Miss. Matchmaker |✓

Chapter 9

"Shhh, shhh, shhh, I got you, sweetie, it's all okay now," Harper's voice reassured me as I rested my head on her lap and she laced her fingers through my wet hair, fighting through the tangles. "The school said you can take off as much time as you need, they want you to know that he has been fired and they are willing to take legal action against him if you want." She explained softly, as if talking to a toddler.

"I'll think about it," I wanted him as far away from my thoughts as possible. His hands crawling their way up my body, no matter how hard I scrubbed or rubbed they were there. I had turned the faucet as far as it went for heat, it turned my milky skin a bright pink; the other factor to turning it to such a color was the roughness that I used when soaping up. The ringing of my phone tearing me away from my thoughts.

"You want me to get it?" Harper's voice piped up, to which I politely declined as she had already done so much. No matter how much we fought, at the end of everyday she was still my sister. I reached for my phone from its place on the coffee table feeling my heartbeat accelerate to a speed that it's never reached before.

"Hey there," I answered as this would be a nice and much needed distraction.

"Just what in the hell is this Colton boy doing here in my house," Dustin started, the anger in his voice caused a strange pull in my stomach and I didn't like one bit of it. His words were quick and low, indicating that the 'Colton boy' was not far away.

"That's not how you greet someone." I mumbled, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt considering he wasn't aware of what had occured. "And if you must know, they are working on a project for my class."

"Oh and there's no one else in that damn class that you could have paired her with, huh?" His voice was steadily rising and it was making me shift around uncomfortably, I finally pushed myself up from my place on Harper's lap rising to my feet that were covered by my duck slippers as I shuffled over to a distant spot they quack which caused Specks to hit at them with playfulness.

"Quit that, Specks," I mumbled lightly kicking my feet back and forth as an effort to get away from him, although he took it as them fighting back and continued to pat at them. "Please don't shout at me." Turning my attention back to Dustin, my voice was low and sounded like that of a child's.

"I'm sorry, darlin'," His voice was entangled with an apologetic tone and an overprotective brother one. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you, I think I need to take a visit to the gun range tomorrow." He grumbled, earning a giggle from me which ultimately resulted in him chuckling a bit.

"Maybe I'll come with you," I blurted out, sounding a bit too overly enthusiastic even to my own ears. His chuckle thickened and made another pull in my stomach, although this time it felt good.

"Don't be silly, little missy, you've gots school," He teased, which stirred up something inside of me once more and caused a blush to settle its way onto my skin just as the pinkness from my shower was starting to vanish.

"Actually, I don't. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow, okay?" My voice was sinking as each word dropped out of my mouth floating through into his own ears.

"Alright, babe. Tomorrow, I'll pick you up at 11, is that alright? We'll get lunch." Once he started speaking again his voice appeared to be lighter, and gentler.

"That sounds nice, thank you." My response came out a little different than when I had first suggested the idea and now I dreaded the thought of explaining it to him, but it had to be done sooner or later. It's just now that I'm thinking about it, later sounds a hell of a lot better.

"I'll see ya then, darlin'." He ended the call before I even had a chance to respond, but I wasn't going to take it to heart; I was more thankful as the atmosphere had turned almost sour. Until Harper's voice filled my ears once again and the tint of red on my cheeks made a re-appearance.

"RaeLynn's got a daaaaaaaaateeeeeeee," came her sing songy voice, causing me to stomp back over to her; tossing the nearest throw pillow at her. "Oh, you are so on!"