(End of day three)
The only lights on in Andrew's house were the kitchen and the blue light from the TV. But whoever had been watching the TV had vacated the area a while ago. The TV was on but the couch was empty, a bag of half eaten Cheetos laid discarded on the table.
"Sorry, it's kind of messy." I flinched when my foot glided over a soggy piece of bacon. Andrew bit his lip, hiding his smile. "Okay, sorry, it's really messy."
"You think?" Andrew bent down and retrieved the bacon from the floor. "Jeez, do you live with some form of swine?"
"Nope, just eight eighteen-year-old guys." I nodded my understanding and followed him around the house while he picked up random items of trash, casually picking up gum wrappers behind him. Andrew dumped the retrieved trash into the can under the sink. I dropped my four gum wrappers.
"Thanks, you were a big help," he said sarcastically.
"I know. I'm really helpful." Andrew sighed and leaned against the counter with his hands behind his back.
"So what do you want to do to waste the time together?" My eyes wandered around the kitchen. Before the boys moved in here, it was probably kind of nice. Maybe even clean. There was the ghost of a friendly place where families eat their breakfast before the kids rush off to school. Now empty food containers laid on the counters and the cabinet was stalked with random snack foods and frozen pizza was piled inside the freezer.
"I'm kinda hungry," I told him.
"Yeah, me too. Pasta good?"
"Sounds great." I watched Andrew as he began to pull noodles from the cabinet and tomatoes from the fridge. He braced his arms against the counter behind him after he put a pot of water over a red, orange flame.
"So you cook?"
"Yeah. My grandma taught me. She's entirely Italian. So is my grandpa. They met in London and then came over to the Americas and had my mom and her siblings."
"That explains the tan skin." He smiled.
"Guess so. So where do your grandparents, parents, come from?" I bit my lip, considering if this will give too much away about my personal life or not and then decide that it's not.
"My grandparents met in Ireland, where they're from. They lived there for a long time and my mom grew up there. Then she met my dad in college over here in the states."
"Speaking of college, where do you plan on going?" I look away.
"Look, you know that I don't want to tell you that."
"God, Charlie! You're driving me insane, you know that!"
"What're you talking about?"
"This!" He gestured between us. "This little arrangement that we have, the fake name things. At first it was charming and unique. But now it's just frustrating."
"What do you mean?"
"I want to know things about you. Real things. I want to know what your favorite color is. Your favorite food. Favorite movie. I want to know what you want to be when you grow up. What condiments you like on your hotdogs and burgers and how much. I want to know your favorite store and I want to know about your friends, not including the ones that I've met.
"I want to know your favorite books and favorite class. I want to know if you're jealous of siblings if you have them. I want to know what your favorite genre is, if you like punk more than alternative rock. I want to know if you freak out over a particular TV show and what celebrity crushes you have.
YOU ARE READING
Let's Play Pretend
Teen Fiction/priˈtend/ verb 1. to speak and act so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not. Which is exactly what Hayden and Matt do after they meet on spring break of their senior year using fake names.
