“Are you making tea?”
I grin.
“Yeah, I’m making t-“
“What kind?”
I can’t help but chuckle. He fucking loves tea, especially when I make it.
“Mint.”
“Ooh nice.”
He pops back into his room and I spend the remaining four-and-a-half minutes staring intently at the oven knobs. I stick my finger under the little handle in the strainer and let it burn my hand as I drop it in a mug.
“Is it ready yet?”
Ollie shouts from upstairs.
“Yeah, just done.”
I grab a sleeve of thin mints with the pot of tea and two mugs, that I put on Ollie’s desk once I’m up the stairs. From the looks of it, he’s only a few paragraphs in.
I pour him a mug and mix a touch of honey into mine, two spoonfuls for him. I sit down next to him on the bed and hand him his tea and read over what he’s got so far.
Not bad.
“Not bad.”
He smirks.
“Well, I’m glad you think so.”
I open the sleeve and slide one into his mouth, grab three for myself and walk back to the desk, leaving the rest on his nightstand.
About an hour later, I’ve moved on to history and Ollie announces with gusto that he has finished.
“Nice.”
We exchange devices and he reads over mine while I pore over his. He looks a little anxious when he sees me typing, but I leave corrections in red and parentheses without really changing anything.
I give him back his Razer laptop and he hands me back my iPad.
“Ryan, that was really good.”
I look over my essay, seeing that nothing’s changed.
“No corrections?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
“Well, you’re biased.”
He smirks.
“I see you’ve tweaked mine a bit?”
“Only suggestions. Though I’m fairly certain there’s only one ‘t’ in ‘simplicity’.”
“Smartass.”
“You know it.”
I pat him on the shoulder and steal a pillow, then settle down cross-legged in the bed next to him.
Twenty minutes later, I feel a weight on my arm and see that he’s out cold, his head resting against my forearm and his laptop on it’s side.
Aww.
He snores softly and I close his computer and set it to the side, then pull the comforter over him. One of his curls falls over his eyebrow and I brush it back behind his ear tenderly.
I don’t know why I did that.
My homework is all done forty minutes later, and Ollie’s still asleep. My watch reads 3:15.
Shit.
I pack my stuff back into my bag and grab my coat from over the frame of his bed.
Before leaving, I turn back to Ollie and just stare for a second. I feel weird.
I step over the threshold and lean back for a second, plucking a thin mint from the near-empty plastic sleeve on the nightstand.
The walk home is lonely and the sun hides low behind all the buildings. I pick up the pace and soon see my little brownstone down the block. I gulp nervously when I see my dad’s car out front. I walk up to the front door and open it with the key in my pocket, leaving my coat at the door and tiptoeing through the kitchen to the stairs. I’m three feet away when I hear him.
Comments (0)
See all