“DON’T,” Annie panted, moaning as Andre maneuvered himself over her. Her fuzzy socks caused her to slip and slide on the cold plastic sheet underneath her.
“You’re doing fine,” he whispered in her ear.
“Stop, Andre… Other people are watching…”
“Then let them watch. You’re getting excited, aren’t you?”
“Andre…”
The sheet violently flew out from underneath them, causing Andre and Annie to lose their balance and ungraciously land on the waxed wooden floor in a heap.
“Oh, come on!” Andre glared up at the culprit.
The bottom of an indoor slipper slapped him upside the head.
“That’s my line,” Vincent snapped, clenching the slipper so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “What do you think you’re doing, turning Twister into some kind of touchy-feely love fest? That’s not what the game was designed for, you freaks!”
“What’s the big deal?” Annie sulked, shoving her boyfriend off of her and delicately plucking a few balls of lint from her leggings. “It was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Does that look like someone who’s having fun?” Vincent demanded, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at Elizabeth.
The girl was sitting on an ivory white couch, hiding her face with a curtain of rich brown hair. In Elizabeth’s lap sat the Twister spinner, the dial frantically swiveling left and right as she poked it.
“S-so this is T-twister, huh…” she stuttered without looking up from the spinner. “W-well, don’t let me ruin your fun, keep playing…”
“Look!” Vincent indignantly exclaimed. “Her character’s completely fallen apart!”
“It’s not like we didn’t invite you guys to play,” Andre brooded. He flinched as Vincent raised the slipper again.
“Quit being so nitpicky about everything,” Annie scoffed with a toss of her hair. “It’s not even as bad as some of the other stuff we’ve done.”
There was a tiny squeak.
The trio looked over at Elizabeth. The spinner had somehow become a crumbled mess in her hands.
“That’s it, we’re leaving,” Vincent huffed as he walked over to Elizabeth and gently pried the game piece from her frozen fingers. He leaned down and gave her a soothing pat on the head. “Come on. Let’s go find a place to eat.”
“Oh, it’s already this late?” Annie remarked as she glanced over at the grandfather clock sitting across the living room.
“Don’t bother,” Andre interrupted as Vincent and Elizabeth were making their way to the door. “The servants already made a week’s worth of food.”
And so the group was forced to navigate Andre’s enormous mansion again. It took about ten minutes for them to realize that they were lost.
“Are you seriously lost in your own house?” Annie hissed at the fourth dead end.
“It’s not my fault,” Andre shrugged with a bewildered look at the long hallway stretching out before them. “We rarely went on family vacations in the first place.”
Elizabeth, now back to a somewhat normal color, squinted at one of the paintings on the wall.
“Hey… isn’t this Vermeer’s?”
“Who’s that?”
“Never mind.”
After dinner, the group slowly drifted apart. Elizabeth locked herself behind the golden plated doors of the Jackson family library. Vincent and Andre glued themselves to the media center’s shiny new game controllers. Annie spent a good part of the evening trying to break into Mrs. Jackson’s closet. When she finally did, the long lines of brand name clothing did not disappoint.
When the clocks eventually struck midnight, Annie was the one who had to rally up her friends.
Fifteen minutes to get Elizabeth to put down the books. Twenty-five minutes to convince the guys to stop gaming until Elizabeth, tired and cranky, pulled the plug and literally dragged them out of the room.
“The amusement park opens at nine,” Annie nagged at the two disgruntled boys sitting at her feet. “If you don’t want to spend the first hour in a line, we have to get there by at least eight o’clock.”
“We’re not even tired yet,” Andre whined.
“That excuse only flies if your eyes aren’t bloodshot from gaming,” Elizabeth retorted with a yawn. “Whatever, Annie, let’s just go to sleep.”
“Sleep?” Vincent mutinously grumbled under his breath. “She’s just going to crawl into Andre’s bed later.”
“Please,” Annie snorted, “as if we’d go that far.”
“I bet that’s exactly what you told your parents before you went and slept with those other guys.”
“We’re actually serious about each other,” Andre insisted. “I mean, even we know that a serious relationship’s got to go slow if you want it to work out.”
“I’ve never even done it with someone I liked,” Annie declared.
“No way, me too!” Andre shouted. “We must be, like, really compatible or something!”
Elizabeth wanted to cry.
***
The girls woke promptly at 6:00.
At 6:02, they went down the hall to wake the boys up.
At 6:05, Vincent finally crawled out of bed. The girls left him to wake up Andre by himself.
At 6:15, they returned, fully dressed, to discover that Andre had locked Vincent out.
“At least I’m ready,” he shrugged, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his faded black jeans. “And by the way, Liz, that shirt looks fantastic on you.”
“Don’t call me—”
There was a click as Annie picked the lock on the door and walked inside. She put the bobby pins back in her short hair and reached inside her bag for a water bottle.
On the bottom mattress of the green bunk bed sat a thick cocoon of blankets. It rose and fell as Andre slept inside it, completely unaware of what was to come.
At 6:18, Annie tossed her bag onto the candy wrapper littered floor.
At 6:19, she unscrewed the bottle cap.
And that was how Andre Jackson, for the first time in his long, sixteen-year-old life, awoke to
***********
Aaaand you can read the rest in the book >:) Available in paperback and ebook!
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10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love: Book Extension
RomanceCome check out the bonus chapters that can only be found in the book! Complete with new arcs and all your favorite Liz-beating-the-life-out-of-Vincent moments!
