Sins of Aiden

3

CHAPTER 3

My spoon jerks forward when an all-together ear-piercing sneeze rips through the kitchen and papers begin to fly in the air. For a moment there, it's quiet and I let the silence enter my focus but then another one of Liam's atrocities sneezes slashes out my annoyance when it reaches my eardrums. The bowl on the counter in front of me is wobbling and I have to grab it before the milk spills out of it.

He can't even cover his sneezes with his arm.

Gross.

Still, I sigh with ease. "Bless you," I say while Liam drops to his knees to the floor, picking up the papers lying spread out on the kitchen floor.

He lets out a loud whine.

"I never marked these and now they are all messed up," he grumbles more to himself than me (not even sure if he knows I'm here) as he makes an effort to see which paper corresponds to the others and, of course, creases the papers more than required.

"It's five points, " he goes on as he sits on the floor, papers on his lap, and then he begins to count his fingers. . . "one, two, three, four, five, six-" Liam halts when something hits him. "N-No, we don't have six fingers."

I decide to make myself noticed.  "Liam, are you okay?"

He waves his hand in the air, dismissing my question. "I got this, " is all he says, not even peeking up at me from the floor before continuing to what he is doing.

I'm not prepared for what is about to come next. "Thumbietot, lollipop, long man, cutie stand, and little winkie pinkie."

I furrow my brows forcefully.

What's wrong with him?

"Yes, that's right!" He cheers with excitement.

Liam is that boy who isn't the wisest but also not the dumbest—I might have inherited that gene instead—nut in the basked although sometimes I have to eat my words up. Like now. He carries a very witty personality along with that he never really takes anything seriously which is a shame that I don't have the same view in life. His primary destination is to try to make as many people as possible laugh and he makes that happen even when he doesn't know it. Liam is Liam, that guy I question for his health.

My brother is odd.

"What do you have there?" I ask as I go back to eat my soggy cereal.

"It's a speech to a girl named Maylee," Liam says proudly as he hassles up and gathers his papers together in his hands before he effortlessly throws them on the counter—like they have no value no more.

He strolls to the refrigerator.

I drag my brows in a straight line. "Didn't you talk about a girl named Ava?" I ask with uncertainty.

Liam snorts loudly from behind the refrigerator door which he had opened so forcefully that the containers sitting on the door nearly lurched on top of him. "Her name is Anna." He states followed by a loud crash that evades the room.

I won't lie, my heartbeat picked up a few extra beats at that.

"No, her name was Ava," I try again.

Unfortunately, this has happened before. Liam is a girl's magnet—or maybe he is attaching himself to girls like this but as soon someone else catches his eye, the other girl he was hungering for is far away forgotten.

I don't remember them all considering I sometimes don't listen but Ava was the extended topic Liam couldn't seem to stop talking about yesterday. He was going on for like two hours while I was trying to do my homework. I felt like plucking my hair strands out.