"Okay, look over your shoulder to make sure it's clear to back out. Now, slowly back out and keep your eyes looking behind you just in case a little kid- Ethan, for instance- jumped in the way and you ran over him. You don't want to run over Ethan now, do you?"
"No, I do not," Addison says confidently before letting out a shaky breath.
I smile. "Now, back out of the driveway."
Addison presses the accelerator, the car jerking back before she slams on the breaks. Speed back, jerk forward, repeat. I whip back-and-forth in the chair as she makes her way to the end of the driveway.
"How'd I do?" she asks nervously.
I put on a fake smile. "That was really good! I'd just recommend working on going slower and.. not giving people whiplash."
"Sorry," she mumbles. "I'm a horrible driver. My mom's not home enough for me to practice all the time."
"Where does your mom work?" I ask, unbuckling my seatbelt when she takes the keys out of the ignition.
"She started her own charity foundation to help kids and teens in orphanages," she says and gets out of the car. "I mean, she's doing such a good thing for those kids, but I wish she could be at home more often for her own kids."
I follow her through the garage and into the house. "Yeah, I'm sure you miss her. At least she's not blowing you off for something unimportant."
"I guess," she sighs before heading into the kitchen and grabbing something to drink.
"Ivy, I need you to drive me to the park," Jonas says as he walks into the kitchen with his soccer cleats on.
"The park is right around the corner. Why can't you just walk there?"
"A handsome boy like me should not walk alone to the park," he argues. "Do you know what kind of creeps lurk around this neighborhood in hopes of finding a kid as dumb as me to walk alone to the park?"
"This is one of the safest neighborhoods in the state, Jonas. You can walk alone to the park."
"If I die," he pauses dramatically, "it's on you."
I nod. "I'm willing to take that risk."
He shakes his head and grabs his soccer ball from the kitchen floor. "You are a cruel woman, Ivy Lynch."
"Thanks."
He stomps out of the house, slamming the front door shut.
The phone rings, and Addison eagerly grabs it off the table. "Hello?" Her smile fades almost immediately. I'm guessing it isn't who she expected. "Here you go, Ivy."
I take the phone from her. "This is Ivy."
"Hi there. I'm aware that you are the legal guardian of the Kennedy family while Mrs. Kennedy is away on a mission trip," the smooth talking lady begins.
"Yes. May I ask who is calling?"
"I'm Melanie Holmes from Eisenhower High," she introduces. "I run the summer school class and I've noted that Elliott Kennedy hasn't shown up to any of the classes."
"I'm sorry.. Elliott is in summer school?"
"Yes, Elliott is assigned to my nine-thirty morning class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. He hasn't attended this week. The kids are only allowed to miss three unexcused classes. If he misses another class, he'll lose his diploma and have to repeat the twelfth grade."
I nod. "I understand. I'll talk to him about it."
"Thank you. Have a nice day."
"You too," I say before hanging up.
"Hey, I'm going to Gina's lake house with a couple of people," Elliott informs as he walks into the kitchen to grab his keys. "I'll probably be back sometime next week."
I think quickly, jumping in front of the backdoor to block his way. "Actually, you're not going."
He scrunches his eyebrows together. "And why not?"
"Because your summer school teacher just called me," I say. "You haven't gone to one class. If you miss another, you won't graduate."
"That seems a little dramatic. It's just Spanish," he mutters. "I'm not planning on moving to Mexico anytime soon."
I click my tongue, eyeing him in annoyance. "Well, too bad. You have to go to your summer school classes. End of story."
"Where exactly in this cute little story did you become my babysitter?"
"I wouldn't have to act like your babysitter if you didn't act like a child!" I snap.
He doesn't say anything, a bored look on his face. That just angers me more.
"It's hard enough dealing with six other kids. I've been here a week and not once have you offered to help me with something! You ignore me when I talk to you, and you just smirk when I ask for help. I never know where you are. You come home way too late. Last night, I thought maybe you were dead, until you came home with some girl. I shouldn't have to manage an eighteen-year old adult, yet here I am, acting like a mother to a guy my own age!"
With the faintest of smiles, Elliott holds up his hand. "Alright, I'll go."
"You'll go to summer school?"
"I guess." He walks over to the refrigerator and rummages through in search of something.
I let out a sigh of relief. "¡Muy bien!"
He scrunches his eyebrows in confusion, turning to look at me with a slice of pizza in his hand. "What?"
"Nothing," I say and busy myself with cleaning the kitchen counter.
Elliott leaves the kitchen, traveling to the basement and closing the door shut.
I don't know why I feel so nervous around him. It's stupid, obviously. But I'm a girl, if I haven't mentioned already. Girls have feelings, surprise. I don't have an mental attraction to Elliott, but I will admit to a physical one. He's handsome, end of story. I'm allowed to feel a little nervous around handsome boys.
Luckily, there's his personality to steer me away from any real attraction. This job would be near impossible if that were the case. Thank you, Elliott, for you brooding, rude attitude.
The phone rings, and I search for the receiver. It's not in its normal holding place, so I go to where the other phone is kept in the family room. That one is missing too. At this point, the ringing has stopped. It stopped too soon, however, which means someone in this house has the phones.
I decide to check upstairs in search of the phones. Addison did seem awfully eager earlier when the phone rang. As of now, she's my main suspect.
Knocking on her door lightly, I enter after she gives me the okay. "Hey, Addison. What're you up to?"
"Nothing," she says a bit too casually, sitting on her bed with a Seventeen magazine flipped to a page of a Zac Efron photoshoot.
"The phone rang earlier," I start. Her face remains calm. "The phones are all missing downstairs. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
She shakes her head. "Nope. I'm just up here learning how I can properly blend my eyeshadows."
"Alright, well," I pause, "carry on."
She smiles. "Bye."
"Bye," I say slowly, making my way to her door. "Let me know if you find out something about the case of the missing telephones."
"I will."
Just before I shut the door, something catches my eye. Hidden in the corner where the door rests are four home-line telephones. Addison notices that I caught her, eyes wide and mind racing with excuses.
"It's for school!" she screams loudly. "I promise! I just.. It's a physics project!"
"It's summer," I remind.
She sucks in a breath, trying to recover from her evident lie. "I like to get ahead with my schoolwork?"
"Do you realize how confused I am right now, Addison?" I place my hands on my hips. "Why in the world did you take all the phones? Did you lose your cellphone?"
"No," she mumbles. "I don't wanna say."
"Why not?"
"It's embarrassing."
I shut her door and sit at the edge of her bed. "You have to tell me. If you don't, I'll have to steal all of the phones back. But if you do, I might let you keep them."
She sighs. "There's this boy."
"A boy!" I gasp. "Who? What's his name? Is he your age? Is he your boyfriend?"
"Ivy," she groans.
"Hey!" I defend. "I never had any siblings. I never got to be the older sister when my little sister likes a boy. Let me live in this moment."
"Fine." She crosses her arms over her chest. "He's this kid that was in my English class last year and a couple of his friends know my friends and we've been at the same parties sometimes."
"And why is he calling the home phone rather than your cellphone?"
She lets out a shaky breath. "This is the embarrassing part."
"I'm listening," I say and cross my right leg over my left.
"Alright," she pauses. "Yesterday we were at the bowling alley with some of our friends and I purposely left my cellphone near his shoes so that he'd have to call me."
I bite my tongue to keep from laughing. "Oh?"
"See, I knew you'd make fun of me!" she cries. "I don't even know what I was thinking. He hasn't called the house yet, so he probably is on to me and thinks I'm a freak!"
"No, no," I assure. "It's just.. What made you think of that idea?"
"Well, I watched A Cinderella Story with Lori three days ago and she told me it could work," she mumbles. "It isn't working."
"Don't give up yet," I say. "You know what, I'll let you keep the phones until dinner time. If he hasn't called by then, you have return the phones. Sound good?"
"Thanks."
I nod. "Now, tell me about this Chad Michael Murray of yours."
"His name is Mike," she sighs. "He's really funny and cute and sweet and smart and cute."
"Aw," I comment and stick out my bottom lip. "He sounds like a keeper."
Suddenly, the sharp ring of the phone goes off and I jump back a little. Addison flings herself off the bed to snatch one of the not-so-hidden phones. She motions for me to get out of her room and I abide.
Back downstairs, I find Jonas lying on the family room couch with an ice pack on his face.
"Hey, buddy, what happened?" I ask, standing to face him. "Are you okay?"
"I don't want to talk about it." He lifts the ice pack off his face and opens his mouth to yell, "Crystal, Rosie! Where's my lemonade? And tell Ethan to hurry up on the sandwich!"
I watch as the twins run into the family room, Rose with a sandwich and Crystal with a glass of lemonade.
"Here you go," Crystal says in a quiet voice. Jonas clears his throat. "Oh, I mean, here you go.. sir."
"Would you like anything else, sir?" Rose asks politely.
"Hm," Jonas pauses to think, "I could use another pillow. This one isn't fluffy enough."
"I'm on it!" Ethan screams, pointing his finger in the air and sprinting upstairs.
"What're you looking at? Go find me fluffy pillows too!" Jonas snaps at his younger sisters, who run upstairs behind Ethan.
I roll my eyes. "And let me guess, Beth is doing your laundry?"
"Sadly, no," he says. "She doesn't really listen to me."
I laugh lightly and sit next to him. "You do realize I won't let you keep treating your siblings like slaves, right?"
He groans. "No fun."
"So, what happened?" I ask, observing the bruise forming on his right cheek.
"I do blame you for this. You made me walk to the park," he says. "I got attacked by a squirrel."
"You didn't get attacked by a squirrel, Jonas."
"I did! Why don't you believe me? It's what happened!" he cries. "You weren't even there!"
"I know I wasn't there and I also know you didn't get attacked by a squirrel," I say. "Tell me what really happened."
He crosses his arms over his chest. "No."
"If you don't tell me," I pause to think of a good threat, "I'll take away your new FIFA game."
"Take it," he mutters and places the icepack back on his face.
I frown and run a hand through my hair. Elliott comes from the basement and snatches the remote from Jonas, stopping when he sees the blackening cheek. A smirk comes across his face.
"How bad is the other guy?"
"Broke his nose," Jonas answers casually.
"Nice," Elliott comments and flips through the tv channels.
"No, not nice!" I argue. "You got into a fight?" I ask Jonas incredulously. "And you broke some kid's nose?"
Jonas nods.
"Incredible," Elliott laughs to himself.
"Enough with the comments!" I yell at him. "Jonas, why did you get into a fight with this kid?"
"He attacked me. I was just defending myself," he explains.
"Why did he attack you?"
"I guess I look attackable," Jonas mumbles with a shrug. "Look, Ivy, don't freak out. It's not a big deal."
"Actually, it is a big deal," I say. "Is this kid bullying you? Do you know him? Do you want me to call his parents?"
Jonas stands up from the couch. "Stop! I'm not a baby, Ivy! I know how to handle myself, so just back the hell off!" He storms upstairs and I hear him slam the bedroom door shut with great force.
I sit on the couch, my mouth hanging open in shock. Jonas, of all people, just yelled at me. He always asks me for help. I always help him. I don't baby him. I thought he liked me, trusted me. That's all I wanted to do, to help him.
"Ethan, no!" Crystal screams just before two loud thuds.
I spin around to see Rose and Crystal at the bottom of the stairs. Their crying screams follow shortly after. Ethan stands at the top of the stairwell, a pillow in his hands.
"Somehow," I pause to look at Elliott, "you've been the most cooperative Kennedy today."
He glances at me with what I perceived to be a smile on his face.
I run over to help Rose and Crystal as they cry loudly. Ethan slides on his butt down the stairs, reaching us and trying to comfort his sisters.
"I just wanted pillow fight," Ethan mumbles, his eyes welled with tears.
I sigh heavily and pat the top of his head. After carrying both twins to the couch, I give them icepacks for the parts of their bodies that they claim to be broken. Elliott changes the channel to Disney before getting up and leaving. Even though it was the smallest act, it was still sweet.
After the girls are finally settled with everything they need, Ethan comes with me to try to get Jonas out of his room. He locked the door and is blaring Madonna. I can hear his voice singing along to the songs, sniffles following each verse.
Addison finally walks out of her room, a phone glued to her hand. "Is everything alright?"
"Not exactly," I say. "Did Mike call?"
"Nope," she sighs. "I still have a few hours before dinner though, yeah?" I nod. "Okay, cool." She goes back into her room and closes the door shut.
"You stay here and keep trying to get Jonas to open the door," I say to Ethan. "I'm going to check on Beth."
He gives me a thumbs up. I walk to the next door in the hallway, surprised to see Elliott standing over the crib and talking quietly to Beth. I lean against the doorframe, unable to pull myself away from the sight.
Stopping in the middle of his sentence, Elliott jerks up when he notices me. "Uh, what do you want?"
"Nothing," I say quickly, a little embarrassed to be caught staring. "I was just coming to check on Beth."
"Yeah, I just got her down for a nap," he says and rubs his jawline.
"Thanks."
"Yeah." He clears his throat before walking past me and down the hall to his own bedroom.
Just then, the Madonna stops and Jonas comes crawling out of his room at a great speed. I walk over to Ethan in shock.
"What'd you say?"
"I told him there was a fire."
~~
AN:
hey guys! I just finished Kiss Cam, so I now I can focus more on my other stories. I'll mainly be working on this story as well as Almost Home. Especially with summer coming up (two weeks away!!!!), the updates will be a lot more frequent.
I know things are moving slowly, but I want to develop all of the characters and i enjoy writing different plot lines for different characters (i.e. Addison and her crush and Jonas and his fight) even if they're not completely relevant to the main plot, they're important in developing and I hope you can enjoy that
thoughts of Elliott??
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