Danny turned a page of his book. His ankles were crossed and rested on the ledge of the deck railing. The sun hardly peaked over the horizon, but Danny was used to reading in minimum lighting.
Birds were chirping. It was a nice contrast to the whistling of the wind and the slapping of rain on his windows from last night.
The sliding door opened and Danny glanced at his watch.
5:47
"Make yourself useful before your mother wakes up."
He didn't make any move of acknowledgment. Danny wanted to curse him out, invade his space, intimidate him, scare him, show him just how much the mere thought of him made Danny's blood boil. But all he did was turn a page. Danny knew that would get to him more.
Guys like him don't like to be ignored. Danny's perfected that practice for the past four years.
His father rounded the chair and snatched the book from Danny's hands. He tossed it over his shoulder and into the yard. Danny almost snapped, and it took work to school his features. JJ gave him that book.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you."
Danny slowly trailed his eyes up and started just past his father's ear. He interlocked his fingers on his lap and settled deeper in the chair.
His father was talking, but Danny didn't bother tuning in to listen. He had a finger pointed in Danny's face. He always loved to do that. He kept it up for another few seconds and then marched back inside with a slam of the sliding door.
Danny wiped the spit off his cheek. He could imagine what his father said. Faggot always had spit trailing after it. It was what helped his father expel all that pent-up hatred, he supposed.
Danny stood and took a deep breath. After he felt his rage recede, he descended the stairs and searched for his book. It was lodged in the tree branches, most of its pages crumpled, and some torn. It was better than the mud, Danny thought.
***
They live in Figure Eight in a tasteful beach house. The outer wood is a light sky blue with white trim and flower boxes under all the lower level windows. It's one of the smaller homes on this side of the island, but there are still enough empty bedrooms for all of his friends to live in.
"Danny!" his mom, Irene, yelled from the side of the house. She's repainting the deck for whatever reason. He didn't care to question why. He'd repaint the whole house if she asked him to.
"Yeah, mom?" he replied and wiped the sweat off his face with the bottom of his shirt. He's been cutting up the tree with a chainsaw for the better part of two hours and he's barely made a dent, however, his ears have been ringing for the last fifteen minutes, even with the ear protection.
She pointed behind him toward the water, and he looked over his shoulder.
His friends waved at him from John B's boat.
"Let's go," Kiara whispered and motioned for him to come. She has her big red cooler and Danny knew exactly what is in there, and he's itching to get his hand on the bottle.
He shouldn't though. He shook his head and motioned to the gigantic fallen tree that covered their entire yard.
"Hello, Mrs. Sarver," Pope greeted politely from his position at the bow of the boat. She walked down to the edge of the yard where Danny stood. They have a deck running horizontally to their yard where it suddenly drops off into open water. They got it installed when Danny had yet to develop his depth perception when he was four and kept running, thinking there was still yard space.
YOU ARE READING
Exception // JJ Maybank
Fanfiction"Don't give me that look. You love me." "Wish I didn't." Daniel Sarver is probably the only Kook on the island who doesn't attend the private school for rich kids and participate in their even more pretentious lifestyle. He's probab...
