Cheat Sheets

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Spending the rest of the evening at the kitchen table with my English text book open, I type furiously at the keyboard on my laptop as I make notes and columns of quotes to remember for an important essay due next week.

A knock on the front door draws me from my zone and I give a yawn whilst checking the clock on my laptop and getting myself a drink from the fridge.

My dad answers the door and I hear two sets of feet heading for the kitchen as the men exchange words. When the kitchen door is pushed open and our house guest is revealed, I offer my father and Braeden a tired wave. “What are you doing here?” I ask, curious as to why Braeden and my father are acting so buddy-buddy all of a sudden.

“Don’t be rude, Keira.” My father scolds before hip checking me out of the way of the fridge and plucking himself out a cold beer. “You want a beer son?”

Braeden shrugs. “Sure, I guess, thanks Jacob. I walked here anyway so there’s no risk of me drink driving officer.”

My jaw drops in amazement. “You walked all the way here? That’s a good hour’s walk! What the hell Brae? And it’s forecast to rain tonight! Are you stupid?”

Sticking his tongue out at me, Braeden holds his hands up in surrender before accepting the beer from my father and cracking the top open. “Relax, I just ran out of gas so I decided to walk, it’s no big deal. And I knew it was going to rain, that’s why I bought a jacket. I’m not a total moron you know.” Taking off the aforementioned leather jacket, he slings it over the back of a chair and slides himself behind my work set up. “Ew, English.”

I swat his hands away from my notes and harrumph. “Yeah, English. We’ve got that huge paper due on Wednesday. I bet you haven’t even started it yet.”

“We have an essay?”

Shooting my father a pointed look, I close my laptop and start scooping up all of my stuff. “See; case closed. Once a moron, always a moron.” I fume before turning back to Braeden and staring at him in disbelief. “This paper is worth twenty percent of our final grade Brae!”

My father chuckles slightly at my harassing of Braeden whilst the man child in question just rolls his eyes at me and sips at his beer. “You’re not his old lady yet, Keira; get out of the boy’s throat already.”

I harrumph at my father in astonishment whilst Braeden snorts beer through his nose and sniggers slightly. “I am not his old lady; now or ever. Capeesh? Now I think I’ll finish this in my room.”

As I stomp away and up the stairs, I hear the men laughing between themselves, before I hear Braeden give a nervous swallow. “You think she’s pissed with me?”

“I’d say.” Dad agrees, no doubt laughing at our little domestic.

“But I have no idea what I even did.” Braeden protests slightly in confusion, playing innocent when we both know exactly what he did. If he thinks I’ve forgiven him for walking out on me at the diner and making me walk home in the rain, he can think again.

I’m immersed in my English Essay as the floorboards in my bedroom give a tiny squeak of protest unto the weight of someone trespassing in my room. “I’m kind of busy here.” I mumble over my shoulder, rushing to get the sentence in my head written down before I get too distracted.

When I feel a warm body bump into my shoulder and send me sprawling out of my computer chair, I realise it’s too late to even salvage that mental paragraph.

With a groan of protest, I rub at my throbbing temple from where it struck the floor and glare up at a slightly inebriated Braeden who’s sitting smugly where I was just a moment ago. “Ouch, you thug, that actually hurt.”

He shoots me a boyish smile, his eyes sparkling in lazy delight. “I’m sorry baby; want me to kiss it better?”

I get up and brush myself off, tilting my head to the side as I observe his dilated pupils and slightly sloppy speech and motor skills. “You’re drunk.” I deadpan, standing in front of him with my arms crossed in disappointment. Never will I understand the need to get drunk for no apparent reason.

“Don’t look at me like that, Kee.” Braeden pouts, staring up at me apologetically – well, the best he can whilst intoxicated – before grabbing me by the elbows and pulling me down to his lap where I end up sprawled over him awkwardly. “It breaks my soul when you look at me like that. And besides; it’s your dad’s fault. You never offer the son of alcoholic’s beer, what a rookie move.”

Shocked that he’s speaking about his parents, I push myself up off his chest and brace my hands on his shoulders whilst straddling his lap. “Your parents were alcoholics?”

Chuckling at me slightly, Braeden shakes his head and pulls me into a warm hug. “I’m not going to let you take advantage of my drunken brain, sweetness, so why don’t you just sing me a lullaby or something so I can fall asleep.”

I giggle and swat his chest before burrowing myself deeper against it and giving a sigh of content. Opening my mouth, I begin to hum slightly to a Johnny Cash song I’ve had lodged in my head for a while now. “Early one morning, with time to kill, I borrowed Jeb’s rifle and sat on the hill.”

Braeden lets me continue to sing to him until I reach the heart of the song in the second paragraph and he winces. “Ouch. Bit morbid, sweetness? I thought you’d sing me a Disney song or something, but Cash? Should I be offended?”

“Maybe just a little bit.” I admit, letting his hair – which I hadn’t know I was playing with – filter through my fingers once again before they burrow through his hair again and situate themselves at the back of his neck where the strands are particularly soft against my fingertips. “My dad let you up to my room at nine o’clock at night?”

“Yup” Braeden agrees, popping the p in yup as he grins in that wicked way of his. “Don’t tell anyone, but I think you’re old man’s trying to set me and Keira up.”

I harrumph and shake my head. “So he’s playing cupid?”

Humming in agreement, Braeden slouches lower in the chair – practically lying horizontal – and readjusts me over him until I’m curled up on top of him. “Now go to sleep sweetness, I’ve got some good ol’ fashioned revenge planned for the morning and I promise you you’re not going to want to miss this.”

I wriggle and accidentally elbow Braeden in the ribs making him jerk sporadically, sending the chair jolting backwards and both of us falling to the floor with an ‘oomph’ of pain. Blowing hair out of my face, I meet Braeden’s pained face with a tiny smile. “Maybe this would be more comfortable on the bed.”

He grumbles with all of his drunken might. “Agreed.”