I Hate My Brother (editing!)

13.

(picture of Cassandra Santiago)
• • •

By the time we head back to Wayne's place, it was nearing sunset. We had dropped by Frolio, a frozen yogurt store after grocery shopping, which turned out to be a terrible mistake because during the forty-five minutes we spent chatting and laughing there; we completely forgot about the groceries in the car boot.

And of course, there was ice-cream. Tubs and tubs of Ben & Jerry's.

None of us had thought to check on the shopping bags when we got back to our cars. But reality came crashing down, or in this case —liquidified ice-cream came dripping down in a horrendous mess when the guys helped to unload Wayne's car boot.

Surprisingly, Cass was the calmest of us all. As soon as the scene unfolded, she took off into the house, making a dash for the kitchen. She couldn't find whatever she was looking for though, seeing as this was probably only her second time here. She yelled from the open kitchen, but nobody responded as we stood with our mouths wide, unsure of what to do while we flickered our gazes between the puddle on the cement ground and the mini flood in the boot itself.

"Bloody hell!" Wayne shouted, taking out more and more plastic bags of grocery from his car. Almost all of them were contaminated, except a few packets of chips that required wipe-downs at most.

There goes two hundred bucks.

"Where do I find a mop and pail?" Cass questioned when she came out of the house. I was beyond glad that someone knew what they were doing and was taking charge, because I was more than unhelpful at this point. I was standing there, watching.

It's not that I don't do housechores. In fact, I do. I actually find vacuuming and dusting therapeutic. It's a pretty weird hobby but sometimes when I get bored, I enjoy cleaning.

However, I've always had a problem with cleaning up food mess. Sure, if it was simply just a dropped fried chicken, just throw me a wet rag. But what the hell do you do when it's sweet, sugary liquid mess? And one that's flooded in a car, might I add. Anywhere that we bring the bags to would dirty the surfaces and the ground, making everywhere a sticky mess.

I remember one time when I was baking cupcakes and had clumsily knocked off the bowl of batter, together with a half-opened bag of flour on the tiled floor. It was a disaster. I thought I was clever to take the mop, but not only did I made it worse, I ruined my mom's favourite mop.

"It's in the back, c'mon." Carson led her into the house again. They prepped the tools needed, which was some towels, a pail of water and a dry mop. Seeing as I was practically useless, they gave me the job of picking out the stuff that could still be salvaged.

Turns out, we had to dump all the vegetables, meat and frozen food which were now —unfrozen. Zac accompanied Wayne to the workshop, both of them driving their individual cars so they'd have a ride back; seeing as we had no clue how to clean up his boot. Drew, Carson, Cass and I then took off in my car, driving to the nearest supermarket so we could pick up groceries again.

The guys had offered to make dinner tonight, so Cass and I are now lounging in my room after an eventful day.

"I always knew the Grays and your brother were close, but I didn't expect him to like, give them fingerprint access to his house." Cass comments out of the blue, referring to the new digital lock Wayne got a couple of days ago.

I spin myself around in my desk chair playfully, while Cass sits cross-legged on my bed. "Why? They've always had the key anyway, it's not so diffferent."

"Of course it is! They knew where the key was hidden, but they weren't given their own sets. You see the difference? Now they have like free access in and out. And that takes a lot of trust, y'know. They could come in high and drunk because pressing a finger takes a lot less effort than fumbling with a key."