The 20 Dates Challenge

Fourteen - Swears His heart Out

Swears His Heart Out

When I wake up, I’m curled up in sheets and pillows. I can hear heavy, even breathing beside me. I slowly sit up. Alex lies motionless on the other side of a pillow wall. His mouth is wide open and gentle snores fill the room. I smile to myself, pulling his camera from his pocket. We are both wearing the same clothes we wore the day before. I turn off the flash, so not to wake him, and take a picture. He doesn’t even stir.

I slip into the kitchen where Charlene and Connie are eating pancakes.

‘Morning, sunshine,’ Charlene sings as I walk through the door.

I sit down next to Connie and she passes me a plate of pancakes. I pile up my plate high and cover them in cream and melted chocolate.

‘Is the boy still asleep?’ Charlene asks, turning back to the oven.

‘Yeah,’ I say through a mouthful of pancake, cream and chocolate.

‘What time did you get to sleep?’

‘I dropped off around twelve, I think,’ I say, ‘I have no idea when he went.’

Beside me, Connie laughs as she drowns her pancakes in syrup before sprinkling choc-chips over them. I finish my plate before grabbing another, covering it in chocolate, cream, syrup and strawberries before taking it into the living room. Alex is still fast asleep. I put the plate on the couch and kneel down beside him. I gently shake his shoulder.

‘Alex,’ I whisper, ‘wake up.’

He doesn’t move. I shake his shoulder a little more roughly.

‘Alex, wake up,’ I say louder.

Still nothing.

‘Wake up, Alex,’ I shout, shaking his whole body.

Nothing.

‘Fine,’ I sigh, ‘I guess I’ll just have to eat your pancakes.’

‘Pancakes,’ he opens his eyes and sits up.

I just laugh, passing him the plate. Before he picks up a pancake, he leans over and kisses me.

‘Morning,’ he smiles.

I blush under his gaze and hide my face behind the curtain of my hair. He just laughs as he shoves half a pancake in his mouth. I watch him as he quickly downs his breakfast. Connie comes in to collect the plate.

‘Can I have my blankets back yet?’ she asks, gesturing to the mess of blankets, pillows and paper planes around us.

‘Yes, if you clean up,’ Alex says.

‘I’ll clean for ten minutes,’ she says.

‘Then you don’t get them back until tomorrow,’ Alex retorts.

‘Twenty minutes and I get them back by lunch.’

‘Thirty and they’ll be in your room by five.’

‘Forty minutes, in my room, cleaned and folded, by four.’

‘Deal,’ Alex takes her hand and shakes it firmly.

The two have a stare off before Connie huffs in his face and leaves for the kitchen. Alex just laughs.

‘Fourteen years old and still beating you at deals,’ I giggle.

‘No way, I think I did pretty good,’ he says.

‘It’s gonna take at least an hour to clean this place up. Twenty minutes of that hour you’ll be on your own, plus you have to wash, dry and fold all of her blankets. I definitely think she got the upper hand on this one.’

Alex looks around the room.

‘Damn it,’ he says after a minute or so, ‘you wanna help?’

‘No,’ I laugh.

‘Please,’ he pleads.

‘No,’ I say again.

‘I’ll be your best friend.’

‘You already are.’

‘Come one.’

‘This was your idea, you clean it up.’

‘It was not my idea.’

‘Still no.’

‘Please,’ he falls to his knees, ‘look, I’m begging.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Help me.’

‘I’ll press the buttons on the washing machine.’

‘And the dryer?’

‘That’s going a bit far.’

‘Fine, I’ll do the dryer. But can you at least put the washing powder in?’

‘Yes, but you have to do the softener.’

‘Deal,’ he shakes my hand the same way he shook his sisters.

But he adds a kiss into our deal.

‘She definitely won that one,’ Alex and I look up to find Connie standing in the doorway.

I just laugh at the astonished look on Alex’s face. He quickly jumps up and runs over to his sister.

‘Don’t tell Mum,’ he says.

‘Why not?’ both Connie and I say.

He looks back and forth between the two of us.

‘Because I want to tell her,’ he says slowly.

‘Good answer,’ Connie laughs.

I smile weakly, wondering why he doesn’t want to tell his mum. After that, we all get started on cleaning up. First we pick up all the paper planes and throw them out. Then we pick up all the sheets and pillows. I take all the sheets and pillow cases into the laundry and set them on to wash. When I get back to the living room, Connie and Alex are trying to get the table from outside back outside.

‘How did you even get it into the house?’ Connie asks him.

‘Dad helped me,’ he huffs.

I try to help them get the table through the back door but it doesn’t fit. While we are trying to figure out how to get it out, Connie decides that her forty minutes of helping are up and reminds Alex that her sheets need to be in her room by four. We both look at the clock to see that it is only twelve-thirty. I quickly change the washing over to the dryer and hurry back to the living room.

Alex decides to break the table top off with a crowbar. That idea turns out to be a very bad one as the wood cracks in half down the middle. He spends the next half hour swearing his heart out with Charlene swearing her heart out.

While they are doing this I clean up the other table and put all the chairs back in place. Then I get all the sheets and pillow cases from the dryer, fold them and leave Connie’s in her room. Alex decides to drop me home before his dad gets home so I don’t get in trouble as well. He kisses me goodbye on my doorstep and I watch as his car drives away.