Snakes and Splinters [PUBLISHED]

2

© Jojo B 2018

All rights including those in copyright in the content of this story are owned by Jojo B. It's Illegal to steal and/or copy.

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Snakes and Splinters

2

"Thanks for picking me up Walter," Hayley said as she jumped into the backseat of Walter's ride.

"No problem," he smiled at her through his rear view mirror.

Walter had gotten his license and even though I too had a license now, I didn't have a car nor did I want one yet. Walter liked driving me to art school when he was free certain mornings and afternoons. His car was dark and gorgeous, quite like him.

"Did you do your sketches for the Christmas holiday?" I turned around in the passenger seat to look at her.

"I did one," she grinned widely.

I laughed, "One? Hayley. They wanted at least ten."

"I know, I know. I was going to do them all last night, but I got busy," she said with a smirk.

"Busy doing what?" I arched a brow at her. "Eli was at home with us yesterday."

"You thought."

I widened my eyes and Walter started to chuckle.

"Eli's sneaky like that," he said as he passed a green light.

"He snuck out to see you?" I asked Hayley who was still smirking.

"Well I wouldn't call it sneaking out on his part," she replied. "He doesn't have a curfew, that's what he told me anyway. I was the one who had to sneak out to see him."

"You're brave," I laughed lightly.

"I know," she smiled. "My parents would kill me if they knew. They've already told me to stop seeing Eli."

"Really?" Walter murmured in surprise.

"Yeah," Hayley sighed and leaned the side of her dark haired head on the window.

I already knew of course. Hayley had called me almost in tears the night that she and Eli had been caught making out in her room. They'd been fully dressed, thank God, but after Hayley's parents had politely sent Eli out of their house, they'd proceeded to give her an hour long lecture. Long story short, Eli was 'too rough looking' for her and they wanted her to stop seeing the boy, rumoured a gang member, as soon as possible. That had been in December of last year and Hayley and Eli had been sneaking around ever since.

"Eli never said anything about that," Walter said as he quickly accelerated to avoid a red light.

I saw Hayley smile faintly through the rear view mirror, "Probably because it makes no difference to him."

I grinned, "That's pretty romantic of him."

Walter was about to pretend to gag but he stopped himself, knowing Hayley wouldn't appreciate that. She loved his brother openly, something that Walter (and Eli too) had difficulty showing. The two of them were still quite argumentative, but when it came to the important things, like gang matters, they were as close as all of their other brothers were.

We arrived at art school and Hayley thanked Walter again before getting out of his car. She walked up the stone steps and stood close to the main doors where other students were either smoking or making their way in and out of the building.