R E C K L E S S . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE-
“Come on, Annie!” begged my little brother, tugging on my hand and jumping up and down in what seemed to be the permanent state of excitement that he’d entered since I’d arrived back home. “We’re going to be late.”
“Late for what exactly, Evan? We’re going to the shops,” I asked exasperatedly, rolling my eyes at him.
He stopped the tugging, pouted, and then restarted his incessant yanking of my hand. “But they might close!”
I laughed despite my bad mood and shook his hand off. “It’s half seven, Evan, you got me up insanely early just to go; I hardly think that the shops going to close that early.”
“But what if they do close?”
“Fine then, we’ll go now if you really want to.” I smiled down at him. “Although it’s more likely that they haven’t even opened yet at this time of morning.”
He did a little victory dance and then sprinted out of my room, heading towards the door. I could hear his feet pounding noisily on the stairs as he galloped down there.
Just as I stepped into the hallway Kate’s head popped out of one of the doors. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she complained groggily. “It’s the morning… and it’s like really early in the morning. Couldn’t you have waited a little longer before bouncing around the house?” Her brown hair stuck up irregularly and there were large bags under her half-closed eyes.
I shrugged. “Evan’s fault.”
“Then tell him to shut the hell up,” she snapped, slamming the door shut between us.
Laughing to myself, I made my own way down the stairs, making sure to create more noise than needed as I did so. Kate’s so going to hate me, I thought cheerily.
Evan met me at the bottom of the stairs, still bouncing up and down enthusiastically. He seemed to be so excited that he forgot to breathe in between words when he spoke to me. “Canwegonow?” he said in a rush. “Canwe,canwe?” I wondered how he could be so constantly hyperactive this early in the morning, let alone any other time.
“One second,” I sighed, swerving around him and into the kitchen.
My mum was in her fluffy pink dressing gown, sat on one of the stools that faced the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee grasped firmly in her hands. She stared down at it with a vacant, sleepy expression in her eyes, like she couldn’t quite believe that she was awake yet. She looked up slowly as I entered the kitchen. “Morning, Anne,” she murmured.
“Hey, mum. You look awake,” I said cheerily, opening the fridge and stretching up on my tiptoes to reach the top shelf. I took out a carton of smoothie then busied myself with finding a glass.
“I’m not. Work woke me up about ten minutes ago by calling me and demanding that I rush into work for some crisis that they’re having – I’ve got an hour till I have to go in.” She sighed and took another long sip of coffee. “I can trust you and Kate to look after Evan, right? Your dad’s out today.”
I took a glass out of another cupboard and poured myself a glass of smoothie. “Yeah, sure. Evan and I were just about to go down to the shops, anyway.”
Our cat, Sasha, padded into the room and leapt onto the counter next to me. I stroked her behind the ears and she purred loudly.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay walking down? Kate could drive you there if you want.”
YOU ARE READING
Reckless
VampireSome things are just unintended... like bumping into a conceited vampire at a party, hating his guts then - against all your better judgement and frequent protests - inexplicably making him believe that you've fallen in love with him. Then before yo...
