Crushes

Chapter 5

I open my eyes early Saturday morning and I see Tessa leaning over me, "finally," she yells with a smile.

I get out of bed and rub my eyes, moving them around to adjust to the lighting, "what are you doing in here?"

"Mom and Dad are at work and they told me that I couldn't start eating the pancakes until you got up," she yells. She exaggerates by throwing her hands in the air.

"Well you can eat your pancakes next time. Instead of being a stalker and peering over my bed," I tell her as I go over and grab a shirt out of my dresser and throw it on.

"Are you really going to wear that?"

I look down at my shirt and pajama pants, I shrug, "yeah, I'm not going anywhere."

"But you have company coming over, you can't wear pajamas."

"At least I put a shirt on," I say as I roll my eyes and head out of my room.

I hear Tessa's footsteps chase after me, "do you know what you're going to say? This could make or break your chances with Kate."

"Tess, all we're doing is working on a project for school. Seeing how she handled the situation with Tyler being Tyler, she won't stray from the work. It will definitely not determine my future with Kate."

"How is Tyler even passing, he's become such a slacker since," she stops, not wanting to bring up the past.

I stay silent for a moment, "I think life took its toll on him too early on in his life." We both stay silent as we get everything for our pancakes, "how are things going with you and this Ezra guy?"

"I forgot I told you about him," she starts, "he was at the game, we kind of just waved at each other, nothing else," she looks sad.

"Tess, you are a lot more likely to get in a relationship with him than I am with Kate," I explain to her. My mouth full of pancakes as I speak.

"Please tell me you're not going to do stuff like that when Kate is over," Tessa says to me with a mouthful of pancakes.

"Hypocrite," I say to her as I get on my phone.

"You never told me where you live."

"Kate texted me," I say to Tessa.

"What's it say," I show her my phone. "Just tell her, here." Before I can tell what's happening, she starts typing, her fingers like lightning, "and send."

"My God, you're horrible," I tell her as I snatch my phone from her.

"See you at noon."

~~~

I'm still in my pajama pants and t-shirt when the doorbell goes off, "I'll get it," Tessa yells at me.

"Oh no you don't," I say as I pull her back by her hair.

I open the door just as Tessa hollers, "jerk."

I see Kate standing in the doorway, standing with one of her arms behind her back, "you can come in," I say. I watch her walk in awkwardly and then stand in the middle of our living room. I lead the way to the couch and flop down on it.

I feel my phone buzz and look at it, "you're an idiot, you need to offer her a spot," the text is from Tessa.

"Where the heck are you?"

"None of your business."

I attempt to look around for Tessa, but she's no where in site. "Where do you want to work at," Kate asks me quietly, shyly, her voice barely audible.

I get up and walk to the dining room, "we can work at the table," I see Tessa out of the corner of my eye. "I'll be right back," I say before I dart after Tessa, "Tess, will you please go to your room or something!"

"No, but I will go to the living room," before I have time to respond, she makes her way to the living room.

Realizing that there's no way of getting rid of her, I sit back down in the chair next to Kate, "sorry about that."

"It's fine, let's just get this done, my dad is picking me up at two," she says, she already has the story and some pens set out.

"What did we have to do again?"

"Characters, traits, and setting," I glance into the living room to see what Tessa's up to. She's sitting on the couch, but I know she's plotting something.

"Aiden," I hear Kate say, snapping me out of paranoia.

"What should we start with," I ask her, glancing at her marked up papers.

She shrugs, "I don't know, characters I guess."

I can practically hear Tessa's thoughts, come on, do something, start a conversation with her. I shake the thoughts out of my head, "there aren't any actual characters in it though."

"Yeah, but the house has a personality of it's own and we could count nature as a character too."

"Okay," I grab a napkin from the middle of the table, "can I use one of those pens?" She hands me a hot pink gel pen, I write down our two characters, "now we need their traits."

"I'll look for the house and you get nature," she tells me.

"Okay, um. I'm going to run and get my copy of the story," I say as I dart to my room, hurrying so that Tessa doesn't have a chance to embarrass me. I run back to the table and see Tessa sitting in my seat, "what are you doing?"

"Making friends with my oh so loveable personality," Tessa tells me with one of her classic, innocent smiles.

"You have all school year to make friends," I tell her as I drag the chair away from the table. "Sorry about that," I apologize once I'm back at the table.

"It's fine," Kate says, not looking up from her paper. We eventually finish the assignment, setting and everything with, an hour before her dad would be here.

"What now," I ask.

"I know," Tessa screams, "we can play questions!"

"Questions," Kate asks in a questioning tone.

"It's where we all go in a circle and take turns asking each other questions. If you choose not to answer the question, you have to," I start to explain.

"We can leave that part out," Tessa exclaims.

"I don't know," I start to say, knowing that Kate will probably say no.

"Sure, why not," she says.

A/N: Hey everyone. I hope all of you are enjoying this book so far. The final picture of these character's is Tyler. Yay! I'm really enjoying the way this book is coming along. Let me know what you guys are thinking of it.

Do you guys have a younger sibling that acts like Tessa? My siblings are kind of annoying whenever I have friends over.

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