The "Nauty" List [BxB]

5 - the more the merrier

December 5

Cassius Tuffin

"Cass, are you really gonna spend your entire Christmas break locked in your room?" Cassius heard his mother ask from somewhere downstairs.

Yes, mom, he thought. That's exactly what I'm going to do.

It was the first Monday of winter break. The first "official" day, since apparently weekends didn't count. Last week had gone by pretty quickly, much to Cassius's liking. On Wednesday, he and his friends had gone out for lunch instead of eating in the school cafeteria. The group of six girls came with them and Laila, as Cassius suspected she would, sat beside Zaiden as soon as she got the chance. He didn't seem to mind, but he didn't show any signs of interest in her. Cassius felt bad for the girl, but didn't say anything because he didn't want to embarrass her.

Thursday was an averagely normal day, just with less class work assigned and in two of his classes the teachers had played Christmas music while they worked. Cassius didn't like the music. Most of it sounded the same, just with different lyrics. On the last day- Friday- his first period teacher let the class just hang around and talk. Of course, Christmas music was being played at the same time. Their teacher said it was very important to "get festive." His other classes on that day were similar, some giving them more freedom than others. His last period class teacher gave them candy canes, which Cassius appreciated, but did not eat.

The weekend flew by, as it always did. Now it was finally break and Cassius was planning on spending as much time as he could being carefree and away from the holiday spirit. He was fine with having Christmas stuff happen in the week leading up to the twenty-fifth, but he didn't enjoy having the holidays rubbed in his face way before the actual day.

"Come downstairs, Cass!" his mom called. "I wanna see my baby!"

Cassius sighed. Maybe spending time in his room would get boring eventually. His mother was a good parent and he didn't want her thinking that she wasn't. So, he got out of bed and tossed his phone to the side, exiting his bedroom and trudging lazily down the stairs.

"Mom? Which room are you in?" Cassius asked, peeping his head into the kitchen.

"Living room," she answered from the room behind him.

When he entered the living room he saw his mom sitting on the couch, book and coffee in hand, as often. She lowered her coffee cup after taking a sip and looked up to see Cassius.

"Hi, Cass," she greeted.

"Hey, mom. Why did you want me down here? My bed is so comfy," he whined.

She laughed, "Just wanted to see you," she answered. "Also, if you don't have any plans with your friends this week, Mrs. Ray says Arlo's free."

Cassius's attention was caught at that, "He wants to hang out?" he asked.

His mom shrugged, "Probably. You should go over there sometime during the week," she suggested.

"What if his mom just said that and he doesn't actually want to hang out with anyone?"

"Even if he wasn't planning on seeing people, I bet he'd be fine if you wanted to," she told him. "Besides, he probably has his own friends who he hangs out with too."

Cassius nodded in thought, "Yeah, okay," he agreed. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Sure, maybe tomorrow."

Cassius then went into the kitchen to find something to snack on. He always did that when he was bored. Not that Christmas break was already becoming boring, it was just that he didn't have many ideas of what to do with himself.