Laney:
The sound of my mother’s voice made anger rise from the pit of my stomach. “Hello?” I said reluctantly with an attitude. “Honey, we’re back home now. I’m sorry, and I’d love to talk to you. Will you be home soon?” I wasn’t sure how to respond. I had no problem with my mom meeting Niall. I just didn’t want Niall meeting Ethan. “Uh, yeah. A few minutes.” We said our casual I love you’s and hung up the phone. I placed it in my lap and faced the road while talking to Niall. “Alright so we’re going to go in the basement entrance. Don’t ask, I just have some things to take care of. Alright?” His eyes returned to me from the window. “Sure, why?” I laughed a little, white knuckling the steering wheel and clearly nervous. “I told you not to ask, didn’t I?” he nodded his head in agreement as we pulled into the driveway. The two of us unloaded the trunk as I brought him through the basement entrance.
We laid the bags down on the floor and I picked up the one with my black dress in it. “I have to go take care of some things, stay down here and just hangout. I’ll be down in a bit.” I headed back up through the basement and in through the front door.
“Hi mom.” I said as I walked into the kitchen. There were pans on the stove and Ethan was sitting on the floor playing with a shiny yellow dump truck. My mother immediately turned to me with a slightly frightening grin on her face. I felt her arms wrap around me for the first time in a while. When she pulled away there were tears in her eyes. “It’s okay mom, we can talk about this later. But here’s the thing” I twirled a strand of my hair around my finger. “I have a friend over and he’s staying for like another week but I can’t let him meet Ethan.” Surprisingly my mom just nodded. She returned to cooking as she started to talk. “How do you plan on keeping them from crossing paths?” I looked across the kitchen at the baby boy who was now sitting in his dump truck. With a chuckle, I replied “Well I was going to move his stuff downstairs so that we could just sleep down there and if we go out we can use the basement door and if we need to come up here I can check for the munchkin first.” With a nod and a smile, my mom agreed to the insane proposition.
I walked up to my room and picked up Niall’s things. I grabbed the blanket he’d bought along with the clover puppy and a handful of my clothes. Between that and what we’d bought today, I had enough to last the week. I dragged everything down the stairs and into the basement where I found Niall napping on the couch.
I silently lowered the things to the floor and made my way over to the sleeping beauty. I sat myself on his tummy and his eyes opened and allowed a smile to form above his dimpled chin. “All tired out from shopping, are you?” His hands were warm and soft. They were smaller and more delicate than most guys. I felt one on each cheek as he pulled me into him. Our lips crashed together. His taste was sweet and familiar. He was gentle. His hand slid down to the small of my back. I tangled my fingers in his hair as he ran his tongue along my bottom lip.
I felt his hot breath as he pulled away from my warm lips. “Baby?” he whispered gently into the one inch space between our lips. I didn’t respond, hoping he’d repeat himself. “Baby?” he did. “Yeah?” I asked in a whisper with my eyes locked on his pink tongue that was settled behind his bottom teeth. He closed his eyes and left his hand on my waist. “This might be awkward, but I’ve got to wee” I stood up laughing and let Niall go to the bathroom. While he did I pulled a t shirt of his out of his suitcase and changed into it. I refrained from putting shorts on as it went well past my knees.
Silently I walked up the stairs to an empty house. I dug through the fridge for some things to last us at least a day or two. I left my finds on the counter as I led myself up the stairs. The hallways were empty and there was no light or sound coming from Sam’s room. I turned the knob and pushed the door open, making it creak. I slid my feet slowly across the carpet, trying to make my way to the bed without a sound. I didn’t want to move anything from their places. I slid my hand under the bed and pulled out a shoebox. I reached inside and pulled out one of the many bandage boxes and left the room without a trace.
