Love and Other Diseases (bxb)

Chapter Five

Walking up to Blake Beckson's porch was a force. It felt weird to be willingly subjecting myself to torture. Willingly entering the cave of the monster. Willingly dragging myself into the depths of hell.

"Will you move?" Blake snapped. He was standing directly behind me, with his cool kid shades on.

"I don't know if I can do it." I stared at the door looming in front of me. It was white, had a thin, rectangular window next to it, the same height as the door.

There was a little knocker in the middle of the door, shaped like an anchor. This state was landlocked. ...Creepy.

"Fuck you." Blake pushed past me and entered his home. There was a distant squeal of delight. It sounded motherly. I had a vague memory of his mom from a cookout over the summer, she seemed like a lot to deal with.

If I left now, I could get to my door in 4 seconds at a sprint.

"Come on, Jake!" Blake yelled from inside. Dammit. Too late now, his mother knew I was here.

I sighed. "...Coming."

I was greeted with a similar delighted squeal, and I was practically assaulted with a tray of cookies. What was with people and cookies? What was with the Beckson family and being irritating?

"Oh, hi Jake Edwards!" Ms. Beckson said. She sort of looked like an almost-middle-aged white women from any of the Grimm's fairy tales. She was plump, wore an apron, and was bearing cookies.

I glanced at the oven to make sure I wouldn't fit inside.

"Hi, Ms. Beckson. It smells good in here." See, I could be polite. The kitchen did, in fact, smell like cookies.

"Oh, have a cookie, you must be so hungry! I bet you must eat a lot to have such big muscles! And you're so tall too! I always told Henrietta that she had such a handsome son!"

When did she talk to my mom? Why was it that I could literally see the exclamation marks at the ends of her sentences? Also was she into me?

"Oh, no thank you. I don't want to spoil dinner later," I said, giving the tray of cookies a polite smile.

"Oh, please!" she scoffed. "Just one! I won't tell your mom." She wiggled her eyebrows as if there were some incredible secret between us. As if originally she planned on telling my mother that I ate a cookie before dinner. Her green eyes widened.

Okay, well there was only one way out of this situation. "Ah. Well as long as you don't tell." I took a cookie and flashed her a smile.

Blake rolled his eyes.

"Thanks, Ma. We gotta get to work now though," he grumbled.

"Aw, am I embarrassing you in front of the sweet neighbor boy?" she asked, batting her eyelashes.

She turned to me and dropped me a wink. ... Definitely could be into me. That was horrifying.

Blake's face flushed red. "You weren't. Now you kind of are."

"Aw, oops. You run along, boys." She fixed a stern look on Blake. "I don't wanna hear that door close, Mister."

I didn't think it was possible for Blake's face to get any redder. "Why, Ma?"

"Oh, you know." She looked at me and Blake covered his face with his hands. She winked. "Drugs and things, that's all. Run along, boys."

Blake groaned. "Come on, Jake."

He walked away and I grinned at Ms. Beckson. "Thanks for the cookies, ma'am."

"Oh, anytime, sweetheart!"