't understand it. I brought you two back here, figuring that if I sent you home I'd get in major trouble, and I had Jay call your parents and pretend to be Callie's dad and vice versa."
"You'd think by now our parents would know each others voices, but these days my parents are so preoccupied I could get on the phone and say I was Callie's dad." I sighed, shrugging my shoulders and looking down at my pancakes as if they were the single most interesting thing in the room.
"Hey, Daveigh, don't worry about it. I mean at least you –…" A moan from the couch startled us out of our conversation that'd increasingly grown to a whisper, as if we were telling each other our life stories, and some part of me felt as if I could. As if I could sit down with this boy that I'd just met and already screwed up his life and just tell him everything that's ever happened to me, but by now Callie was up and moving and we were supposed to tend to her immediately.
Typical Cal, I thought. Always stealing my moments. And I never seem to mind much.
I helped Bradin move her from the couch to his room. (I soon learned it was the room she and I woke up in.) And by the time we were finished with that grueling process, the conversation seemed to slip our minds, the new topic was one that I could tell concerned Bradin a lot more.
"Let me ask you one more thing," Bradin sat down on the couch and this time; I followed, sitting on the opposite side. (Still wary of being too close.)
"Shoot."
"What exactly was it that you took?" His brow furrowed as he looked at my reaction.
"You know, I'd actually completely forgotten about that. Ha, how could I?" I couldn't believe my stupidity, I suppose it was just something that I'd chosen to block from my memory last night, alcohol allows you to do that, you know.
"Understandable, I don't think it was something that anyone would want to remember from the way that you were reacting." He moved closer. Don't do this to me, Brae, I just want to keep my distance. Callie, Callie, Callie. My mind chanted, making sure that I'd stay loyal to my best friend. I didn't feel anything towards Bradin, but I knew Callie and her fits and her ways of making the smallest situation out to be something a whole lot more than it was. So she was a drama queen, and if I sat next to Bradin it'd somehow turn into me making out with Bradin, it was just something that I couldn't afford to gamble with.
"Yeah, I guess." I racked my brain for the size and shape of the pill, "It looked like Advil, it was in an Advil bottle. And the funny thing is, I can't even remember who gave it to me, or what it was. But I don't think they told me."
"No, they definitely wouldn't have. It's not something that jerks like that do. And I know this person was a jerk because I know exactly who it was."
"How?" I asked, curious as to what Bradin knew that I didn't.
He reached into his pocket and removed a small prescription bottle, "Because the idiot that gave it to you left their prescription medication here. Pharmacists label that stuff, you know?"
"So… who was it? And more importantly what was it?" I inquired, eager to know what I'd consumed last night and who the asshole was that I needed to kill.
He held the bottle closer to my face and pointed to the little name etched on the adhesive label, I read it aloud, "Lucas?" My head snapped back, "Lucas? Why would Lucas do this to me? I don't even know him."
"Dave, think, it wasn't Lucas. Someone in his family just used his prescription medication." I thought for a moment.
"Fuck. Tanner."
Bradin nodded his head in agreement, "Hell, I've only been here since mid-summer and I already hate that kid. I fought him, you know that?"
"Oh, Bradin, you're so masculine." I joked with him before getting serious again, "Why would he do this to me?"
"Not to you, Daveigh, to me. If I got caught with something this serious at my house…"
"You'd be major trouble, Bradin Westerly." A voice came from the doorway, startling both of us.
"Aunt Ava? I thought you were only supposed to get home tomorrow?" Bradin shot out of his seat.
"Lucky for you I came home a day early."
