I drummed my fingers on the table, sighing and glaring at the dirty, faded cream colored white, old clock that ticked off the seconds only too slowly and muttered, "Stupid, freakin' retarded, filthy, no good, rotten, worthless, son of a—"

A deep voice laughed behind me, "I hope you're not describing me."

I scrambled up and whirled around, blushing furiously with wide eyes fixed on him and said louder, "—awesome, incredibly talented, amazingly smart, extremely handsome, charming son of god. Ye—yeah. That's…what I…meant. He, he." I smiled nervously.

He snorted, rolling his eyes and sat beside me. He set the groceries bag down on the scraped, round table, "Give it a rest, Wise Girl. Look, I got the groceries, so let's just hurry the heck up and make this stupid friggin' dinner." Then he mumbled, "And hopefully sneak some poison into it."

I hit his arm and glanced around, worried, "Shh! He's gonna hear you, you idiot!" He got out a small plastic bag with tomatoes in it and got a cutting board out. I got out sweet potatoes and we washed the fruit—wait, what the heck? I'm going crazy; I meant to say vegetables…even though tomatoes are considered fruit—in a comfortable silence.

He cut up the tomatoes on one side of the counter while I peeled my potatoes by the sink. Percy always did the work on the side of the counter, mainly because there were five nice kitchen knives hanging on sort of holder, like when you see nice glasses in those wine racks, but for knives, and there's only a few.

Though it was small and dull, I refused to be in foot radius of the butcher-like knife on the left edge, farthest from me. Percy knew my reasons to be horrified by the knife, and he didn't say anything as I glanced suspiciously at it, thinking about when he would pick it up, look up at me and wink knowingly, chuckling cruelly, when I disobeyed him…

I met Percy's gaze and he smiled comfortingly. I pressed my lips into a line, trying to smile for his sake, but by his feeble efforts to keep from laughing, I looked like a goat. He once told me that before, too. I scoffed, rolling my eyes and peeled another potato.

"So…I still can't believe he let's you go out into public," I said, clearing my throat. Percy got out some red peppers and started slicing those up too, swift and trusting with his strong, unfailing hands.

"I know me either. But he has some guys watching me from far away; I saw Johnny and Smithy sitting in the café casually as I was on my way back, and I also spotted Jacque and Marvin in a van, watching me suspiciously as I walked by," He said, starting to slash up some yellow and green peppers now.

I nodded, picking up the peelings and tossing them into the trash, "Sounds like him. So, what're we making again?"

"Chicken salad and yams," He put the long, thin knife by me and smiled at me, "And that's not the only reason why he lets me go." I started slicing the potatoes up with the same blade he set by me and paused to look at him expectantly.

"He knows I'd never leave you here," he continued. "I'd have to be the absolute worst person ever to leave you here with him." I smiled gratefully at him.

"Thanks Percy," I softly told him. He just shrugged modestly and mumbled, "You're only saying that because you know it's true," as he went to the fridge and pulled out some chicken breast we had gotten from El Pollo Loco yesterday, along with some shakes that we bought with our left over money.

The making of Gabe's dinner continued coolly like that, nice, smooth, casual; same as usual. We may have only been twelve and a half, but considering all the things we did around here, this was nothing. The day after my arrival here when we had to make him breakfast—not a pretty story—Percy taught me a lot of stuff, practically a professional chef compared to me. Believe me, I tried getting out cereal when I was little and next thing you know, firefighters are surrounding our house.

Johnny came in a said in his deep, surly voice, "You brats almost done?" I rolled my eyes as Percy grinned at him, thinking, Here we go again…

Sure enough, Percy threw out his fist, expecting a fist pump, "Johnny boy! Ha, ha! My man! Yo, wazzup, home dog?" Johnny just stared at him, his fists clenched at his sides. I stifled a giggle as Percy just shrugged and started swinging his arms back and forth, jumping up and down slightly.

"Okay, guess not…" Then he grinned and winked and him, "Dude, I saw this totally hot chick—no offense, Banana-beth—" I rolled my eyes, he's called me that since forever, "—and she was just, wow, she was killing me in that mini skirt, you know? And—"

Johnny went off the deep end. "SHUT UP, FOOL! Just because I'm black doesn't mean you should…ugh! I am sick and tired of you and your little games, Jackson!" He socked Percy in the jaw, making me gasp, and Percy just staggered for a second, then shrugged as Johnny stalked out.

I quickly got out some ice, put in a paper towel, and lightly pressed it against his cheek, muttering, "Stupid Seaweed Brain." Louder, I scolded him, "You can't just leave them alone, can you! God, just once, once, Percy, I'd like you to quit getting yourself hurt!"

Percy smiled at me, his eyes still filled with amusement, but they were soft, apologetic and sincere, "You're worse than my mother. Anna-Banana, you need to quit worrying so much. Right now, we should be worrying about the fact about how you-know-who's gonna be here in half an hour."

Oh crap.

I nervously pushed the plate to him, clearing my throat, "Here you go, sir." Percy snorted behind me, just tossing the beer at Gabe lazily. Percy never understood why I was so afraid of him, but he really did scare me. Gabe slapped me across the cheek and I heard Percy growl behind me as Gabe yelled, "Go get a fork, bitch! You expect me to eat like a pig?"

"Don't you?" Percy muttered. Gabe snapped his fingers and Jacque started beating him up. I winced, and went to the kitchen with tears in my eyes, knowing I couldn't do anything else.

I hate feeling so vulnerable.

I gave him a fork and watched sadly as Percy got back up to his feet, not even bothering to wipe the blood from his nose, just snickered at Gabe, "What's wrong, Gabe? Hiding behind your little buddies like the coward you are, old man? Tsk, tsk, tsk." I glared disapprovingly at him. Gabe scoffed.

"I could take you any day, boy. In fact, tomorrow morning I'm gonna teach you a lesson," Gabe snarled.

Percy shrugged innocently, looking completely unfazed by Gabe's appearance, "I'll be waiting." We started walking back to our room with Percy stopped and turned around. "Oh, and by the way, you still fight like a woman."

I pulled him into the room and shut the door before the glass bottle hit him.