Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 85535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Jesus, I don’t even want to think about him wanking it, let alone discuss it with him while he’s lying on my bed.
Then again, he is twelve years old and probably has boxes of tissues and paper towels stashed under his bed the same way I did when I first started getting random erections at inconvenient times.
Alex is definitely way cooler than I am, though. There’s no doubt he is part of the popular crowd—the one I was never part of while growing up. He plays football and lacrosse and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about academics, so I’m shocked he would use any room to study and do homework in, let alone my room.
Come to think of it, he’s probably in here playing video games on the flat-screen TV I have hanging on the wall across from my bed. It was a gift from my grandmother for my fourteenth birthday, and it’s a lot nicer than the one that’s in the den downstairs.
Not to brag, but I was always one of Grandma’s favorites.
“You know what I would appreciate, Alex? I would love it if you would get out of my bedroom.”
“When did you become an asshole?” He makes no attempt to move and give me my privacy, and I can see he’s surprised by my attitude. I don’t usually kick him out when he makes himself at home in here, probably because he doesn’t come in here very often. But now that he’s been using my space for his own purposes, I need to set boundaries and reestablish my territory.
I glance at him over my shoulder and pry open the box. “You should probably watch your mouth. Does Mom know you swear like that?”
I catch my little brother rolling his eyes at me. “Dude, I’m twelve, not a baby.”
I can see that he’s not a baby—he looks like a preteen now, having shot up several inches in the short time frame that I was studying in England.
Alex is almost taller than I am and still has growing to do.
“I didn’t say you were a baby—I asked if Mom’s ever heard you swear like that.”
“Yeah right,” he scoffs. “She would have a fit, then Aunt Myrt would get involved, and soon everyone would be yelling at me. No thanks.”
He’s not wrong; since Aunt Myrtle moved in, she’s taken a real shine to inserting herself into family drama, including creating drama where none previously existed.
Guess she’s bored as hell with nothing else to occupy her time but us.
“It’s like living with the Crypt Keeper,” Alex continues.
“Hey—don’t be mean.”
“I’m not being mean! She’s a hundred years old. Do you know how not cool it is living with a geriatric?”
I turn and level him with a stare. “Would you say that to her face?”
“No.”
“Then you probably shouldn’t be saying that in here.” I turn back toward my box. “Besides, she’s probably listening outside the door with her ear pressed to the wall.”
That makes my brother laugh. “Probably.”
I turn to face him again. “Are you leaving or not?”
“Not,” he says with a laugh that makes me want to throttle him.
“Don’t you have anything better to do? And why are you even home, anyway? It’s the middle of the day.”
“We had a half-day today. Teacher in-service or something like that.”
“Who brought you home?”
“Brandon’s mom.” Brandon is my brother’s best friend, has been since they were in kindergarten.
“You should’ve told me. I was running errands and took Aunt Myrtle to physical therapy—I could have grabbed you on the way home.”
“I think Mom forgot, so I just hopped in the car with Brandon.”
That sounds kind of like our mom; she is very forgetful and used to do the same thing to me when I was growing up. Every so often, my parents would leave me at church after dropping me off at Sunday school. Don’t even ask me how that happens—thank God we have cell phones.
“What’s in that box?” my brother wants to know.
“Just stuff from school—textbooks and shit.”
“Aren’t textbooks mostly digital now?”
“Maybe. But not at Cambridge.”
I studied over there on a scholarship I’d been fighting to earn since I was a freshman in high school, busting my ass for good grades and joining every and any club that could be academically beneficial, on top of playing tennis.
Tennis, right? Who even plays that anymore?
“Did you meet any girls while you were over there?” my brother asks as he fumbles with the remote control for my TV. I’m sure he intends to stay awhile and watch one of his favorite programs, something he’s probably been doing every day since the day I left.
“No, I didn’t meet any girls.” I fold a t-shirt that’s at the top of my box and set it off to the side. “I mean, obviously I met girls, but I assume you mean did I date any.”