You're Hiding All the Right Things

Once they were all gone, I danced around a little and went to the bathroom to check my hair. It still looked good. I smiled and went into my room, realizing that Maika was following me the whole time. "Why are you so excited?"

"‘Cause Jeremiah’s coming over to babysit with me." I said. "Where do you wanna sleep?"

"Can I sleep in your bed?" He asked, jumping onto it.

"Aww, but I was gonna sleep in here." I said, thinking that Jeremiah and I could come in here after Maika was sleeping.

"You just wanna sleep in here so you and Jeremiah can have some alone time." Maika said, pretty much reading my mind.

"Shut up! So what if that’s the reason. If you liked someone you’d wanna be alone with them, too, right?" I said, pushing him over, smiling.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I guess I can sleep on the couch."

I hugged Maika. "Thank youuu!" I looked at the clock: 3:25. Already? "Holy crap, I have to get ready. Do you want me to move your stuff into the living room?"

"Please. I don’t wanna walk in on you two doing anything gross." He said, shuttering.

I hit him. "Nothing’s gonna happen. I don’t even know if he likes me that way, or ever would." I said, playing with my lip ring.

"There’s only one way to find out." Maika said, grabbing his bag and moving it into the living room.

I smiled and felt myself blush a little. "What do you want for dinner?"

"Do you have mac and cheese? Or Ramen?" Maika suggested.

"Yeah, but maybe something more...dinner-orientated." I looked in the fridge. "Tacos?"

"Oh. That sounds good."

"Awesome." I pulled out the package of thawed ground beef and started preparing the meat, looking in the cabinet for seasoning and shells. Everything was laid out, even the taco sauce, salsa, and chips. "I’m guessing this is what Beau and Jared wanted me to make tonight, since everything is here."

"That’s convenient." Maika said, looking through the magazine on the counter.

"Do you wanna play any video games or anything? You can if you want." I said, feeling bad for making him just stand there; he looked so bored.

"Sweet!" He ran into the living room and got everything set up. Soon I heard the music of Mario Kart coming from the TV. I shook my head. So Eric got him hooked on that, too.

I looked at the clock again. 3:40. My hands started shaking in excitement. I drained the meat into the sink and added the seasoning. I got the table set up for three with shells, cheese, taco sauce, ranch, and anything else that I could find in the fridge that could garnish a taco.

"I really hope Jeremiah isn’t like, vegetarian or anything." Maika said from in the living room.

"He’s not, I already asked him a while ago." I shouted back.

Then there was a knock at the door. I smiled and put the pot of meat on the hot pad in the middle of the kitchen table. It smelt delicious throughout the whole house. I ran to the door and opened it, seeing Jeremiah smiling, backpack slung over his shoulder. "Hey."

"Hi, come on in." I stepped out of his way. "You can put your stuff in my room."

"Alright." He went down the hall. "Something smells like tacos."

"Yeah, that’s dinner. Beau and Jared planned everything out ahead of time, I guess."

"Good planning. They smell really good." He came back down the hall and into the kitchen. "Did you make everything?"

I nodded. "The meat was done just as you knocked. Maika, lets eat."

"Coming." He said, pausing his game, and sitting next to Jeremiah. I took a seat on the other side of Jeremiah and dug in.

After about twenty minutes of solid eating, I finally backed away from the table, feeling like I was going to explode. "Not to toot my own horn or anything, but that was really good."

"Hell yeah that was, but I seriously could not eat another bite." Jeremiah said, also backing away. The pot of meat was almost gone, and Maika was still going, but only just. "Geez, you can eat a lot, little man."

"I’m a growing boy." He said with his mouth full of taco.

I smiled and shook my head. I got up and started clearing the table. I carried dishes over to the sink and started the water. More dishes appeared at my side while I was making the water all bubbly.

"Jeremiah, you don’t have to help. You’re a guest." I said. "I would feel bad for putting you to work."

"You’re not putting me to work. I’m volunteering to help." He said simply, standing next to me.

"I’ll still feel bad." I said quietly.

"Don’t." He said, also quiet, getting slightly closer. I looked at him and felt like kissing him, he was so amazing.

I tore away from his gaze before I acted on my thoughts and sighed. "Fine. You can help."

"I wasn’t gonna take no for an answer." He said, smirking.

I smiled and pushed him with my shoulder a little as I was washing our plates. Whenever I would hand the plate to him so he could rinse it, I sucked on my lip ring, always thinking that his hand would stay there longer than intended.

"Do you have any soda?" Jeremiah asked, drying his hands off as I cleaned up the little puddles around the sink.

"Yeah, down in the basement fridge. There’s Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Dr. Pepper."

He grabbed my hand. "Come with me?"

That time I knew my heart skipped a beat.

He was holding my hand.

I smiled and looked at him, acting normal. "What, you afraid of the dark?"

He nodded, blushing, looking at the floor.

I resisted the urge to squeal. That’s so adorable! I said to myself. "There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Lots of people are afraid of the dark. I’m not to fond of my basement, either, so it’ll be an adventure for both of us."

He looked at me, smiling. "Lets go."

He held my hand the whole way down the stairs, and I couldn’t stop smiling. This whole thing was going the right way. Maybe I won’t have to wait til the fireworks tomorrow to make this thing serious.

I grabbed myself a Dr. Pepper, Jeremiah grabbing one, too. I gave him a fake dirty look. "That stuff is my crack, don’t take too many. I might have to get angry."

"Dude, this stuff is the shit. You can’t tell me not to take too much." Jeremiah said, starting for the stairs again, taking my hand again.

"Well this is problematic." I said.

He stopped in the middle of the staircase and I ran into him, not paying attention. I almost lost my balance, but Jeremiah caught me close to him. "You alright?"

I looked at him and smiled. "Yeah, fine."

"Now what’s problematic?" He asked, looking down at me.

"Two Dr. Pepper addicts in the house. Only one case of Dr. Pepper."

"We can make it work." He said, continuing up the stairs.

"If you say so." I said, rolling my eyes. We got back upstairs and Maika wasn’t in the living room.

"Maika? Where are you?" I called out.

"Bedroom!" He yelled, running down the hallway. He came out with Life. "Wanna play?"

"Hellz yeah, dude!" Jeremiah said, sitting on the floor, helping Maika set up the board.

"What cars do you guys want?"

"Blue!" Jeremiah and I shouted at the same time.

"Nuh uh, I’m blue. I’m always blue." I argued.

"Nuh uh! I’m always blue!" Jeremiah protested.

"Jeremiah’s blue." Maika decided.

"What?!" I asked.

"He’s the guest. He gets first choice."

He stuck his tongue out at me. I made a face and grabbed the red car out of the bag. All three of us started college.

"Awwyeah! Doctor baby!" Jeremiah said, doing a little dance.

"But will you get the salary?" I asked, fanning the cards out in front of him.

He waved his fingers over them and pulled one out. "$100,000 baby!" He did that dance again.

"God, I hate you." I said, spinning since he landed exactly on the career space. I was already the police officer with a $90,000 salary, so I guess I couldn’t complain. I stopped at marriage.

"Woo! Skylar’s gettin’ maaaaarried! Who ya marrin’?" Jeremiah asked. I sensed that he was in a super good mood tonight.

I scoffed. "I might as well marry you, since you have all the money." I said in a joking manner.

"I think I could deal with that." He handed me a guy out of the bag.

I laughed. "Jeremiah, I was kidding."

"Maybe I wasn’t." He said, smirking. I saw some seriousness in his eyes.

"Oh, well then, if it must be this way." I put the little blue peg in the passenger’s seat, putting that observation in the back of my mind. "It’s gonna be hilarious if I land on any spaces for kids that aren’t adopted."

"I was just thinking about that, actually." He said, laughing a little.

Just before we were finished with the game, my phone started ringing. I looked at the screen: Beau.

"Hold on a sec, it’s Beau." I flipped open my phone. "Hey."

"Hey, just checkin’ up on you guys, seeing if you burned down the house or anything."

I laughed. "You know we wouldn’t do that, and we’re fine. Thanks for getting all that stuff for tacos, by the way. They were very tasty."

"I thought you guys would like that. Well, I have to go. It’s kinda loud in here. Just wanted to see what you were up to."

"We’re fine, playing a game of Life. I’ll see you guys later."

"Yup, bye."

I flipped my phone down and shoved it back in my pocket.

"Did he sound drunk?" Jeremiah asked.

"Beau doesn’t drink that much." I said, spinning, getting enough to retire. "Neither does Jared."

"Well that’s good." He said. "Ha, you died."

"Thaaanks, love you too." I said, starting to count my money, returning $100,000 to the bank.

It was already past 8 by the time the game was over and we realized that even though Jeremiah had the higher salary, I retired with more money.

"You stole money from me, I want a divorce." Jeremiah said, crossing his arms over his chest, pouting.

I held back my giggle. "It’s okay, my money is your money." I said, dropping my money in his pile.

He looked at me and smiled. "Yay! I like this marriage thing."

I laughed. "Me too." I yawned. "You wanna watch a movie?"

"Sure." He said, putting the rest of the game away with Maika while I got up and changed into my pajamas. I came back into the living room and saw that Jeremiah and Maika were having a thumb wrestling match. I rolled my eyes at the both of them and sat on the couch. "Maika. After this is done, go get your pajamas on and pick a movie off of my shelf. PG please."

"‘Kay." He said, beating Jeremiah.

"Tomorrow. Rematch." Jeremiah said, getting up when Maika did.

"Deal." They shook on it and Maika grabbed his pajamas out of his duffle bag and Jeremiah went into my room to change. I wanted to sneak to my room and watch him change, but then I’d feel disgusting and feel like a creeper. That would probably be a total turn-off to Jeremiah anyways.

Once Jeremiah came back, Maika went into my room and came out thirty seconds later with Wall-E.

"Oh dude, this movie is the shit. Lets watch it." Jeremiah said, grabbing it out of Maika’s hands.

"Alright, lets do this." I put the movie in and curled up on the couch with the remote, Jeremiah sitting next to me. I smiled to myself when he scooted closer as the movie started.

I saw about five minutes of the movie before I was out cold.