It Starts With Him

10

Picture: Lucas King (Devyn's Twin Brother)

Ace's car pulls into my driveway hesitantly, as if the last place he wants to be is here. The blue corvette's engine rattles as he parks behind my dad's pickup, and he shuts off the ignition with a tentative hand. 

He sighs, and pulls down his visor and opens the mirror. The small light on the side of it blinks on, and he stares at himself. He looks like me right before school during the fall, always checking my makeup in the visor before entering. 

He keeps staring, and eventually, it becomes obvious that he's just trying to stall time. I open the door and get out of the car, stretching my arms over my head. "Come on beauty queen, we got a pizza to make," I say. Ace reluctantly closes the visor and gets out of the car, shoving his hands into his pockets. The adrenaline from the events that transpired not long ago hasn't totally left my body, but I ignore it.

We walk towards the house, no lights on inside. Not even the little porch light is lit, and I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time. "1:16" reads in bright letters across the top of my screen and I groan. I know I'm not in trouble. Lucas would have covered me. He always said he would if he needed to, but up until now, he never has. I've always been at home on time, so this is another first for me.

I take the spare key out from under the welcome mat (shocker there) and unlock the white wood door. We walk in quietly, taking our shoes off right away. Ace shuts the door silently behind him, and we make our way into the dimly lit kitchen. The only light is from the moon itself.

I turn the overhead on, and say: "Any idea how to make pizza from scratch?" Ace chuckles but then puts a finger to his lips. "You're going to wake up your family, aren't you?" he asks and I shake my head. "They sleep like rocks. Plus not much sound from the ground floor seeps into the upstairs. We'll be fine," I reply, pulling up a pizza recipe on my phone. I gasp and say, "According to this site, we'll be at this until sunrise."

Ace shakes his head. "I gotta be home by then," and I sigh. "Well, I guess we could use a frozen pizza. It's not as fun, though. Not as party-ish," I complain with a frown on my face. Ace pauses for a moment, and then walks over to my counter. He grabs a paper towel rack and pulls off about 5 sheets of it. He tears them until he has about 30 long strands, and then puts them all over the kitchen. Some on the floor, some dangling over the arms of the fan, and some hanging out of the cabinets.

He looks at me with a proud smile on his face. "Party-ish enough, now? Streamers!" I laugh and clap my hands as quietly as I can. "Perfect. I have an idea. With the frozen pizza, how about we just put our own toppings on it? That way we can make it our own," I suggest and he nods. 

"That works."

I walk over to my fridge and open it, surveying all the potential toppings. I pull out ketchup and mustard, salmon dip, cherry tomatoes, and then the cupboard for some fruity pebble cereal. I look over at Ace and his jaw is wide open in surprise, and I laugh. "Come on, it'll be interesting," I say, starting to smear all the ingredients on top of the frozen cheese pizza he had pulled out. 

"What'll be interesting is me throwing up salmon dip all over your floor," he retorts with a chuckle, and I roll my eyes. "Don't be so dramatic."

Letting the pizza bake didn't take long. We found more weird ingredients in the fridge and basically just force-fed them to each other while we waited the 8 minutes. I'm washing horseradish out of my mouth in the sink when the bell dings and Ace pulls the pizza out of the oven. It looks horrendous, but even so, I feel my stomach growl. I haven't eaten really anything all day, that I can remember.