As a punishment for an escalated fight with her childhood rival, Ayden Kapoor, Emerson has no choice but to babysit his siblings. While in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek, Emerson stumbles upon a dusty old book hidden in the depths of the Kapo...
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"IT'S JUST FOR TODAY."
"Sorry, no can do."
"Emerson..."
"Ma..."
"I'm not asking," she said in a stern voice.
I simply shrugged my shoulders in reply as I took a sip from my orange juice. "Well, neither am I."
She sighed in disappointment. "One ride to school, meri jaan. Just one short ten-minute drive. You're telling me the two of you can't stay in the same car for more than a few minutes without fighting?"
I shot her an incredulous look as I flailed my arms, nearly spilling my juice in the process. "Ma, we're talking about Ayden Kapoor. I will wring his neck with my bare hands if I have to."
She rolled her eyes, but we both knew it was true. I hated him more than I had ever hated anyone. "This has been going on for long enough. When will the two of you grow up?"
My dad, who was sitting at the other end of the table, watched amusedly as he ate his pancake. "Back in my day, I used to taunt the girls I had a crush on."
"Yeah, Ma got a real catch," I mumbled under my breath.
"Please, Emerson?" my mom said for the final time.
I let out a sigh and shoved the remainder of my pancake in my mouth before getting up to leave. She smiled at me, but I returned it with a scowl as I grabbed my car keys off the ledge and exited the house, making sure to slam the door shut behind me. I sat inside my car and started the engine before driving to the Kapoor residence.
My dad was college best friends with Aryan Kapoor, and because of their lifelong friendship, they assumed their children would get along too. While I didn't mind his other kids, Avan and Amrita, I loathed his eldest son, Ayden. Since we were kids, Ayden and I never got along. He found me bratty while I found him obnoxious, and so we were constantly getting into fights. Unfortunately, since our dads were such good friends we were stuck with each other our whole childhoods. Our parents always joked we'd end up together, but I was more willing to run my car over my big toe until the end of time than be with that idiot.
I stopped in front of the Kapoor residence, honking my horn several times before Ayden finally decided to make an appearance. His stoic expression contorted into a smirk when he spotted me as he exited his house and walked to my car. Ayden swung open the passenger door and sat inside, amusement all over his face.
"What a lovely surprise, Sonny."
I ignored him as I focused on driving. When we were six or seven years old Ayden started calling me Sonny, which irritated me for reasons I didn't even know. Seeing how much the name bothered me, he continued to call me that up until a decade later, when we were now seventeen.
"Silent treatment, huh?" I continued to ignore him. "I didn't know the forecast for today was cloudy."
Without tearing my eyes off the road, I smacked my hand against his arm. Ayden easily dodged my strike and chuckled. After a few more minutes of his mindless taunting, I pulled into the school parking lot. I waited as Ayden got out of my car, hoping he could find another poor victim to bother, but when I saw he was waiting for me I huffed and exited my car. I ignored him as I walked, but no matter how fast my pace was he easily caught up. Ayden slung his arm over my shoulder as we walked, and I tried to shake it off, but it was to no avail. He was bigger, taller, and a hell of a lot stronger than I was.
