Jealousy Best Served Devious (Clash Of Cliches Book 1)

Chapter 19- As Good as it Gets.

Chapter Nineteen- Good as it Gets.

The perfect weather we were having broke on Sunday morning. I woke up to what seemed like a torrential downpour, and for a few, unfocused seconds as I lay in bed with my blanket pulled over my head, I thought someone was tossing water balloons at my window.

It's happened before. Don't ask.

My day was spent working diligently on my homework (I had another essay that was due on Monday, and I knew that Janessa was going to critique the hell out of it), watching cartoons with Arielle and helping dad cook (Aunt Vivienne was treating mom to a 'girl's night' at a hotel until Monday which meant we had free reign in the kitchen for once).

Very productive.

I was flying high, especially after yesterdays picnic (two steaks? Free? Music to my ears) and the fact that Tyler and I were cool again. All I needed was an apology from Shelley and acceptance to Sacramento State and I would be on cloud nine.

Fingers crossed.

Usually I was in curled up in bed by 9pm, the bear Tyler had won me at the boardwalk in the crook of my arm and my sleep mask on. Dad and I were the early sleepers in the family; dad because he was always up at the crack of dawn, me because I was unconceivably lazy.

And I regret nothing.

Mom was usually up until midnight, knitting. A painfully slow knitter, she had just finished dad's birthday present, a Cliff Huxtable vest that he would wear to work, completely ruin it with soil, fertilizer and whatever else he could find, making mom eventually throw it out in disgust. And repeat. Arielle was often in bed by 8pm, but the older she got, the sneakier she became. She had just recently realized that if she was quiet around her bedtime, mom might let her stay awake for longer, due to the fact that she was so engrossed in her knitting that she would forget Arielle was awake. That trick didn't work with dad, and today, he tucked her in on time, read her a bedtime story and she was snoring before he finished the story.

I was sitting up in bed, debating on whether to get myself a late night snack when my phone vibrated on the nightstand. Caught off guard, I stared at it for a second before snatching it off the stand to stare at it in my hands. All of my friends (aka the only people who called me) knew I never answered my phone after 9pm because I was most likely already in dreamland.

God, I need caller ID.

"Hello?" I said hesitantly, putting the phone to my ear. Part of me- hell, all of me, hoped it was Shelley, calling to apologize so that things could go back to normal. I didn't want to admit it to anyone, but I missed her a lot. Life just wasn't the same without her.

"Did I wake you up?" It was Tyler. My heart thumped irrationally at the sound of his familiar voice. "I know you sleep pretty early."

Protesting just out of habit, even though everyone and their grandparents knew I slept early, I said, "I do not sleep early. I just want to get my 9 hours of sleep per night."

"So full of shit, Kay-Bear," Tyler said, chuckling softly to take the sting out of what he said. "What are you doing?"

Tugging a hand through my curls, I admitted, "Thinking about raiding the fridge."

"I swear you think about food 90 percent of the time," Tyler laughed. "You're even worse than Vince."

I pursed my lips. That wasn't the first time this week that someone had compared my eating habits with Vince's. I wasn't sure what to think about that. Vince had a bottomless stomach. While I tended to inhale my food, I didn't think I was as bad as Vince. He put ketchup on his pancakes, for Pete's sakes!