Chapter 39: The Bet *Keep An Eye

The song is Love Life by He Is We. They’re amazing! :) Banners by CreativeSideOfLife.

Happy Reading! (:

Chapter 35 Part 1 *Keep An Eye

~Sophia

“Pie.”

“Draky.”

“Why did you do that?” he says disapprovingly, as soon as Xyrielle walks out of the house.

“What do you want?” I ask, “Leave Rain all by himself?”

“It’s not that,” he says, scowling at the floor.

“What is it then?” I challenge.

“Never mind,” he mutters.

Rain pulls my hair to get my attention.

“What baby?” I murmur, tightening my hold on him because he might fall from my grasp.

“Ma. . . ma,” he says.

“He’s searching for his mother,” Draky says obviously. “What will we do when he starts to cry?”

“Give him his milk,” I suggest.

“What if he doesn’t like it?”

“Then we’ll do something about it if it happens.”

He grumbles something under his breath, and then asks, “Why did they name him Rain?”

“Maybe it was raining when he was born,” I guess.

“What if it was hot at that time, would they name him Sonny?”

“I don’t have an idea,” I say warily, and then I ask him, “What are we going to do now?”

“Can you still tutor me?”

“Yes,” I answer, “Let’s go back to the library.”

Draky carries Rain’s things and then we make our way towards the library. He resumes reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Rain pulls my hair and plays with it. It’s not as hard as before so I let him do it. Besides, I don’t want him to cry.

Rain’s speaking baby words that I don’t understand. He’s so cute. He looks like a baby angel.

When my arms start to feel stiff, I put him on my lap. He crawls towards Draky then.

“Take him off me,” he says, pushing Rain to me.

“Don’t you like him?” I ask, carrying Rain again.

“I can’t concentrate on this,” he mutters, not answering my question.

Rolling my eyes, I tell him, “We’re not loud, you’re just easily distracted.”

Rain stretches his hand to Draky.

“See?” I say, “He likes you, even though you don’t like him.”

“I didn’t say I don’t like him,” he mutters.

“It looks like it,” I say obviously.

Rain frowns at Draky because he doesn’t want to get him from me.

“Don’t worry Rain,” I say, “he’s just jealous because you’re much cuter than him.”

Draky barks out a laugh. He’s even slapping the table while doing so. Rain joins him, copying Draky’s moves. He has a nice laugh; a silvery kind of laugh that reminds me of Matt.

Oh God, I miss him so much. Closing my eyes, I hug Rain tighter, imagining him as my little brother. Babies are so—

“You think. .  haha. .  that Rain . . haha. .  is cuter than me?” Draky asks while laughing.

“Of course,” I reply.

“Oh come on,” he says, shaking his head, “it’s like you’re saying he’d rather be your boyfriend than me.”

“What?” I ask incredulously.  “What are you talking about?”

Draky quickly snaps his mouth shut.

“What?” I repeat.

I kind of know what he’s thinking and talking about. Perhaps he’s acting on his plan on how to make me fall in love with him.

Rain glances between Draky and me, clearly not knowing what’s going on. “Pl . . Play,” he says slowly.

“What do you want to play?” I ask, touching his soft and chubby cheeks.

“As if he’ll tell you what he wants to play,” Draky says sarcastically, smirking.

“I just want to talk to him,” I say evasively.

“It’s like talking to yourself,” he muses.

“Whatever,” I mutter, “just read.”

“You know what?” he says, putting his books and notebooks back in his bag, “I’m not in the mood to study anymore.”

As if you’re really studying, I think. What I say is, “So you’re just going to leave me alone?”

I'm going to take care of Rain all by myself. That doesn't sound easy, even though Draky's not helping. Yet.

He smiles amusedly and says, “If you want me to stay, just say the word and I’ll never leave.”

I control the urge to laugh at him. He’s such a good actor! I want to give him a clap. I can’t really wait to see his face when he finds out that I know about the bet. Just thinking about it makes me excited.

I clear my throat before speaking. “Draky,” I say sweetly.

“What honey?”

I can’t help but laugh at that. There are even tears flowing from my eyes. I remember the first time he called me honey; the time when my heart skipped a beat. If I’m right, we were in his car, going to the paint shop to buy things to design my room. That was before I knew.

“Why did you call me honey?” I ask as soon as I stop laughing.

“It just came out my mouth,” he says, not a bit embarrassed.

My lips twitch upward as I think of my next sentence. “Why do I have a feeling that you like—“

“Play!” Rain says.

“Okay, okay,” I say quickly, “we’ll play.”

“Talking to yourself again,” Draky says.

“Why don’t you just get some toys from Rain’s bag and then we’ll play with him,” I instruct.

“You’ll play with him,” he says, opening Rain’s bag. “There’s a train, a ball, a—“

“Just the ball,” I say impatiently.

Draky gives me the ball which I hand to Rain. He squirms at my hold on him. “What do you want Rain?”

“He wants you to put him on the ground,” Draky states.

“And now you can understand babies?”

He snickers but doesn’t reply.

Not knowing what to do, I put him on the ground and then sit beside him. He starts to play the ball by throwing it in the air. Of course, he can’t catch it so he crawls to where the ball lands.

Draky is bored while watching us.

I’m afraid Rain will get hurt by crawling so I pull him towards me and tell Draky, “Why don’t you just grab the ball instead of doing nothing?”

“That’s a good idea,” he says dryly, but still picks the ball Rain throws his way. He gives it back to him and that’s when the real game begins.

I call it Rain throws the ball and Draky catches it because anywhere the ball lands, Draky gets it. One time, it stuck below the shelf so Draky have to crawl and stretch his arm to get it.

Rain’s enjoying, it really shows on his face. The way he smiles and the way his eyes twinkle in delight whenever Draky gives him back the ball.

After a few minutes, Draky says, “That’s it!”

“What?” I ask, confused.

“I’m so tired getting the ball, and now I want to rest.” He lies on the floor and puts his hands under his head as a makeshift pillow.

He’s not going to get the ball anymore on the other side of the room.

“Draky!”

“Pie!”

“Why don’t you get the ball?”

“Why don’t you play another game?” he retorts.

Rain’s cry interrupts us. Draky and I are startle at the same time so we just both stare at Rain. After that, I stand up while carrying him and murmur soothing words to make him stop crying.

Unfortunately, he just cries harder and louder.

What are we going to do? I am not accustomed in taking care of babies. He’s crying, so he’s probably hungry.

“Draky,” I say, “get his milk from the bag.”

He looks at me with a concern written on his face and quickly rummages the bag of Rain. After a few seconds, he hands the bottle of milk to me. I give it to Rain but he shakes his head which gives me a hard time putting the bottle in his mouth.

To my surprise, Draky stands beside me and starts to make funny faces.  At first, I am confused on what he’s doing, and then I understand. It’s weird, seeing him like this, doing things for a baby.

Rain doesn’t notice him but when he looks at him, he pauses and stares. There are no words for Draky’s face right now. I can’t even describe it. Rain and I starts laughing at the same time. I sit on the couch because I might loosen my grip on Rain from laughing too much.

When Draky stops making funny faces, Rain’s eyes starts to water so Draky resumes making funny faces.

I know he’s annoyed but I can see that he doesn’t want Rain to cry again so he’s sacrificing to make him happy. And that’s sweet. What?! What did I think?

“That’s embarrassing,” Draky says, slumping on the couch beside me and stretching his feet in front of him.

Fortunately for him, Rain’s not crying anymore.

“You’re such a clown,” I comment, “and you did a good job stopping Rain from crying.”

He looks at me straight in the eyes and tilts his head to the side. “Is that a compliment?”

I shrug. “If you want it to be, then it is.”

He grins, showing his perfect white teeth. He’s about to say something when Rain crawls to his lap. He looks at me desperately but I just smile at him and stand so he doesn’t have a choice but to carry Rain.

“Pie!” he exclaims, holding Rain awkwardly.

“You have to learn how to carry a baby,” I say, “because you’ll have to take care of your own child someday.”

He rolls his eyes and says, “That’s different, because Rain isn’t my child.”

“Practice then,” I say amusedly.

He sighs. “I didn’t come here to babysit Andre’s cousin.”

“It’s not that hard taking care of him,” I point out.

“Why did you panic when he cried?” he asks, raising his eyebrow.

“I did not,” I deny.

He opens his mouth to say something, but then he pauses. His eyes are round as saucers when he looks at Rain.

“What?” I ask worriedly, taking a step towards them.

“Rain peed on me!”