Will You Love Me Then?

Chapter 4 - Elijah

She is fascinating.

And completely...distracting.

I shouldn't have indulged her or myself by coming to sit with her if I actually wanted to get any work done. It is a rare occasion for me to have a Saturday off and for Addy to be out of the house during the weekend. She is spending time with her friends this weekend which means I have the opportunity to make some progress on my current assignments.

Bailey already ruined my earlier attempts. I don't know how she still manages to find me all the time. It is like she sewed a tracker into my clothes. Maybe she did; I wouldn't put it past her. She is consistently successful at frustrating me to death.

The only reason I entertain her at all is simply because I need someone to watch Addy in the evenings after school until I get home from work. Addy likes Bailey. And I like the fact that Bailey is willing to do it for free; something about using the hours to count as charity volunteer work.

I don't want Addy or myself to be considered charity but if I can save some money, I will allow Bailey to use the hours for whatever she wants. However, sometime in the last four years, she has decided that she is in love with me. She never makes advances on me in front of Addy but whenever she has the chance to corner me somewhere, she never fails to make me want to peel my skin off with a vegetable peeler and stab my eyes and ears with an icepick.

But free childcare is free childcare, and I can deal with it until Addy leaves for college. It's not that I don't trust my sister to not be an idiot; she is actually a pretty good kid, but she is also a teenager. There is no possible way that I am going to leave my fifteen-year-old sister home by herself for four hours every single day after school. I was a teenager not that long ago and an empty house every day is a key ingredient in the recipe for disaster.

"Are you going to keep pretending to be working or would you rather talk?"

Her voice broke me from my obviously unfocused thoughts and with an amused smile, I looked up at her over the top of my computer screen, "I am working."

She took a sip of her tea, "My hair is a wig."

"What?"

"Oh, I just thought we were naming things that were false," she said with a smile, her eyes glinting with mischief.

I shook my head at her, but I felt a smile on my own face.

"So, what are you "working" on anyway?"

Drawing my mouth into a line, I deadpanned, "I can't tell you or I would have to kill you; it's top secret."

"Mhm. Is that why you look so stressed and exhausted? Your top-secret mission?"

I kept my face neutral, "Yes, that is definitely why."

How does she read me so well? She did it last night too. I thought I looked halfway rested today, but I guess not. She isn't wrong though; I am exhausted...and stressed.

She laughed to herself and tucked a piece of stray hair behind her ear. She took another sip of her tea before popping the last bite of her biscuit into her mouth. Her eyes unintentionally flickered down to my still uneaten biscuit and wordlessly, I pushed the plate toward her.

"You don't want it?"

I smiled, "Not as much as you do apparently."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded my head yes and she made quick work of that small biscuit. She turned her attention back to the window, presumably to continue people-watching so I attempted to turn my attention back to my laptop. However, my eyes seemed to follow their own desires and continued to trace over her instead. She glanced sideways at me and smiled but didn't turn her head to look at me again, so I actually decided to look back down at my computer.