Renee's River | √

26. instructions (filler)

"Trust me, step three is the best and most interesting step," Kaleb barged into my room Sunday morning.

I gasped and grabbed my lotion, throwing it at him, "How can you just barge in like that? What if I was completely naked?!"

He rubbed his chest where the lotion had hit, rolling his eyes, "Well, you weren't?"

"Well, what if?" I retorted.

He started laughing, "Hey, remember when we were eleven?"

The memory of what he was referring to filled my head and I joined him in laughter.

Here's what went down.

So, we were still in middle school. I was up in Kaleb's room when I started feeling sick. I was running a temperature so Kaleb went to tell Phoebe. By the time he got back with his mom, I'd thrown up. Phoebe was so worried and without thinking, she stripped me down to my panties. I couldn't do anything about it because I felt so ill, but Kaleb had snickered. It wasn't until we were 13 that Kaleb brought that day up and we laughed our butts off. Lord, my chest was as flat as a wall then.

Kaleb sat on my bed now, running my comb through his hair and then I remembered my history test.

"Hey Kaleb, can I read out my history text to you later?"

"Oh yeah, there is a test tomorrow," he muttered before saying out loud, "Why do you want to read it out to me, though?"

I sighed and sat beside him, "If you've noticed, I haven't been complaining about tests anymore."

He thought for a while, "Yeah, recently."

"Well, all thanks to River. He made me start reading out my text to him, and I realized that when writing the rest, I would remember what I'd read to him."

"Whoa, that's quite a technique."

"Mhm," I nodded. "And now that we're not exactly speaking, I figured I could just read out to you."

"If you ask me Rae, I think River likes you."

"Let's not -"

"Forget that he has a girlfriend for a minute. It's only someone who likes and cares about you that'll want to see you do well. Not just that, but also help you discover new things about yourself."

I swallowed. I realized that each time I spent with River, I discovered something new about myself.

"And that's exactly why the plan to make him jealous will work. It's quite glaring that just maybe he has feelings for you. To make him jealous, it won't just be about me all the time."

I nodded. "So what?"

"Good. Now, you would try to stay busy. He likes you. He'll still want you to make time for him, kinda like how you've been spending time with him after work, but that has stopped from creating distance, so that's no problem. Stay busy and once on a while let him think you're having a good time. That will get to him."

I locked my lower lip, "Got it. What else?"

"Flirt with another guy, that is, me."

I raised a hand to my forehead, "I can't flirt. You know that."

Kaleb laughed, throwing his head back, "I know. Remember that day at La Taqueira."

"Oh please, don't remind me," I rolled my eyes.

"It's no problem, though. Leave the flirting aspect to me, you'll catch on these things. I got you. Though later on you might have to learn how to. You're 16 and can't flirt. That's sad."