Be My Addiction

52 • Guest

Ethan

I waited in the living room, checking my phone every once in a while. I was excited, for once. Odyssey was coming over to hang out. It's been a while since I had anyone come over. Even when I was with Eugene, we spent most of our time outside or at his house. At that time, my house just wasn't a good environment. I was glad to have a sense of normality again.

Mom also seemed to feel the same. She was very happy when I said I invited someone over. I was happy to see her smile so much. 

I checked my phone again and smiled, soon turning to my mom, “Odyssey is here!”

My mom jumped to her feet with a grin, “do I look alright?” she asked and directed her attention to her outfit. She wore a simple t-shirt and some jeans. It was a decent outfit but I knew she was just stressing because she wanted to make a good impression.

Smiling, I nodded. “Mom you look perfect. Don't worry, she'll like you.” She nodded and took a breath before we both headed to the door. 

I opened it to see Odyssey standing at the entrance. She had on a jean jacket, some sweatpants, and a T-shirt. Her braids were pulled back into a ponytail. She also brought a large bag with her, the strap settled on her shoulder. I grinned and stepped aside, motioning for her to come in. “hey come on in. Mom, this is Odyssey. She's my friend from school.” I said lightly as I introduced them to each other.

They both offered smiles and shook hands. Odyssey was the first to speak, “It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Rhodes!”

Mom looked overjoyed, “oh it's so nice seeing Ethan bring a friend home!" she said with a light tone. “It's been some time. It's nice to meet you! You can call me Allie.” Mom has never been on to enjoy being called ‘Mrs. Rhodes’. She said it made her feel old and made her think about work. I was happy to see that hadn't changed.

I nodded to the stairs, “we're going to be hanging out in my room.” I said to both Odyssey and my mom.

They both nodded though my mom soon spoke, “alright. Oh, are you staying for dinner? I’ll be ordering a pizza.” Her dark eyes flicked to Odyssey.

Odyssey looked a bit surprised by the offer but soon nodded with a big smile. “I'd love to, thank you.”

My mom didn’t need to worry about Odyssey not liking her. I could tell they'd get along just fine.

“No problem, let me know if you need anything,” my mom said before she headed off to the living room.

I soon let Odyssey to my room. She looked around lightly and set her bag on the ground. For once, I had enough motivation to clean my room so there was plenty of space.

She opened her  back before looking up at me, “you said I could paint right?”

I nodded and spread out an old towel on the ground so she had room to work without risking paint on the carpet. “Yeah, go ahead,” I soon grabbed a cup and filled it with water from my bathroom sink before I set it on the towel. “Don’t worry about ruining the towel.”

The girl in front of me grinned, “Sweet, thanks!” she commented lightly before she unpacked all of her paints, paintbrushes, and a pair of shoes from her bag. 

I settled on my bed with my guitar, a notebook, and pen as Odyssey settled on the floor. I guess you could say we were body-doubling instead of doing an activity together, but sometimes I preferred it that way. Odyssey wanted to paint her shoes but she didn't want to do that alone, and I wanted to mess around with my guitar, but not alone as well.

It works for both of us this way.

Silence fell over the room for a moment as we both dove into our activities. I spent some time looking for specific songs so I could find the right chords on the guitar. Pinterest and google had most of that down but some songs I had to figure it out by playing them by ear. I wrote those notes in a notebook to properly play later.