THE SPAWNS

You’ll Be Old and Pudgy

Chapter XIX—Jayden

© DarknessAndLight

The second Cole closed the door behind him, I knew something was wrong. I might have been out of it most of the time and I might have been unobservant but when one of my best friends was hurt I knew.

And it didn’t matter that Maika and I were just in the middle of a all out tickle war and she was winning—as always—when your best friend looked that miserable, you dropped absolutely everything and demanded an explication.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, getting up from my bed.

“I don’t wanna talk about it…” Cole mumbled and turned around, pressing his forehead against my door. “Especially not with you.”

“What do you mean especially not with me? Is this a cat thing?” I got up, heading towards him. “Look, you know that if it’s a cat thing I can pretend like I’m concerned!”

“I just… I don’t want to be here anymore,” he whispered against the door.

“Want us to go to your place?” I offered, worried about what brought this on. Maika stood up too, standing beside me, with an equally concerned look on her face.

“No,” Cole twitched a little, and hit his head against the door. “I don’t want to be here.”

“Alright… okay.” I scratched my head, looking around. “Huh, now?” I wasn’t exactly the one that took initiatives. Maika usually did, or Cole did. I wasn’t the one that made any kind of decisions. Most of the time I was out of the loop because I was just out of it.

“Yes, now,” Cole answered, finally turning around.

For a second I just stared back into my best friend’s eyes. And that was all it took for me to make a decision. “Get the bag from my closet Mai.” Usually, I knew Maika would have argued with me since she hated being bossed around but obviously she was seeing the same thing I was looking at—a best friend that needed to get out. Now.

I didn’t wait or hesitated, and headed out of my room and straight to the kitchen. I grabbed a card box from the cupboards and filled with the necessary food, going as far as raiding my mom’s stack of M&Ms—I’d get hell for that one. I tried to make as little sound as possible not to disturb my parents or to have Belly come down. I didn’t want to have to explain what was happening to anyone.

I scribbled a quick “We headed off to the Dump Creek. We’ll be careful” on a memo sheet my mom kept on the counter and stuck it on the fridge.

Balancing the box of food against my hip, I grabbed the keys for the Jeep that were on the hook by the back door in the kitchen and headed outside to the garage. The old Jeep was waiting there. It wasn’t in the best of shapes and it didn’t even have the top or anything, so if it started raining we were kind of screwed but it was as good as we were going to get. And the gas tank was half full so that was a plus. So I put the box on the back seat, started the car and drove it to the front of the house.

Putting it on park, I ran back inside and saw Cole and Maika coming down the steps with two duffel bags.

“Got everything?” I asked.

Maika just nodded and we all headed silently towards the Jeep. I drove while Cole sat shut gun and Maika sat in the back.

No one was speaking as I drove in the empty streets towards the Creek. The stereo on the car was broken so it just made things worse. I wanted to crack a joke or say something but I just couldn’t bring myself to break the silence because I had rarely, if never, seen Cole like this. Of course, he got upset sometimes, but I didn’t think I had ever seen him this bad. For the first time in our lifelong friendship, I was lost for words. Maika kept poking me on the side now and then, and I knew she was doing it because she felt hopeless too and wanted me to step in, but honestly, I had no clue what to do aside from drive far away form my house.

It was dark at this time of night so I drove carefully once I reached the wood part of the expedition. I kept shooting glances at Cole who was just holding to the side of the door where the window would usually be if it wasn’t down.

If I didn’t know any better I would have thought Fluffy was dead.

In the end we made good time. Fifteen minutes after having left my house, we were parking beside the tree house.

I often enjoyed nagging my parents about the fact that building a house in the middle of their precious Dump Creek camp site was killing all of the outdoors joy that came from going out in the wood, but this was no normal house.

Their architect friend, Cameron had made the plans for it and it was actually build around a tree. Honestly, it looked like it came from a story book. It was three storeys high—first floor was open without any walls around it, just pillars holding the structure at the corners. There was a round wood table on that floor with a bunch of chair around where we usually ate or played cards or board games. The second floor had walls this time and was the kitchen. And the third floor was kind of like and attic with the pitched ceiling and was where we slept—it had a couple of beds set up.

But as cool and nice as the tree house was, none of us were heading there. Even after I had turned off the car engine, we all stayed in our seats with the only sound coming from the frogs croaking and our breathing.

This was seriously getting ridiculous.

“Cole,” I sighed. “One day you’ll be old and pudgy. And I’ll be old and pudgy too. And Maika will probably be a babe because she’s got good genes but we’ll be messes. And you know what?”

“I won’t remember this day?” Cole chuckled humourlessly.

“No, you probably will. But right now, you aren’t old and pudgy, so you got that working for you.”

“You’re a dumb ass,” Cole laughed again, throwing his head back, though it sounded like it actually hurt him to be laughing.

“Also, I’m pretty sure our parents left booze the last time we came, so you can drink your problems away,” Maika pointed out.

“Thanks, that makes me feel better,” Cole snorted.

“You’re welcome.” She hugged him from around the seat. “You can also grab my boobs if that can make you feel better. Under the shirt, over the bra, three seconds grab.”

“I’ll pass.”

“You’re lost,” she shrugged and got out of the car with the box of food.

Cole stepped out too and I followed, leaving the duffel bags in the car. But instead of going to the kitchen like Maika was doing, we headed towards the hammock that hung from one of the bigger branches of the tree that stuck out of the structure of the house.

We had years of experience, sitting in that hammock so we quickly settled on it, and just lay there, looking at the stars.

“You didn’t invite Beth…” Cole finally trailed in a small voice, breaking the silence.

“No.” I answered automatically.

“Why not?”

I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Did you want me to invite her?”

Cole looked away. “I just want to know why you didn’t invite her.”

“Okay, so I’m aware that you guys all think I’m extremely unobservant, but unless my father told you, you didn’t have what it takes to be a journalist or my mother told you, you weren’t good enough to marry into the Huntzberger family—”

“I HEAR A GILMORE GIRL REFERENCE!” Maika shouted from the kitchen.

“SHUT UP!” I screamed back before focussing on Cole again, “Then, the only person that could have hurt you in the house is Belly. Unless we have a ghost in the house. In which case, I’d like to go back, ‘cause I want to ask it out and be one of those creeps that believe they’re dating a ghost!”

“And, you don’t want to know what happened?”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“Not really,” he shrugged.

“Then I’m not going to press.”

“But don’t you want to defend your sister?”

“Cole,” I sighed.  “It’s your business, not mine. And I love my little sister but she’s stubborn and I won’t try to defend her when she could really well be in fault here. She’s been a little down lately, but nothing extreme so I doubt this has to do with her mood swings. I think it has to do with you two, and I have no right to barge into that.”

For a second he was silent and I thought that was going to be it but then Cole added, “Jay, I might not say this often enough but I love you, I mean, in a completely heterosexual way, but I do.”

“I love you too, but my feelings are more inappropriate than yours. Sorry.”

I got a chuckle, and I was proud. “Dumb ass.”

“I come bearing food,” Maika announced, coming from the house with a pan in her hands, and managed to plop on the hammock beside me, squishing me in the middle—the middle part in the hammock was rarely the comfortable spot since you were squished from both sides.

I put the pan full of her trademark popcorn mixed with melted marshmallows and M&Ms on my stomach and took the fork she was handing me, and the three of us dug in.

“This should be our break-up go-to food.” Maika smirked, mouth full of the treat, her fork already going for a next serving.

“I didn’t realize Cole was trying to get over a break up,” I chuckled, shoving more food in my mouth.

Cole gasped. “Are you telling me I completely imagined you turning me down and telling me you weren’t going to be my boyfriend?”

I put my fork down, and raised my arms like I was offended. “Dude, I told you I was ready to try to make it work between us two. It’s not my fault you didn’t bring any lotion.”

Cole closed his eyes, sighing. “Jay, you and I, it’s over.”

“OHMYGERD MAYMAY,” I threw myself on her lap, making her squeal in surprise. “I was just rejected, please have your wicked way with me and make me forget all about this rude, rude boy.” Of course, doing that on a hammock was pretty catastrophic and we all ended up on the ground rather quickly.

“I SAVED THE FOOD!” I shouted happily, lifting the pan over my head triumphantly.

Maika was laughing loudly, while Cole just chuckled a little but that was better than nothing.

Finally, when Mai stopped laughing, she looked over at our best friend. “Okay, this is the first time this year that we’re out here, just the three of us. I know you’re in a bad place right now Cole, but things will be okay. Things find a way of working out in the end. So, put aside whatever it is that happened, and LAST IN THE CREEK SLEEPS IN THE BUTTON BUNK!”

She was up on her feet and sprinting before we could actually understand what was happening. It didn’t take us too long to catch up though and run after her.

The solar powered lanterns stuck in the ground showed us the way to the Creek without getting lost or off track. The trail of clothes Maika was leaving behind her also helped. And made us realized we should follow the lead if we didn’t want to jump in the water fully clothed—keeping the boxers of course.

 I heard the splash of water Mai made while throwing herself in the Creek before even reaching the deck. Cole and I pretty much threw ourselves in the Creek at the same time.

And the second I touched the water I realized this was a bad idea. Because it might be summer break for us now but for the Creek it was still not-so-long-after-a-very-cold-spring. And the water was freaking freezing.

“Who lost? Who lost?” Mai shouted, splashing water the second my head came out of the water.

“Oh lord! My balls! They’ve shrunk back inside of me!” I shrieked and swam as fast as I could back to the deck.

“Stop being a wuss! Who was last?”

Cole followed my initiative and we probably looked like chronically impaired imbeciles trying to wiggle our way out of the water. “No one. It was a tie. We’re both suffering from perniotesticles,” Cole whined from beside me.

“WUSSES!”

“That damn double jointed Asian is insane,” Cole mumbled. Finally, we managed to get out of the water and just lay there on the deck like beached wales, shivering from the cold.

Of course, Mai effortlessly hissed herself out of the water, nagging us all the while. She slapped both of our butts, laughing evilly. But as I looked up at her to glare I kind of stopped shaking from the cold or like breathing and thinking coherently.

So, obviously I knew Maika had been stripping off but for some reason I had kind of forgotten that my friend was a girl and she actually had boobs and an ass and leeeegs, never ending legs. And I was kind of flustered for a second.

She was… she was insanely beautiful. There, I said it. My best friend was freaking hot. And there was nothing wrong in admitting that. I could admit that. Statistically speaking, Cole was considered as hot too, and my little sister was beautiful. So why would it feel wrong to think that Maika was a frickin’ babe? I actually had to stop looking at her for a second, because it felt like my cheeks were going to heat up and betray my thoughts—luckily it was dark so probably no one would notice.

Thinking that someone was attractive didn’t automatically imply that you were attracted. Why was I making such a big deal out of this?

And I seriously shouldn’t be checking out my best friend, when my other best friend was in such a bad mood. I should be focusing on how to make things okay for him, instead of focusing on how those panties fitted her ass too nicely.

“I’m not going back in the water,” Cole whined beside me.

“Agreed,” I whined back.

            And just like that, we ran back to the house faster than we had run away from it.

Before freezing to death, I grabbed the duffel bags from the Jeep and we went inside the house to the third floor. We all quickly changed in our corners, putting warm and dry clothes on. I grabbed a big blanket from one of the beds and Maika a bottle of tequila.

We headed back to the hammock. I took the pan of diabetes-in-the-making and we passed the bottle of booze around.

I wasn’t expecting Cole to magically be okay, but the boozed seemed to make him less gloomy which was nice. Maybe it was the sugary yet salty treat though. Either way, he sounded better than when we had left. And I was laughing for no reason suddenly.

How I ended up in the middle of the hammock again, I had no idea. Wasn’t Cole supposed to be the one in a bad mood in need of comfort? Shouldn’t he be the meat in this sandwich? And that sounded wrong.

“We’re a rare breed you know,” Mai whispered like she was sharing states secrets.

“What? Insanely hot people are rare?” Cole asked, and took a gulp of tequila.

“No,” Mai shook her head energetically, “still being a virgin at our age is kind of impressive. And there are three of us. Just think about it. I’m sure someone out there would be dying to make a sacrifice with the three of us. Our blood is puuuuure.”

“Girl virgins are usually sacrificed. I don’t think boy virgins blood is really sought after.” I informed her and then laugh. Laughing was fun. And I felt all tingly.

Tingly. That was a funny word. Ha ha.

“I’m telling you, someone out there is searching for us to use our blood for a sacrifice to be eternally young,” Mai said, and nodded, making this final.

I laughed more and Cole joined me. “You’re drunk,” I pointed out.

“Shut up. I drank like two times.” Mai defended herself. She was totes lying. TOTES.

“You’re a light weight,” I reminded her.

“So are you,” she laughed too.

I sort of puffed a laugh. “I’m not drunk!”

“You’ve been patting a rock for the last twenty minutes.”

“HIS NAME IS HARDY!”

And for the second time we all fell off the hammock. But this time we were all laughing hysterically.

 __________________

So huh.... long time no upload? 

Ooops. I'm not going to say it'll never happen again because obviously I suck at uploading lately, but know that I don't  feed off your suffering. I'm also mad that I don't upload more often. 0_0

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. It's been a while... 0_0

New Year's resolution is to get an uploading schedule again... Uni starts again this Monday, so after my first week of lectures I'll see how I can work it out of my schedule. :)

Thank you for your constant patience. It's extremely appreciated! :)