Sprawled across Jake's bed we spent more time throwing Cheetos into each other's mouths then doing anything productive, but eventually we had made a big enough dint in both mine and Jake's homework for the night and started to gossip.
"So, Michael..." Jake wiggled his eyebrows at me seductively.
"Oh shut up." I said throwing a hand full of chips at him. Even though I was dying to talk about it, Jake didn't feel like the right person.
"He's definitely got the hot's for you." Jake said rolling onto his side to look at me.
"He does not!" I could feel myself blushing, but unfortunately couldn't stop it. "Don't be ridiculous."
"How's it ridiculous? You're not exactly hard to look at." He threw a pillow at me. "Plus you're blushing so you think so to." He was smiling. Maybe what he said before hadn't meant what I thought it had.
"I don't know. He was a tad.. Complimentary..." I teased, knowing he'd want to know every detail.
"Oh I bet." He laughed. "I saw that little moment in the bathroom before. Why was he just staring at your hair by the way?" So he had noticed.
"He was being sweet! Don't be mean." I rolled onto my back and stretched out my muscles. I hadn't realised I was so tired.
"He looked like a monkey checking you for lice, but okay. If that's your idea of romance." I pushed him off the bed with my foot. We spent the next half an hour just talking and laughing and it was good for everything to feel normal again. I wasn't cut out for this much romance and drama. I drifted off to sleep not long after, curled up in my clothes in Jake's bed.
I woke up with a start. I'd had a nightmare. Michael and Jake where fighting, punching and tearing at each other. I was screaming at them to stop and then suddenly, Michael was gone and Jake was standing there covered in blood. "For you Jessie. I did it for you." He collapsed in front of me turning into dust as he hit the ground. It took me a second to adjust to the sunlight glazing the room. I turned to look at Jake sleeping peacefully. I loved seeing Jake sleeping. He was so quite and still when usually he was so full of life and energy. He frowned and hugged his pillow tighter. "No Jessie. Don't." He mumbled. Jake had a tendency to sleep talk, something which had scared the hell out of 12 year old me when we had had our first sleep over and he started saying run over and over in his sleep, But now I loved when he talked in his sleep.
"Don't what Jake?" I asked playfully, hoping for a funny story to tell him when he woke up.
"Don't go. Let's stay in bed all day. The kids can get themselves to school." I couldn't hold back the laughter and he sat up in bed, hair sticking up on the side.
"What? What happened? Did I fart?" He frowned at me confused.
"No, you where just telling me to make the kids get themselves to school." He rolled his eyes at me and laid back down pulling the pillow onto his head.
"Fuck the kids." I heard him mumble.
I stumbled into the bathroom to get ready for school. The one bad thing about Jake's house was the short showers. Momma was all about conservation and if you spent longer then your designated 4 minutes in the shower, you would hear her yell out from downstairs. I came out of the bathroom feeling human again to see morning Jake stumble past me, stealing my towel for the floor. Morning Jake is grumpy and slow and is usually replaced by normal Jake some time between his morning shower and breakfast. I stumble down stairs to find smiley faced pancakes with blueberry eyes.
"Morning sunshine! The earth say's hello!" Momma exclaims from the kitchen. I sit at the table with Jake's dad and watch him pluck at the strings on an instrument that looks like a cross between a banjo and a harp. Momma floats into the room with the hot pan and flips a pancake straight out of it onto Jake's dad's plate. He kisses her shoulder as she bends over to flip the other one into the plate in the middle of the table.
Momma points the spatula at me. "Saturn is in Sagittarius so don't cut corners today my dear." She winks at me and returns to the kitchen. Jake's dad shakes his head at me smiling.
"I find sometimes rounded corners are better." He winks at me and continues to play. Jake bounces downstairs and sits at the table, talking a hundred miles per hour to his dad about the instrument he's currently caressing. Breakfast finishes pretty uneventfully and we are sent off to school with lunches packed. I scoff down my muesli bar on the walk to school knowing Jake will share his with me at lunch.
As we get to the front of our school, i see Michael leaning against the gates looking around. He sees us and smiles.
"We seem to have gained a pack member." Jake whispers to me smiling at Michael. We exchange our hello's and good morning's as we head in to assembly.
