The Bad Boy and the British Girl

The Boy Who Wouldn't Go Away

Elizabeth Baker's POV:

It's Sunday morning and I can smell the bacon frying from downstairs. I sling my dressing gown on and sprint down the stairs to find my mother cooking a full english breakfast.
"Do you know how much I love you?" I kiss her on her cheek and beam at her whilst pouring myself some orange juice.
"You use me child." She responds jokingly.
"Use? Did I ask you to come downstairs and cook breakfast? I think not!" I retort as she throws a warning glare at me and then begins to laugh.
"Watch it young lady, I might make sure you only get two rashers of bacon rather than three!" She emphasises with another look of warning.
"No...you wouldn't. How could you mother? To your poor feeble daughter? How could you deprive me of such things?" I clasp my hands together as I fall to my knees begging at her side. She ruffles my hair before I stand up.
"Stop mucking about and set the table, it's for four this morning." She calls to me as I shuffle to the dining table.
"Four? So me, you, the dog...and who else? Charlie?" I yell back over the sizzling from the frying pan.
"That nice Zachary boy, the one next door. I thought you two knew each other and his mum asked me to look after him whilst she's with his younger sister." She answers as she glides towards the table with the pan and the other foods.
"He's seventeen I'm pretty sure he could look after himself surely?" I look at her with an eyebrow raised. She holds her hands up in defence after putting everything down.
"She asked me to make sure there weren't any parties whilst she was out, that's all I'm doing!"
"Mum. It's 9:30am on a Sunday morning, who parties on a Sunday...in the morning?" I question her as she just tuts and shrugs her shoulders before heading back into the kitchen.

There's a sudden knock at the door and I nod my head at my mum when she asks me to get it. I open the door to Zach with a duffle bag hanging at his sides whilst he's in a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms.
"I can explain. I just woke up, my mom dragged me out of the front door and chucked me the bag and said she would call your mom to explain. So I guess I can't exactly explain but that's all I've got." He carries on muttering until I interrupt him.
"And you're rambling Graye! Come in, I'll put your bag in the upstairs bedroom and you can go sit at the table. You're just in time!" I grin at him as I shut the door behind me  and as he turns his back I sigh slightly. It's not that I don't like him, he's funny and everything. But what if he takes me saying that us hanging out was a date further than I intended? I jog upstairs with his bag. It's a lot heavier than you'd think, but I just place it neatly at the end of the double bed in the guest room and slowly plod back downstairs. I see Zach's messy mop of hair being badly styled in the reflection of a spoon, which is swiftly dropped as I enter the dining room.
"Hey, Liz, I was just. Um."
"Checking yourself out? Yeah don't worry I do it all the time in the reflection of spoons, I just can't get enough of looking at myself you know?" I wink at him as his face changes from confusion to a broad and grinning laugh.                                                                                        

"You're not lying." My mum ruffles my hair as she waltzes in with a plate of bacon.

"That's just rude, you know?" I retort with a grin spreading across my face.

"Apples don't fall far from the tree." She looks at me with a smirk before handing me a fork. "You're serving sweetheart." My mother grins a bright smile before going back into the kitchen.

"She's not wrong." Zach comments as I shimmy three pieces of bacon onto his plate.

"About?" I hum in response, whilst I stab some sausages onto both plates.

"You're basically the same." He mutters a thank you when i finish serving all the food onto his plate.

"Compliment or?" I throw a jokingly questioning look, before I dig into my own breakfast. As I put the fork to my mouth I feel a soft, but jerking tap on the back of my head. "I'm hungry!" I complain as my mother sits down next to me, I knew the rules really. Don't eat until everyone has sat down and has their food next to them. It was an annoying rule, but as mum says, my manners are one of my most important aspects. I don't understand it when the boy who lives next door is sat opposite me cackling with laughter, surely there's a rule about laughing at respectable females or something like that. Maybe...unlikely though, my mum would let Zach get away with anything.

"We don't start until we are all ready Elizabeth. How many times?" I know the look she's giving me all too well, it's not her telling me off, she's just playing around.

"Maybe another four times and I'll learn my lesson?" She knocks my elbow as we all begin eating. Zach is ravenously chomping down his food, I look at him with mild concern, possibly slight confusion.

"I didn't eat dinner last night okay?" He defends himself, whilst still eating.

"I wasn't judging! I was just worried that you were suffering from malnutrition or something." I answer, making his shoulders lightly shake with laughter.

-----

Our breakfast just consisted of us having small talk before mum told us to go upstairs while she cleaned up. I led Zach to his room, he knew his way around upstairs pretty well from the last time he was here. Which was only yesterday...he's been here a lot actually. That's not good.
"So you can make yourself at home, just settle in, I'll be in my room. I have a paper due next Thursday." I mumble as I walk to my own room.
"Thursday? It's Sunday? You're doing homework for Thursday?" Zach splutters at me, of course. I'm strange for doing homework in the time I'm given to do it. Of course.
"Yes Graye, I am, because I don't want to be stressing on Wednesday evening about it. I have enough to deal with." Shit...I shouldn't have said that. That's just opened him up to whole bunch of questions that I can't answer...
"Like what? Is everything okay?" He's following me into my room as I sit down at my grey desk.
"I'm fine, everything's fine, I just meant school." I try and make as many excuses as possible, I can feel his disbelieving glare burning into my skull.
"I don't-"
"Believe me? No you wouldn't, stop asking questions Graye. I'm fine, I just want to it have to stress." I snap at him. I don't hear any kind of respond except my door clicking shut and his footsteps down the hall. I feel bad for snapping, I did that on purpose, it was to make him leave. He can't ask too many questions cause that'd mean he'd get too many answers and I've known him less than a month...

I hear the click of my door again as I put the pen to paper.
"I'm sorry." I say, knowing it's Zach. "I shouldn't have snapped. I just. I'm not opening up about my stress to someone I barely know." I can't look at him. I feel awful, he must think I'm insane. I'm not insane I'm just defensive and I have my reasons. I just don't like sharing those reasons, I barely open up to my mum let alone Zach.
"I think this is the first time you've apologised to me kitten." He chuckles lightly as I slowly turn my hair to face him. I give him a twitch of a smile as he stares into my eyes.
"Well it was my fault I shouldn't have spoken to you like that." I mumble at him.
"It's okay, we all get stressed and not all of us want to open up about it." He replies to me softly.
"Thank you."
"What for?"
"Understanding." Our conversation ends there, we just look at each other before I turn back around to my paper and Zach just leaves my room. I hear the click once more and then nothing for the next two hours.