Re-Arranged

Chapter Twenty Four

The door across the hallway creaked open an inch. One eye appeared in the gap and blinked repeatedly until it could stay open halfway. Twisted strands of black hair edged along the eyelashes as if looking for a place to come to a stop at. A yawn escaped from a mouth not visible and the one eye that was, brimmed over.

Darian twitched with an urge to whip out his phone and take a photo, but managed to smother it with a tight lipped smile, his teeth acting as a barrier for a chuckle brewing in his throat. For the many advantages his open office door offered him, this was a strange, and the most amusing, one. He waited until the eye landed on him and the brow creased under the fringes, sending them swaying again.

He had to swallow hard before he could utter the one explanation that would make the eye retreat into hibernation. "You were deep in sleep then."

It took Sawyer three seconds to process the information. When he did, he closed the door, but not before his cousin-in-law pointed out, "Don't you have an entrance exam today?"

That pronouncement took him fifteen seconds to process.

Darian returned to his laptop screen, chuckling, while a string of expletives exploded out from the room across and seeped into his home office. The scrambling within that room was, however, muffled out well and good.

Kelly would have laughed out loud watching all this unfold. Too bad she had to work half a day this Saturday. Somehow, her missing it amused her husband more!

Sawyer flung his bedroom door open and emerged in full glory of his bedraggled hair, a creased tee shirt hastily tucked into his trousers. One sleeve of a chequered shirt had found its destined arm right until the elbow from where the rest of the shirt hung for its dear life. Armed with a sling bag, Sawyer was about to race down the stairs when something came flying towards him and he caught it deftly.

Confused, he looked at the item in his hand and his face cleared.

"Relax, you'll get there in plenty of time. You woke up early enough. At least get rid of your morning breath," Darian advised, standing by the door of his office.

"Thanks," Sawyer mumbled, the tension in his shoulders visibly loosening up. He put down his bag, fixed his shirt, ran his fingers through the standing-at-attention hair, and popped in one of the mints before tossing the pack back to Darian.

"Good luck."

He watched the youngster pick up his bag and head downstairs, and for a moment, it felt like a normal day in the normal life of their home. The Sawyer from three years ago seemed like he had been an imagination all along.

He and Kelly had not gotten a chance to confront the seventeen year old prankster until late in the evening. They had been sitting by the lake, talking and enjoying the cool breeze as the sun began its descent.

"Are you feeling okay now?" Luke asked, stroking her back gently.

"Okay-er, maybe? I don't know. I might have sprained my ankles I think," Kelly replied, pulling her feet out of the shoes just enough to examine the ankles.

"Both?"

"Not sure. I feel a little bit of sting in both of them when I walk. Doesn't seem serious though," she quickly added. "I did not even feel hurt immediately afterwards anyway."

"Still, we –"

A rustle behind them interrupted his words and they both turned their upper bodies to look at the clump of trees to their left. Sawyer stood in front of the mini forest with his hands stuffed into his jeans' pockets and his eyes trained on them. There was no mistaking the jeer his expression embodied.