Claire glowered at the white house in front of her.
It hadn't done anything to earn her ire. It was a white two story house with a small front yard and a big porch swing just like most of the other houses on the street. It couldn't particularly help being the residence located at 52 Dogwood Drive, and Claire really shouldn't be harboring grudges against inanimate objects.
It didn't stop her from leveling a look at it that would crumble a lesser house. 52 Dogwood Drive stubbornly remained intact.
Claire follows the sidewalk up to the steps, and then crosses the porch to press the doorbell twice. She only has to wait a moment before the door is pulled open, and Jesse looks up at her in surprise.
"You said I should come over," Claire reminded him, before he could ask. Jesse had been saying it for two months now, and Claire had been steadily refusing the offer.
Except now she needed somewhere to hang out for a few hours until Castiel went away.
Jesse smiled. "Okay, come on in."
The entry way was bright yellow which made everything look like it glowed—including people. Claire followed Jesse hastily through to the kitchen where his parents were sitting at the table sharing a newspaper. His mom looked up and smiled brightly right at Claire. "Hello, you must be Claire."
Jesse turned red. "Yeah, um, Mom, Dad . . . this is Claire Novak. Claire, my mom and dad."
"It's nice to meet you," Claire smiled weakly. She'd forgotten that houses come with parents, and Claire had only just managed to shed her own.
Jesse quickly came to her rescue, and nudged her lightly. "Come on, let's go play Mario-Kart, Claire."
"Have fun, you two," Mr. Turner waved over his paper.
"Don't forget to take cookies!" Mrs. Turner cried, rushing over to the stove and pulling a pan of fresh chocolate chip cookies from the oven. "There's milk in the fridge, Jesse."
Two minutes later, Claire found herself inside Jesse's bedroom with a glass of milk in hand. She wasn't quite sure how she got there, but she wasn't going to admit that to Jesse.
Jesse kicked a beanbag chair closer to her, and set the plate of cookies on the floor between them. Then he moved past her, and disappeared briefly under the bed. "We don't have to play Mario-Kart," he explained, his voice muffled. "I've got other games. Or we could watch a movie."
Claire's not really a movie person, and she's not particularly great at video games either. So she shrugged, and told Jesse to choose.
Jesse twisted under the bed just enough to look out and up at her with a skeptical look. "You never give in this easy. And you're talking. You realize that's the number one warning sign, right?"
"Shut up," Claire scowled and plopped into the offered chair. "Put in a movie with explosions or something."
Jesse crawled back out, clutching a box of DVDs and waved one for her approval. Claire shrugged and reached for a cookie. They don't talk about the movie, and they don't talk about their parents, and they don't talk about Castiel who she can't explain anyway.
She'll never admit it to him afterward, but Claire actually likes the Terminator movies that Jesse showed her.