BOYTOY

~ Chapter 6 ~

*This my fave chapter tbh :)

Morning light was still brittle with greyness when I opened the door groggily the next day. Matt gave me a half-hearted salute as he dragged his feet across the porch, groaning when he realised there were stairs to descend. Still exhausted from the late night of movie-watching and laughing-until-we-had-stitches, we were both looking a little worse for wear. Matt was in his boxers and his shirt from the day before, brown hair frizzy and sticking up in every direction and his tired eyes bloodshot and puffy. At the curb, he glanced back and gave another heavy-armed wave, before trudging off down the sidewalk, barefooted and still in his underpants.

Closing the door, I turned back into a house full of tick-tocks and creaking walls. Amber had left before I had risen, more than likely to spend the day with her friends or Emery, and my parents were still asleep. They hadn't gotten back until well passed twelve o'clock and my conclusion was that accountants were, in fact, just like Clark Kent. But just picturing old Mr McDermott, one of my father's colleagues, in a blue spandex suit was almost vomit-inducing. Especially since Mr McDermott was well on his way to sixty, had a bushy grey moustache and carried weight around his middle like he was pregnant.

And again, thinking about Mr McDermott and pregnancy, in the same sentence, effectively pushed sleep from my mind, and I hurried to the television to douse my brain with silly preschool cartoons. That was where my mother found me, munching on too-cold toast and watching Bear in the Big Blue House. "'Morning," she greeted wearily. She walked by the doorway, offering me a drooping smile with her smudged panda-eyes and frizzy hair, and I wondered how she managed to scoop up enough energy to even speak.

Glancing at the clock, I said, "I thought you'd be asleep for at least another two hours."

She continued pouring a cup of coffee, replying croakily, "Well, your father is snoring with enough volume to wake Mrs Dermbridge."

Mrs Dermbridge was our elderly next-door neighbour, who I remembered to be both partially blind and fully death. I cocked my head, straining my hearing upstairs, where I could just make up the grating inhalations of my father's snores. "He doesn't sound too loud," I commented.

She gave me a withering look. "Trust me," stated my mother. "It's loud."

"If you say so," I said, and turned back to watch the television.

"Why are you up so early, then?" she said a moment later, settling down beside me whilst sipping her steaming cup of coffee.

"Matt had to go home."

"So you had to get up to let him out?" She frowned. "How long has that boy been staying over?"

"Almost six years," I answered distractedly, taking another bite of toast. "And I had to let him out because he doesn't like going downstairs by himself." Before she could question why, I ended with: "He thinks Dad will pounce on him or something. I don't know."

My mother was silent a minute, her gaze locked on the flashing television screen without actually seeing. Finally, she said carefully: "He's...strange."

"Yeah," I said. "I know." Sighing, she settled down beside me, tucking her slipper-clad feet up onto the cushions and sneakily grabbing the remote from my lap. My indignant, "Hey!" was drowned out by the eight o'clock Morning News coming to life. The starting jingle was a catchy guitar solo and my attention was caught for a matter of seven seconds, until the music stopped and the news cast members began stating their names. "Well, I'm off." I stood, stretching my limbs in a yawn and padding lethargically into the kitchen.

Upstairs, I realised my mother had been right about the snoring. It was practically vibrating the carpet. I pressed my ear against the door of my parents' room, cringing just by imagining trying to sleep beside a man who could make that much noise asleep. Think of how loud he could be awake! Shuddering, I made my way to the bathroom, passing, as I did, Amber's empty room. The door was open mid-way, revealing to me the clean floor and the bright sunlight that illuminated the whole room like it was a set-up for design show.