Hoodies and Visors

3: Unpacking Help

     Brrzzzz. I silence my alarm and roll back over for another five minutes. After much contemplation, I finally get out of bed to get ready. I wash my face and apply minimal makeup, just foundation, mascara, and eyeliner. The fit for today is a maroon and yellow flannel over a University of Minnesota sweatshirt paired with some classic jeans.  I put more effort into my breakfast than my clothes. I make some scrambled eggs and toast to start the day. As I'm stepping out the door to drive to Century, I yell goodbye to my mom and dad
     World History is a lot easier to find today, but don't let that fool you. It was still boring as hell. Mrs. Beckers had the audacity to assign a six page essay on a fucking Tuesday. No thank you. I remember that Tiki probably won't be here today to help me again since he skips so much and that just makes the rest of the school day harder to look forward to. But much to my surprise, I'm sitting alone in 2nd period Pre Calc and guess who walks in late.
     "Thank you Christian for taking the time out of your day to come to class." The teacher says to him. "I think that's a new record, two days in a row." He sits down behind me.
     "Hey I thought you weren't coming today?" I whisper to him.
     "Yea, I wasn't going to but I wanted to see you again."
     "Wow, so cheesy. I can't believe you just said that."
     "Shhh, shut up. I'm trying to learn."
     "Oh whatever." I reply. The rest of class we chat a little bit under our breath to each other to help the class go by faster than this snail pace it's going by right now. We continue our conversation while walking to the next class. I love talking to him and his stupid sarcasm. Oh god, what am I saying? This is my second day knowing him, I can't be that into him, right?
     Wrong, we just keep talking the entire school day and by now the topics have reached a personal level: his real opinion on this town, his friends, and just about everything. I didn't finish all of my food at lunch since we were talking so much, not that I wanted to eat much of the crap food anyways. Afterwards when we don't have class together anymore, we still text each other, picking up where we left off during lunch. I guess staying for the last three periods wasn't worth it since he doesn't see me, because he texted that he was already home about 10 minutes into my 5th period English Lit class. I want to just keep texting him, but the only seat that was open for me to sit in was in the very first row and I am not about to whip out my phone about three feet away from Ms. Clark. She is scary enough already and I don't want to anger the dragon. I don't get it, how is she so scary if she is barely scraping five foot. I do sneak in a few replies back to him, but the hardest part is not smiling like a clown when I'm trying to hide the fact that I'm on my phone in my lap. It helps Mrs. Clark's lengthy lecture go by faster, though. I get a real break during my last block of AP Physics. It is basically all self taught and at your own pace so I can just sit on my phone the whole time while occasionally doing a problem here and there. Plus, the problems are really easy for me since I already covered this chapter at my last school. While we were texting is when the idea popped into my mind. I text my mom asking if I could invite a friend over to help unpack. I'm careful to not mention that it would be the same friend that she disapproved of yesterday at dinner. She must think that I've met some female friends since then because she replies back that she can't wait to meet her. I don't correct her that it will be Tiki, I'm just grateful she's letting someone come over already. I propose my idea to Tiki and he's all for it until he learns that my mom will be home.
     "I just don't think parents like me very much," he texts me. "It will be so awkward to meet her especially if she is expecting a girl to come home with you."
     "You'll be fine. We're just gonna meet her for a minute or two then we'll go downstairs and you'll help me unpack my room." I try to persuade him.
     "Oh is that what people from St. Peter call it? Unpacking? 😏," he replies.
     "Oh my god, no. Please don't say anything like that in front of my mom." I'm not even gonna get started on the fact that I am definitely not ready for anything like that yet. Is he? We literally just met yesterday, is that how guys think? Oh my god. What have I gotten myself into?
     We text some more and I finally convince him to come over and enter through the front door rather than his idea of sneaking in my bedroom window so he doesn't have to meet her. "It will be fine, let's just hope my dad isn't home for some weird reason." I text him.
     "Oh shiiit. I gotta worry about your dad too?"
     "No, he'll probably be at his office until late like 9 so just don't stay that long. But if you are staying that long, do you wanna have dinner too then?"
     "Um, hard pass. A supper with the mama, I'll just not stay that late. I'm not about to do that."
     "Fine, but you'll still help me unpack?"
     "Yea sure why not." Great, still better than nothing. I change the topic to something else since I don't want him to change his mind. The time flies by a lot faster when I'm texting him, so before I know it the bell rings and I'm done with school for the day. I jam out in the car while driving home. I live so close to the high school that I only get two songs in, but those two songs hit hard. Empire State of Mind and If I Ain't Got You can own my ass. When school first got out, I texted Tiki so that he could start driving to my house in hopes that we arrive there at the same time. I didn't want him to have to do the nerve wracking doorbell ring and greetings without me. It worked because as I am sitting in my car finishing the last few seconds of Alicia Keys, he rolls up.
     "Hey! You ready for this?" I yell to him, getting out of my car.
     "I guess. Just a few minutes then we can go downstairs, right?"
     "Yeah, definitely," and with that we head to the door. I walk inside and shout to my mom. "I'm home and I brought that friend that you wanna meet!"
     As she rounds the corner, I can tell how fast she goes from excited to meet a girl friend to who is this funny looking boy that my daughter dragged home. I look over at him and he is standing straight up with perfect posture. Wow, didn't know it did that. I'm the first one to talk.
     "Mom, this is Christian." I gesture to him. "He's gonna help me unpack."
     "Hi Mrs. Tollefson, how was your day today?" Who is this and what did they do with the regular Tiki? Why doesn't he think parents like him, he's doing just fine right now? He's really laying the charm on thick.
     "Oh please, call me Kathy and today was good." She smiles and looks over at me. "Is this the same Christian that we talked about at dinner yesterday?"
      "Maybe. I just wanted help getting my room all set up, it's fine." I tell her. Tiki is looking over at me now, trying to figure out why he was the topic of our conversation yesterday. "And we're gonna go do that right now, okay?" I quickly drag him downstairs to my room and am careful to leave the door open a little per my mom's rules whenever a friend is over. I'm assuming that stayed the same house to house. "That wasn't too bad. It could have gone worse."
     "Yea for you maybe. That felt horrible, can I just sneak out the window when I leave?"
     "Oh my god, shut up. It wasn't even that bad. It was basically just a hello and then we were already heading to my room."
     "I want to die after that. Don't expect me at school tomorrow or the day after. I'll be in Mexico by then, restarting my whole life as Antonio." He flops down on my bed clutching his heart. "Or maybe I'll fake a heart attack and escape to Poland from the hospital."
     "I can't believe you. Come on, please." I scoff. "Before you head to a new country can you at least help me with these boxes first?"
     "Hm I might be able to do that, but only for you." He sits up and starts opening a box right next to the bed.
     "Oh no, not that one!" Too late, he already opened it and he's looking at me surprised. "That's the box I packed my underwear in. Give it back." I'm so embarrassed, my face is already redder than a stop sign.
     "Oh Amanda, I didn't know you had this side of you." He says, pulling out one of my thongs.
      "No, stop. Tiki!" I rush at him trying to get the box away from him, reaching for the underwear that he is now holding just out of my reach above his head. "Give me it! Oh my god, Tiki." I jump up and grab it, finally. I also take the box from his other hand. He is smiling like crazy now, ugh I'm never gonna live that down.
     "You've been holding out on me. I saw all of those lacy Victoria Secrets."
     "They're comfy. Shut up." I defensively say back to him. "You could have picked any other box, just not that one."
     "Oh yea? What about this one?" He asks pointing to one that was right next to the underwear box.
     "I'll unpack that one too. It's my bras, but literally any other box except for these two are safe." His mouth is open now from the surprise and he rushes to open it. I quickly snatch it from him before he can look at those, too. "You're not seeing these also. God Tiki, chill. It's just bras. You look like I said there were gold bars in there."
     "I was just curious." He tries to play it off with his puppy dog eyes while also trying to peek at the box in my arms. I turn away from him once I see what he is attempting to do. I place both boxes into my closet.
     "Okay, now choose any box to unpack."
     "Are the ones in the closet still an option?" I roll my eyes at him.
     "Ugh. Just help me with my room please."
     "Technically, I could help you unpack your closet, which is part of your room." He tries to argue.
     "Oh my god Tiki, let it go." I hand him a box full of shirts. "You wanna help with my closet. Here, go crazy with these." He opens it eagerly, expecting something a lot more fun than ordinary t-shirts.
     "Aw, shirts. You're wasting my potential here." He sounds so disappointed.
     "Shut up, just go hang those up. I already put all of my hangers in the closet, but no peeking at those boxes while you're in there." Why did I give him clothes and put the boxes in the closet? Sometimes I think that I am just stupid. He is definitely going to look in them. Whatever, he already saw them when he opened the first box.
     "Fine, no peeking," but he puts air quotations around peeking. "Not my fault if the boxes just fall open and the contents spill out."
     "Yes, it will be. Just hang up the shirts please. I'll be out here going through these boxes."
     "Okay, okay. Any particular order? Do you color coordinate them?" He asks. I'm surprised by his consideration.
     "No, it's fine. When you're done, there are more boxes of long sleeves and sweatshirts that you can grab."
     "If we are gonna work so hard we at least need music." Tiki says, poking his head out of the closet.
     "Oh yea, okay. I know I have a speaker in a box around here." I rummage through one and quickly find it. I toss it to him and he connects. Promiscuous starts blasting through it and he sings along.
     We work on unboxing my room and getting it all set up. As we're unpacking, he sings along with every single song he plays. No complaint here, he actually has a pretty nice voice. He can also rap along with Godzilla, this boy is multitalented! The last box gets emptied in no time. Two people get it done a lot faster than just myself. We admire our work and lay on my bed, just chilling.
     "Thank you for coming to help me, y'know you didn't have to." I tell him.
     "Oh now you tell me that, wow. Thanks for the time saver." And there's the Tiki sarcasm. "No, but I wanted to anyway, I got to see you more."
     "Oh my god," I scoff at him. "You are just laying the charm on super thick today. Thick with like three c's. I saw the way you were with my mom. What's up with that? I thought you said parents don't like you?"
      "Did it seem like she liked me? She practically gave you the death stare once she saw me!"
      "You have to learn to read between the lines. She didn't kick you out, so you're fine."
      "She would have kicked me out if she didn't like me? You brought me here knowing there was a chance she was just gonna kick me out?" He asks.
     "Oh, she would never. Pfft, She is way too non confrontational for that. I knew she wouldn't throw you out. Good thing you aren't meeting my dad today. He would have a field day with you."
     "Just great, I'll just go right now then. That window looks pretty promising." He starts to sit up, acting like he'll actually sneak out.
     "No, stay. Don't you want to watch some Netflix?" I suggest, not thinking too much into it.
     "Oh yea. I definitely wanna do something that goes along with Netflix. You know, the chill part?" I mentally facepalm. I just walked right into that, how did I not see that coming?
      "Yea, I got it, but don't think I'm gonna do anything like that with a hoodlum like you." Oh my god, I really ask myself what I have gotten myself into almost every time I talk to him.
      "A hoodlum? I am insulted, really. That is gonna be one of the reasons why I'll be crying myself to sleep tonight." He jokes back.
    "Whatever. What do you want to watch?"
    "The Office fosho." He answers pretty quickly.
    "I've never seen it before, but everyone always talks about it. Any good?" He just stares at me in disbelief.
    "Oh, we've gotta get started right away then. Quick, put on episode one."
    "Fine, okay." I start it and quickly lose track of time, just watching episode after episode, laughing along. Before no time, my mom is knocking on my door saying that dinner is ready. Crap, Tiki didn't want to stay this long.
    "Yea, I think I'm gonna head out." He says as we get off the bed and start walking up the stairs. "I told you I didn't wanna stay for a meal."
    "I know, I remember, just kinda wish you would stay for longer." I tell him.
    "Maybe next time." We have reached the door.
    "Goodbye, Tiki." I say Tiki softly so my mom doesn't hear his nickname. He turns around and heads to his truck as I watch him leave. I close the door and head to the dining table, preparing myself for the talk I'm going to get. And I am right, my mom doesn't waste time getting to the point.
    "You failed to tell me you were bringing over a boy, Amanda. We did not give you a room in the basement for you to hide someone there." She is mad, I can tell that. I don't need to be a genius to figure it out. "The next time you do that, let me know it is a boy beforehand. When he comes over again, he's staying for dinner. I want to see what he's like rather than you just hiding him in your room the whole time."
    "Okay, Mom, but I don't know when he wants to come over next. He was really nervous about meeting you." I respond.
    "He doesn't need to worry about me now, I just want to make sure he's not a complete ass."
    "Mom!"
    "I'm just looking out for my baby girl, can you blame me? Besides, he seemed nice enough based on the five seconds you let me meet him."
    "It was longer than five seconds."
    "If you say so, sweetie." We continue to eat our dinner, talking about school and stuff. I eat quickly to finish my food so I can go back downstairs and watch some more of The Office.
    I watch the show until close to 10, texting Tiki at the same time. I decide that if I want to have a good day tomorrow, I should probably sleep. I get ready for bed: wash my face, brush my teeth, and text Tiki goodnight. I fall asleep thinking about the day's adventure.