A Wild Thing - Troy Otto

twenty-nine

When Evelyn woke up the next morning, she was sure the previous night had been all a dream. The last thing she remembered was laying her head on Troy's chest. She rubbed at her eyes, suddenly becoming aware of the arm, one that did not belong to her, that was draped over her stomach.

Tiredly sighing, she turned her head, already knowing whose face she was going to be met with. "Troy," she whispered, bringing her hand up to gently shake his shoulder. "Troy," she repeated when he didn't wake up.

Eventually, he did. "What?" he groaned, turning to face her.

"Wake up, I'm bored."

Troy stared at her with a blank expression. He blinked a few times before letting his head fall back onto her pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

"Troy," Evelyn whined. She flipped over onto her stomach to be able to bother him better. "Get up!"

"What time is it?" Troy brought his hands up to rub his tired face.

"I don't know, my parents should be working though."

"What about your siblings?"

"Katie's probably awake, I don't know about Carson," she cringed as she thought back to when her brother found Troy waiting for her. Troy didn't answer. He only turned onto his side to place a hand on Evelyn's back. "I'm so bored. Let's talk about something interesting," she ignored the way Troy's fingers gently rubbed over her clothed skin.

     "Let's talk about how I had to carry you all the way up to your room without waking anybody up."

     "No, I don't want to talk about this. You seem angry."

     "I hope you feel bad. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do," Troy poked at her side. Evelyn jerked away from him, falling face-first into her pillow.

     "You could've woken me up, you know," she grabbed his hand so that he'd stop bothering her. She tried to drop it but Troy didn't let go. Their hands stayed connected.

     "You looked so peaceful, I couldn't," his lip quirked. Evelyn sighed.

"Don't complain then," Evelyn pushed herself up and leaned her head against her hand. Looking at Troy, she realized she'd never really appreciated his face before. Her eyes took in all of his features.

She then realized that now would be the perfect time to kiss him. They were in the privacy of Evelyn's room, nobody would find them (except for maybe Carson, but that was unlikely). Evelyn was feeling brave. She could just get it over with now and find the answers to all the questions that'd been stressing her out. But no. They hadn't even brushed their teeth yet.

"What'cha doing ev?" he laughed at the entranced girl, who barely even realized she was staring.

"Nothing," she shook her head, the bravery fading away. A small smile ghosted her lips.

Later when Troy left, Evelyn decided that it was time to do some 'soul searching'. She needed answers. "Katie!" she exclaimed, barging into her younger sister's room.

     "Yeah?" katie was dressed up, which meant that she was going to be leaving soon, which meant that Evelyn had limited time to rant.

     "Okay, um— I think I like Troy," Evelyn paused, not paying attention to Katie's reaction. Katie's body whipped around to face evelyn. She completely disregarded whatever she was looking at on her dresser.

     "Ugh! It's so nice to finally hear you admit it," Katie smiled with glee, wrapping her arms around Evelyn's slightly taller frame.

     "Or maybe I don't, maybe I just like the thought of me liking him," Evelyn continued, causing Katie's expression to change completely. "Or maybe I like him but I don't like the thought of me liking him."

     "Yeah it's definitely the second one," Katie nodded, trying her best to contain her laughter. Poor Evelyn was so confused. "You should like the thought though." Evelyn huffed, and Katie knew what it meant, so she immediately asked, "what happened? Fill me in."

     "Well, the other day we had another almost-kiss. We were so close but we didn't because his friend walked in."

     Katie winced. "How'd that go?"

     "I wasn't really paying attention to Mike because I was too busy being shocked after Troy left and pretended like I never existed! As if he literally wasn't about to kiss me!"

     "Ev, oh my gosh. That's terrible! Are you okay?" Katie quickly tried to comfort her vulnerable sister. Katie cared for Evelyn, she really did. She wanted Evelyn to be as happy as she could really get on a ranch like the one they lived on. She spent so many years pitying her older sister, wishing that someone good would come into her life. Katie didn't like finding Evelyn in her dark room, curled up under her blanket all the time because she had nothing better to do. Now she had Troy, and if Troy made Evelyn happy, Katie was happy too.

     "Yeah, he apologized," Evelyn shook Katie's shoulders, showing the girl that she wasn't upset about it anymore, "and then after that he did something that was like really subtle but really nice and it made me really happy... and then we were like, stargazing or whatever, and then we like, cuddled and I fell asleep so he brought me home and carried me up to my room!" the excited tone in the girl's voice made it obvious to Katie that Evelyn was really warming up to the boy. She sounded like the stereotypical, boy-crazy, teenage girl. But she was only really crazy for one.

"Aw!" Katie gushed with her sister. "So you for sure like him?"

Evelyn paused for a second, searching for a definite answer. Not an 'I think', she needed an 'I know'. She nodded, seemingly out of breath. "Yeah." Katie squealed.

a/n
GUYSSSSS
i think this is gonna be
like the last short sibling
chapter for a whileeee!
i've literally been trying to
write this for like the past
fourteen hours and i'm not
even exaggerating i kept
procrastinating but here it is!!!
sorry for any mistakes
wc: 1012
03.19.22