This Time Tomorrow

This Time Tomorrow: Chapter One

“Parker, I need your help.”

I spun on my heel at the familiar voice, even as my stomach contracted in dismay.  Those words never did bode well for me, and I’d grown well accustomed to hearing them over the last ten years.  Sure enough, I watched Odynn stride towards me with purpose, his smoothly contoured face a combination of extreme annoyance and impatience.

Eyes the palest of blues zeroed in on me, even as I contemplated ducking around the corner and taking off at a dead run.  Not that it would matter.  Odynn knew where I lived, and he spent more time attached to my hip than not.  It would take him less than an hour to track me down, and when he did he’d no doubt laugh at my stupidity.

Never mind the fact that we’d driven to school together, therefore giving me no choice but to stick around.  It may have been my car we were using, but Odynn was currently in possession of my car keys; I had a nasty habit of losing them and he’d grown tired of breaking into my car and having to start it without them.

“I’ll hunt you down if you run,” he said when he got within ten feet of my locker.

Damn, what was he, a mind reader?

“You’ve got that look on your face,” he clarified, coming to a halt in front of me.

He was barely in an inch taller than me, but that didn’t stop him from looming over me.  I didn’t know how he did it, but he always managed to make me feel small and childlike in comparison to him.  Maybe it was the commanding confidence he oozed, or maybe it was the extra seventy-five pounds he had on me - where I was soft and slender, he was broad shouldered and naturally muscular.  

Whatever it was, it never failed to irritate me when he used it to sway me to his cause.  Which, given the way he was seething with barely suppressed anger, this time probably meant girl troubles.  Specifically, Tania Troubles.

“The answer is no,” I said, throwing my English textbook into my locker.  I shook my head for emphasis, sending my dark brown hair flying over my shoulders.

“You don’t even know what I need your help with,” he said, taking my schoolbag from where I had it tucked under my arm.  He packed the Calculus notebook I handed him into it and zipped it up, slinging it over his shoulder.

“The answer is still no,” I said, propping my chemistry notebook open in my locker to scan the work I’d done last night.  It had taken me until midnight to finish it, and I had the sneaking suspicion I’d missed half the answers.

“Come on, Parker.  She’s driving me insane.  I don’t even need you to actually do anything.  I just need you to hang around me more than you already do.”

I paused in the middle of reading one of my answers and pegged him with a stern frown.

“We had an agreement.  As long as you’re dating Tania Ducat, I’m not sitting with you at lunch, and I’m not sitting with you in Calculus.  Mostly because she’s got that high pitched nasal whine going on, but also because she’s insecure enough as it is and thinks we’re secretly sleeping together behind her back.”

Odynn smiled, a cheeky grin that had a dimple forming on the left side of his jaw.  He bent his head towards me, and the light streaming in through a window overhead caught his auburn hair, turning it from the darkest of reds to a flaming crimson for an instant.

“In case it’s escaped your notice, we do sleep together.  Nearly every night.”

I gave an indignant squawk and shoved him, swivelling my head in both directions to make sure the hallway was deserted.  “That is a technicality,” I muttered under my breath.  “We may sleep together, but we’re not sleeping together.  You know what, it doesn’t even count when you sleep on the floor anyway.”