Between Love and Friendship (Completed)

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

“Hey mom, I’m home!” Gabriel called as we entered his house. I smiled, taking the scene in. I hadn’t been to Gabe’s house in a while, but everything was just how I remembered it, and there was still the familiar smell of new leather lingering in the air.

His mom answered by saying something in Spanish, and although I’ve been taking Spanish for two years, I didn’t catch a word. “Un minuto,” Gabriel winked, before he walked into the kitchen.

I distracted myself by looking at the photographs that were hanging on the wall above the bookshelf. Gabriel was much younger in some of them. I smiled. He was so adorable.

Just then, Mrs. Lorrison walked out of the kitchen, with Gabriel behind her. “Oh, forgive me,” She said, giving me a quick hug. “¿Como estas?”

“Bein, gracias,” I replied, thankful that I could remember at least a few words from Spanish class.       

She smiled. “That’s good to hear. Are you keeping your grades up?”

“Yeah, my dad doesn’t really let me slack off.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but Gabriel pulled me towards the stairs before she could get any words. He said something to her in Spanish, as if it was an explanation to cut the conversation short.

“C’mon.” He said, still pulling my arm.

I followed right behind him. He seemed like he was in a rush to get upstairs for some reason.

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“I said we had a test to study for, and then we were going out for some ice cream.”

I laughed. “We are?”

“Yeah,” He said. “It would be fun. Plus, I’ve been craving ice cream all week.”

We walked down the narrow hallway, and Gabe’s room was the last door on the right. When we got to it, he carelessly pushed the door open. “Someone really enjoys cleaning their room,” I said sarcastically when I noticed how messy it was. There were papers scattered all over his computer table and what seemed like half the clothes in his closet lying around sloppily.

His room wasn’t usually that messy.

“Yeah, I’ve been busy. Not much time to clean,” He said, kicking his sneakers off.

I took my black converse off and put them neatly by the door. No need to add to the mess.

“The sooner we finish this crap, the sooner we get to go outside.” Gabriel pulled his binder out of his Jansport bag, and flipped through a couple of pages of loose leaf.

I assumed that by ‘crap’ he meant math homework.

“I’m guessing that you need help?” I asked, sitting down on his bed.

“You would be right.”

* * *

“And the formula is negative b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus four ac all over two a,” I said, handing the pencil back to Gabriel. He wasn’t one to pay much attention in class, but he could pick things up really fast.

“So I just plug the values into the equation?” He asked, after he copied down the quadratic formula that I had just recited.

“Yup.”

He scribbled the answer down on the page while saying, “Five down, and one more to go.”

Good, I thought. Two more questions until we could go outside.