The Serpent of Love

21. Thanksgiving

November 21, 2018

“Hey honey,” dad says, taking me into a hug and I hug him back tightly. He doesn't smell the same. It annoys me.
“Hi,” I say with a smile while pulling away. He takes my sports bag which is the only bag I took with me since I'll be here only for 4 days.
“How was the flight?” he asks as we start walking out of the airport, probably towards the car.
“It was okay, I slept almost the whole way,” I say casually, my eyes observing his clothes and all. He looks like he's rich, which is confusion because now he has two families.
“Your hair's longer,” he says, looking at me too.
I chuckle. “Yeah, I'm gonna grow it out again and then cut it off to donate whenever it reaches the length.” He smiles at that and keeps asking me about everything.

We get to his apartment about thirty minutes later. He really does live in the center… When I get out of the car and he takes the bag, we go inside and on the fifth floor in the big building. The house looks so different from what I live in. My apartment has a big balcony and you can see the ocean, the apartment buildings look more modern, but here the buildings look more historical, but like they cost more (which they do).
We enter the apartment and I can feel the womanly smell. I don't mind it though, it's better than my dad living all alone and working all the time. Plus the apartment sees clean. Since it's raining, we take the shoes off and dad leads me to the living room. I see some pictures of me, Polly and Chaz and them some of their four month old baby who's name is Matthias.
“Yeah, she's here,” I hear Polly's voice. “I will,” she chuckles. “Yeah, I got it already, mom,” I hear. I chuckle quietly and look around. I hear a baby crying, so I assume Ann is already there with him since my dad isn't moving. “Bye,” Polly says, coming out of a room. She throws the phone on the couch and comes to me, smiling. We hug for a few minutes, really tightly, and then pull away.
“You look sick…” I say worriedly.
She giggles. “I’m just tired, couldn't really sleep tonight, the baby was crying.” She has been here for a few days already since she can just skip college if she wants to. Mom doesn't let me do the same with high school.
“Hi,” Ann says with a smile as she comes into the living room with the baby and hands him to my dad who looks happy.
“Hi,” I say with a small smile myself and hug her for a second. I guess my dad has told her that I'm really antisocial and an introvert at first, because she seems surprised that I hugged her after I pull away. I look at the baby. He looks at me and smiles. My parents have told me that always when I smiled at people, I put my forehead against mom or dad's body and turned my head away the next second, the shy personality showing even then.
I touch his bald head softly and he reaches his hand out and touches my fingers. I chuckle and give him a kiss on the head, making him giggle.
“You didn't look that big in the belly,” I smirk, making them laugh quietly.
“He’s twice the weight he was then. That’s called biology, sis,” Polly teases.
I raise my eyebrows and look at her with a playful smile. “I have an A in it…”
She looks surprised. “Seriously? You hate it.”
“That's called studying, sis,” I say back, making them chuckle and her smirk. We pop down on the couch on the same time and I fall onto my stomach on it just as I wanted, legs over her lap, knees in her tight gap. She smacks my butt and I bend my leg from the knee automatically, making my foot smash against her chin. She does an “ow” sound and I sit up quickly, both of us chuckling. “Sorry,” I chuckle and touch her chin gently. “You okay?”
“I'm fine,” she grins, pushing my head away strongly, making me fall on my side. I frown as she laughs at me, turn myself around and place my head on her lap, crossing my ankles on the couch.
“When's Chaz coming?” she asks, looking down at me as I stare at the ceiling and she starts touching my hair.
“In a few hours. Their hotel is like an hour away though,” I smirk.
“Why? They couldn’t get one closer?” Ann asks.
I chuckle and look at her with my eyes. “No, they could, but he wanted the best view possible,” I say.
“Snob,” Polly smirks.
“Totally,” I agree with a chuckle. “He's not even that rich, why does he want the hotel that costs the most?” I mumble, basically talking to myself.
“Wait, it's not going good?” Polly asks in confusion.
I shrug. “It’s normal I guess. He got a few roles, but they don't pay a lot…”
“He just needs to wait, he's good at his job,” dad says. I nod with a small smile and look back at Polly.
“When are you seeing Trev?” I ask.
She smiles so big. “He’s gonna go by tomorrow. You?”
“He’s gonna come with Jellybean tomorrow,” I say.
“Tomorrow?” dad asks with a small smile, not having seen Jughead since January.
“Yeah… And then the day after that he's coming back with Arch and V.”
“You still talk to them?” Polly teases.
“They’re my best friends,” I say, getting annoyed.
“I thought it was Jughead,” she continues.
“Well… they're my second and third beat friends then.”
“That makes no sense, you can't hav-“
“I can do whatever I want, shut up.”

November 22, 2018

“You’re tall,” I say to Trev.
He smirks. “You’re just really short.”
“I know, I don't grow,” I murmur, pouting. They laugh at me.
“You do, you have grown,” dad says.
“No I don't, everyone’s like 64 or 66 inches while I'm 62.5, I'm  too short, even Toni is taller than me,” I say and the doorbell rings. I'm already standing next to it, so I quickly let Jughead and Jellybean in and open the apartment door for them too.
“Jughead,” I hear Jellybean saying with a whiny voice while some steps quickly run upstairs. “Jug, I don't know which floor,” she whines somewhere and probably tries to keep up.
Jughead gets here only with like 10 seconds if that's possible. He drops the bags immediately and takes me into his arms. I hug him back so tightly.
“Crap, you're short,” he says quietly and lets go of me for just a minute. He wraps his arms around my waist, lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist and arms around his neck. Now he's content and holds me really tightly against him. My head is now higher than his, so my cheek is resting against his forehead, eyes pressed together.
We hug for a long time and I know that by then Jellybean has already hugged everyone except me; I just can't get myself to let go of the boy I love. I do move the beanie from my head to his and shiver when he presses a kiss against his promise ring between my collarbones, his lips burning hot, the ring ice cold.
I look at him for the first time in a few months. He's smiling softly as he meets my eyes. His face hasn't changed much since I saw him in the ending of August like the last time, but his eyes are exactly 100% the same they have always been: green, a little blue mixed into it, always happy when he sees me.
I cup his face gently and lean down, connecting our lips. It's a soft but passionate kiss, but once his tongue is in my mouth, I need more. I feel him walking somewhere, only a few steps and hear the others laughing. He probably stepped behind the corner so that he could kiss me for a while and taste my mouth for the first time in months.

“No,” I say as Jug opens his mouth to say something, me sitting on his lap on the couch.
He chuckles at me. “I haven't even saying anything,” he says against my cheek. His chin is over my shoulder, lips and nose against my cheek constantly.
“You're gonna say you have to go, so just don't talk,” I say.
He smiles. “I’d love to stay here, but I have to get Jelly home tonight and the two jerks from Riverdale here if you wanna see them,” he says, his hand on my waist, thumb stroking my side under the shirt.
“I don't need to see them,” I murmur, really not wanting for him to let go of me.
“You’re the worst friend ever,” he smiles.
I sigh and look at him sadly. “You promise you're coming back tomorrow?”
“I’m keeping the hat,” he just says. I smile and he gives me a soft kiss before I get off of his lap and he gets up from the couch. “Jelly, come on.”
She has hugged all of them and now it's my turn. I wrap her up in my arms and she hugs me back, almost as tall as I am. Really sucks that my parents are shorter than theirs. “I’ll see you at Christmas?” I whisper.
She smiles up at me and nods. I kiss her forehead softly and with a sigh let go.
“Oh, wait,” Jug says suddenly and takes something out of his bag. I smile big as he hands me a thick manuscript. “I believe you have something for me too?” he asks.
I smirk and  go to the other room, take out the two earlier manuscript he gave me, only that now the corners and sides of empty paper are full of my own personal thoughts and notes which are written in different colors for him to get it where's the separation, an arrow pointing on every little paragraph.
“Wow,” he smiles as I had them to him. “I got lots of reading to do.”
“Just my opinions, though,” I say. His stories are in narrative, like in 3rd's person's POV so all the things he writes are his opinions, usually one of the characters are similar to himself, so every single thing he writes he gives me to read and tell him what are my opinions on them.
“Thank you,” he says with a small smile. “Read that, make your notes and I want it back on Christmas, it's the best thing I've written,” he says. He's his very own harshest critic so if he says it's the best, it means it's the best.
“Maybe you should try and send them somewhere?” I ask for like a hundred time. He always says they're not good enough. “Seriously, they're amazing, you should at least send them to some competitions or something…”
“Read this one and then we'll talk,” he says with a smile, a little blush on his cheeks, feeling embarrassed of even saying that.
I chuckle quietly and nod. He gives my hair a kiss and says bye to everyone in the living room and they go.
“What’s that?” Chaz asks, taking the papers from my hand.
“His book,” I say and take it back before he has the chance to look at it.
He smirks. “Can I have a look?” he asks politely as I sit down next to him.
“No,” I say back casually as I read the title ‘Slaughter the hedgehog'.
“No wonder you have nightmares if you read that,” he mumbles to me. I narrow my eyes at him and he winks with a smirk, opening the first page and starting reading it himself.
I hit it against his head. “It’s for me, jerk.”
“Jerk,” Noah says happily.
My eyes go wide as Polly starts laughing, but Chaz looks at me angrily. “Sorry,” I murmur.