started with a lie ➳ raura revised

Chapter Eleven

After dinner, I try to convince Ross to do the dishes while I clean up the tables and set up a place to sleep but he refuses. He says he's never washed a dish in his life and doesn't plan on it any time soon. 

"You have to do your part of the share!" I say to him, while I hold a rag so I can clean up the table. "It isn't fair that I clean everything and setup a place to sleep." 

"Well, then I'll set up a place to sleep! I loathe washing dishes.Anything but that," Ross says, crossing his arms. His eyebrows are knitted together and his bottom lip is pushed out in a pout. If this were any other situation, I would've gushed over his cute expression, but right now—he was just plain irritating. 

"No! You don't even know where the air mattress is!" I retort. "If you don't do the dishes, you won't get a place to sleep." 

Ross sits down, crossing his arms. "Fine with me." 

I throw the cleaning rag at his face. "You are so irritating! Fine, I'll do the dishes. You do the table. It sure as hell better be sparkling clean." I turn and head to the sink. 

We quietly cleaned up for the next ten minutes. I wipe my wet hands with a towel and indicate Ross to follow me as I leave the kitchen. The air mattress is in the closet in the hallway. I open it and rummage around useless things that Mom and I just throw in there. 

"That's strange," I say as I rummage through some tennis-related things in a box. I push the box aside and look in the next one. 

"What is?" Ross asks, standing behind me.  

"I can't seem to find it," I frown. I go through ten-to-fifteen boxes but I find nothing. I could've sworn Mom had thrown it in here after Uncle Malcolm had come to stay over. I can't think of anywhere else it could be in. "I guess you'll have to sleep on the couch." 

"The couch?" Ross says, like it's a foreign word. Here we go again, I think as I shut the closet door. "I am not sleeping on the couch." 

"Well, that's all you're going to get." 

He scoffs. "I don't think so. I am not going to sleep on," he points back to the couch, "that hideous thing. It will kill my back!" Ross scrunches up his face. "I'm the heir to a hotel business. If you break my back, you're breaking the entire business. All my customers will blame you and the employees will—" 

"Okay!" I put my hands up in surrender. "I get it. Save me the speech,would you?" I close the closet. "You can sleep in my room." 

"Your room?" 

"Well, yeah. Where else would you sleep?" I ask, turning to face him.His wet hair seems to be drying from his shower. His hair looks silkier than mine. I scrunch up my face in a tiny fit of jealousy. 

"What about your mom's room?" Ross suggests. "I mean, she's not going to be here for a while. Why not use her room?" 

I start laughing. Ross gives me a why-are-you-laughing look. "I am not going to let you sleep in my mother's room! That's just creepy! Even I barely go in her room. You are definitely not going to sleep there." I walk to my bedroom and open the door slightly, sticking my head in to see if there's anything weird in my room. 

 I'm right. All my clothes are scattered around from packing and that includes some lingerie. My face reddens a little. What if Ross saw those?That'd be one moment I would not like to live in.

 I shut the door closed. 

"What? I thought I was going to sleep on your bed," Ross says,confused. He tries to push past me to the door. I put my back to the door and hold the wall. "What're you doing?"