Slight Detours | Wattys 2015

(17) JARED

I frown, inspecting the lone, faded pink, Betty Boop t-shirt I've managed to hunt down. Fingering the cotton fabric, I think twice about putting it on, but decide against spending the rest of my morning shirtless. When I look behind me, I see Ally still enveloped in a blanket cocoon to shield her eyes from my half-dressed state.

For this, I'm grateful, really. I'm being honest when I say I don't like being watched undress. I mean, I was okay with changing around other guys. Heck, I've gone to swim practice in lesser, unflattering spandex, but there was something I found uncomfortable with stealing girls' attention.

Now, I know what you're thinking, it sounds completely unreasonable. However, I'm telling you that it isn't. Just as girls have their issues, we guys have ours.

Pulling on the worn piece of clothing, I replay Ally's reaction in my head. Whether she knew I was uncomfortable, or acted in coincidence was a mystery to me. I'd like to think the truth of the former.

"You can open your eyes now." I say casually as I make my way back to the corner of the bed I'd been sitting on before Ally pushed me to the ground.

"Is your top half fully clothed?" She pesters.

"Yes."

She instantaneously releases her grip on the thick duvet and takes a deep breath of air, "Great," she flashes me a wide grin, "The air in there was terrible."

"Cool story, bro."

Ally glares at my flippant reply.

I shrug plainly, a smirk-smile playing on my lips.

Annoyed, Ally makes an attempt to push me off for a second time but this time around, I'm ready for her. Just as she shoves her entire body weight against me, I plant my feet on the ground and watch amusedly as the sudden recoil takes effect in which she throw back on the bed in an undignified heap.

"That's what you get when you mess with Jared, whoa!" I sing at the top of my lungs, hoping to get to her nerves even more. What can I say? I'm an expert when it comes to the special art of irritating people.

Childishly, Ally throws a pillow at me. However, I catch it mid-air and proceed to use it as my weapon of mass destruction. Soon, she catches on as to what I'm about to do and takes off running.

When she's a good distance away from me, ready to run and poised on the balls of her feet, I shout from across the room. "You do realize that running won't do you any good."

She makes a face and disappears up the two-stair balcony leading to the partial attic I'd inspected a long while ago when she'd been asleep. Little did she know, I knew this place like the back of my hand; out-maneuvering me would be near impossible.

"Oh, Jared, where are you?" Ally yells in a sickly sweet, singsong voice, "Have you given up yet?"

Game on it is, then.

Without so much as a word, I climb up the left flight stairs opposite to the way she'd gone, sandwiching the pillow in between my side and arm. When Ally's honey-blonde head of hair comes into view, I dive for her body, pinning her arms down her sides and inflicting the most insane form of torture known to man.

Tickling.

"Stop!" I hear her plead for mercy in the middle of her gasps for air. Relentlessly, I continue to tickle her sides, the concept of stopping growing less probable by the second.

"Say that Jared is the bestest, handsomest, and awesomest guy you've ever met."

I was perfectly aware of the nonsense grammar of that sentence, but at this point I could get Ally to say anything I wanted. All the power was at my fingertips. Okay, that was an exaggeration.