Of Thieves And Do Gooders

“Simple? Okay, simple how?” I asked as I marched into the living room. However, I halted instantly, gaping at the scene laid out before me. “Holy shit! When did this happen?” I demanded, turning to see Hayden’s reaction.

However, he looked completely calm about the whole thing. “What? Oh the tree and all that? My dad probably had the staff fix up the house for the holidays, he always puts that stuff off,” he explained with a shrug.

“Your dad had the entire house decorated in a matter of hours?” I asked skeptically.

He nodded. “Yeah, he always does.”

The entire living room looked like it had been taken over by elves while we were gone--and not the cool kind of elves who live forever and are really good with bows. A tree had been dropped into the middle of the room and had been left barren--neglectful, much? Whereas numerous wreathes had been hung on the walls and at doorframes, or on doors in general. Red and green streamers had been strung across the ceiling, stretching from one wall to another until it was a border for the room. I took note of the coasters with jolly fat men in red on them--the table had never even had coasters before. A random stereo had been tucked against the wall and all of the chairs other than the two couches had disappeared and had been replaced by red and green beanbags.

“You do know that that isn’t normal, right?” I asked as I fell onto the couch next to a festive looking teddy bear holding a real candy cane. I wrenched the candy out of the bear’s paws and peeled away the plastic so I could do away with the peppermint candy.

“Well it’s normal for me,” Hayden replied and fell onto the couch beside me.

“What’s with the stereo? It isn’t really a Christmas tradition to blow some speakers,” I pointed out with a small smile.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, my dad just has some huge Christmas party two days prior. It’s probably just full of Christmas crap,” Hayden dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“Party?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah.” Hayden nodded and looked at me sidelong. “Don’t worry though, you don’t have to show, no one even knows who you are. I on the other hand have to ‘socialize’,” he grimaced when he spoke.

“Who’s gonna be here?”

Hayden scowled, obviously not wanting to talk about the subject. “Family, you know, aunts, uncles, grandparents on the verge of death--” he broke off mid-sentence and licked his lips nervously. He took a moment and then continued, “Um…cousins are gonna be here too, but most of them are only, like, four or five, so I won’t see much of them anyway.”

I knew that he had left something--or someone--out of his little list. But I chose not to bring it up, if he was avoiding it now, I wouldn’t bring it up until later, maybe I could coax it out of him then. Instead, I changed the subject away from the guest list. “So?” Hayden looked up at me. “Am I just supposed to hide up in my room like some dirty little secret?” I wondered aloud.

Vaguely, relief came over Hayden’s face, evidently he had expected me to catch his slip up and believed that I hadn’t noticed it. However wrong he was, wasn’t the case, he was just glad I didn’t bring it up. “Well, you don’t have to stay up there, I guess, but you won’t really know anyone,” he pointed out with a small grin.

“Well, I know you, right? I’ll be fine, and I’ll even drag you away from senile grandparents. Besides, why would I want to hide upstairs? I’m not a complete loner,” I scoffed. Suddenly remembering his plan, I added, “What was that plan of yours by the way?”

Hayden thought about that for a minute and shook his head. “Forget it, I’ll just tell you tomorrow, right now I have to get ready for the damn party anyway.” He stood up and crossed the room to a closet and pulled out a box of which he dumped on the floor in front of the tree.

I noted the ornaments and streamers finding their way out of the box and remained in my seat, wondering if he was planning on decorating the painfully bare tree.

Hayden looked at me over his shoulder. “You gonna help me with this or what?”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, but I’m totally gonna outshine you. The part of the tree that you decorate is going to look like crap compared to my half,” I taunted, striding over to the box to pick out all the cool ornaments--and I must admit, there weren’t many “cool” Christmas ornaments.

“What? Are you makin’ this a competition?” Hayden asked with a laugh, already picking out his own ornaments.

“Hell yeah, doesn’t it sound like one? I used to have one every year with my brother,” I said absently, ignoring the twinge of pain at the happy memory.

“Well, how do you know who wins?” Hayden asked, sounding perplexed, although I was certain he was trying to change the subject away from my brother at all costs.

I thought about that and then replied, “Well, usually, I always got to pick the winner so…I usually just win.” I grinned when Hayden rolled his eyes.

“Great, sounds fair,” he muttered sarcastically and started to throw some gold and silver streamers over the pine tree.

“Wait, wait, wait!” I exclaimed, startling him.

He looked at me. “What?” he demanded.

“I want that half of the tree,” I said as if it were obvious. “I always have the right side of the tree.” I stuck out my lower lip in a feigned pout.

“Well that’s a shame now isn’t it?” Hayden mocked and hung up three ornaments on randomized parts of the tree. “Looks like you get the other half this year,” he added with a sneer.

I glared at him and collected my ornaments before stalking over to my awkward side of the tree and hanging them all up as I saw fit. Truthfully, I put the ornaments and streamers in the exact same places every year, thus making my side of the tree twice as perfect. However, it was a little more difficult to do so with different decorations available, I felt that I improvised pretty well though. My photographic memory just pushed me to find the closest thing to what I remembered, when I couldn’t find the right ornament, however, I just grabbed one at random and pretended it was the same.

Once I was finished I examined my work and nodded to myself, content with my recreation by memory.

“Bout time,” Hayden commented from the couch, startling me.

I turned to look at him and smirked. “Well masterpieces take time, I mean, look at your side, it’s crap compared to mine.”

Hayden just rolled his eyes. “Whatever, my side is epic,” he argued weakly, as if the statement were an obvious fact and there was really no point in really arguing about it.

“Okay, keep telling yourself that,” I mocked. “When’s this party anyway?” I asked, standing with my hand on my hip.

Hayden didn’t get to answer, since he was interrupted by his father’s voice, “Oh? So Hayden told you? Perfect, now I won’t have to. Will you be joining the family?” Jack Crawford asked with raised eyebrows, walking into the room and examining the tree momentarily, a strange knowing glint in his eyes. I was really getting tired of that look.

“Looks like it,” Hayden answered for me and I gave him a sharp glare. I hated when people answered for me.

“Oh, good, you can meet all of Hayden’s relatives, I’m sure you can learn a lot from them.” Jack winked at me and started to leave the room already. He paused and then added, “Oh, by the way, you might want to tell her a little about what to expect Hayden.” Then Jack Crawford was gone again.

“…Your dad keeps giving me weird looks,” I informed Hayden casually and rolled my eyes.

“Really? I didn’t notice, but he does that sometimes,” Hayden admitted with a shrug.

“Okay, well at what time does this ‘party’ of sorts begin?” I changed the subject.

Hayden thought about that for a minute and then replied, “In about an hour and a half, so people will probably start showing--” the doorbell chorused through the house, “--up soon,” Hayden finished. He stood up and started toward the front door, only to stop when a butler hurried passed him, beating him to the task.

The door opened just as Hayden sat down next to me again, shrugging his shoulders at the butler’s eagerness to work. Not a moment later, a woman’s voice boomed down the hallway and filtered into the living room, “Martin! You’re still working here?” People shuffled into the hall, but none were heard over the woman. “Good, good, you know where all the good drinks are,” the words were a little slurred as they left her mouth.

Hayden stiffened visibly and stood up, pulling me to my feet as well while he explained, “Aunt Stacy,” his voice was a hurried murmur, “she usually has about,” he thought of a good estimate and then provided, “nine too many cocktails on the plane here.”

I laughed a little at the extreme number and was forced to bite my knuckle to keep from bursting out laughing when she came into the room at a quick stride, a self-important bounce in her drunken step. She had long brown hair that was wavy and fell to her hip with obvious grace. She had a bit of plumpness to her, but she was not by any means overweight, it was accentuated in the roundness of her cheeks and her over exaggerated curves. Her eyes were in an obvious lazy state, as if she were on the verge of sleeping, and yet she was constantly looking around the room until her eyes landed on Hayden.

There was a pause where I could almost see her thought process and then a goofy grin leapt onto her face as she threw her arms out wide. “Hayden!” she exclaimed emphatically, and perhaps a little too loudly. I had a feeling that she was having trouble controlling the volume of her voice. Within the next few moments she had crossed the room and pulled Hayden into a tight hug, talking almost incoherently as she said, “I haven’t seen you since…since…” she trailed off looking as if she was thinking extremely hard. Instead she turned around and shouted, “Don!”

“What?” A man’s voice shouted in return, coming from down the hall which was also harboring the sounds of a person struggling with luggage.

“When’d I see Hayden last?” she asked loudly, not bothering to release Hayden from her hug. Although she had forgotten about Hayden, he hadn’t forgotten about her, and was trying to gently release himself from her smothering embrace.

“Last year!” Don called from the hall, sounding closer now, “Don’t you remem--Oh, thank you Martin, don’t worry about it I’ve got this one.”

Stacy finally released Hayden and tapped her chin sporadically while simultaneously muttering, “Last year, last year, last year…” obviously trying to recall the memory. However, she abandoned the task quite abruptly when she saw me, and threw an attempted sneaky grin in Hayden’s direction. “Hayden? Who’s this? You haven’t even introduced us yet? Shame on you,” she scolded and moved almost lazily toward me.

“Hello, I’m Stacy Cunningham, Hayden’s aunt, Jack’s sister--can I just point out that you are gorgeous? I don’t know how many people have told you that, but I just had to say--Hayden?” She turned to him suddenly, breaking into her own sentence, “have you told her that yet? You should tell her that, never mind, you probably have. I mean, if you haven’t then you must be gay.” Stacy shook her head, trying to remember what she had been saying then suddenly brightened. “Oh, and what’s your name?”

“I’m Raven,” I replied with a polite smile, trying to keep it from cracking into a complete grin, “Hayden’s friend.”

“Oh,” Stacy pushed a sly smirk onto her face, raising her eyebrows at Hayden, “Hayden’s friend, right, right, I know what you mean,” she winked at me as if there were a secret between us.

“No, Aunt Stacy, really, she’s just a friend, I met her at school,” Hayden tried to clarify, but I knew that was a fruitless attempt from the beginning, since while he was talking it seemed like Stacy was trying to make her eyebrows dance distractedly while also trying to make some obscure point by her motions.

“R-ight,” she dragged out the sound of the word and hiccupped with a sudden frown. “Oh, shit, hiccups, I hate hiccups.”

“Stacy! Stop torturing Hayden!” Don called from the direction of the observatory which led into the kitchen. “There’s some coffee in the kitchen for you,” he coaxed invitingly.
Stacy rolled her eyes and leaned over to me to whisper, “I’ll be drinking something stronger than coffee,” she giggled and sent a whiff of pungent alcohol into my nostrils. “Coming dear!” she mocked with a strange gesture of her hand before she began her attempted graceful exit of the room. However that backfired when a couch thwarted her attempts and sent her tripping and swearing into the hallway. I could still hear her muttering as she started down the hall.

A strange silence occupied the room at Stacy’s exit. Then Hayden turned to me and said quickly, “I’m sorry, my family’s weird, seriously, you can hide upstairs if you want to, I’d understand.”

I laughed. “Oh no, I’m not missing this for the world, this will be entertaining, I can tell.” I smiled devilishly at Hayden.

Hayden covered his face, and groaned. “You’re going to regret it,” he assured me.

“Whatever, you’re being a drama queen,” I scoffed and took a few steps toward the hallway. “They probably aren’t that bad,” I added and stopped in the doorway leading into the hall. “I’m going to go take care of some stuff, so, have fun letting your family into the house, I’ll be down in a few hours,” I stated and then left the room.

I walked through the observatory, up the stairs and walked straight into my room, closing the door behind me. Luckily for me, Jack kept a suspiciously convenient supply of wrapping materials in the back right-hand corner of my closet. Which was helpful for what I planned to do for the next few hours. I was going to do two things: wrap all the presents ahead of time and then lounge until I was sure that the room would be so crowded that hardly anyone would notice me. It was an excellent plan.

______________________________________

Wrapping presents took me all of ten minutes, and that was with me taking my time on each and every present so that the wrapping was flawless. All of Leon’s presents had pink Barbie wrapping paper with light pink ribbons and bows. Damion was lucky enough to have his gifts wrapped in Dora the Explora in a festive Christmas hat with light pink and white ribbons and bows. While Hayden was the luckiest of them all, because I saved the best for him. All of his gifts were adorned with the wonderfully adorable face of Zac Efron jumping randomly in the air with every other person in High School Musical. They were all accompanied with perfect little name tags as well.

Content with my work for the night, I moved onto the lounging part of my plan. However, in order to do so, I needed to stand up and walk all the way to the end of the hall where Hayden’s room was, since he so rudely took my source of entertainment a few days before.

I strode into his room without a second thought and closed the door, wrinkling my nose as it adjusted to the smell. It smelled like boy. And not in the good way. More like the way that boys smelled when they hadn’t showered in four days and were trying to cover up the fact with excess amounts of deodorant. I ignored it and moved toward the source of overpowering deodorant: Hayden’s bed. A little skeptically, I sat on the bed and it sank beneath me, instantly proving how comfortable it was.

Satisfied with my choice of lounging area, I flicked on the TV and the Playstation 3. And thus began my promised time of lounging.

_________________________________________

Hayden’s Point Of View

Of course my Aunt Stacy had to be the first one to get here. I wasn’t embarrassed enough that Raven would be fucking living with me, so she had to meet my entire family, starting with the weirdest of them all. No, my normal family members couldn’t get here first. I sighed as Raven started down the hallway, making no noise whatsoever. I noticed that she didn’t make noise when she went anywhere though. It must have been a habit.

Oh well, just deal with it, everything will be fine, I tried to tell myself, but as it turns out, it’s really difficult to try and lie to yourself. It’s like running in circles. Despite my attempts to prove to how legitimate my self-reassurance was, I still knew I was lying. So, I gave up and went to leave the living room and enter the observatory.

However, I hesitated, my eyes instantly locking onto a trap set by some sadistic festive Christmas psycho. There, just above the doorframe leading into the hall was the most minuscule bit of mistletoe I had ever seen in my life. But it was still risky. I could see nine-hundred ways that that small bit of plant life would lead to an awkward situation. And most of them included Raven.

I fought with myself for only a minute before I stood on the tips of my toes to tear the mistletoe free and tossed it on the coffee table. Hopefully among the “tipsy” middle-aged members of my family the demonic festive trap would be destroyed or at least lost. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with it. Ingenious.

With that trap taken care of, I strolled down the hall, through the observatory and paused at the kitchen door, scowling as the doorbell rang again. Who the hell was showing up already? I mean, Stacy and Don always showed up a little early because they had such a long flight--coming from Wyoming--plus, they always needed some extra time to sober up Stacy and let her sleep off some of the dizziness. Other than that though, my other family members were on time or late.

Regardless of my thought process, I turned around and headed back down the hall with a roll of my eyes. If it was one of my grandparents I was going to shoot myself in the head then and there, and spattering blood all over house guests was probably considered pretty rude. This thought kept in mind, I unlocked the door and pulled it open in one swift movement, keeping a polite smile on my face, ready to greet whoever had shown up.

My polite smile dropped from my face the instant I stared at the pair standing in front of me and was replaced with a befuddled frown.

“Dipshit!” one voice said while the other soon followed with, “Dumbass!”

Dame and Lee greeted me happily, Lee pulling me into a comfortable man-hug, clasping one hand with mine and hitting me sharply on the back before releasing me. Dame, however, demonstrated what Jack Black had so delicately described as the “power hug”, throwing one arm over my shoulder and the other under my arm in a pincer-like action of which I retuned.

“What loving friends,” I mocked, referring to their greetings.

“Well, you know, we like to make an entrance,” Dame said casually, and shouldered his way past me and stepped into the hallway calling, “Jack! We’re home!”

I rolled my eyes. “What are you guys doin’ here anyway?” I looked at Lee and stated, “I thought your mom was a tight ass on all ‘family time’ occasions.”

Lee shrugged. “She doesn’t mind, as long as I’m back by actual Christmas time, you know, exchanging gifts, yadda, yadda, yadda.” He made a hand puppet motion to demonstrate the “yadda” part of his sentence.

“Ah, alright sweet,” I looked at Dame who shrugged in response.

“Like Headmaster Wilkins cares where I go for the break, as long as I’m back when school starts I can go wherever I want, whenever I want,” Dame said carelessly. But I knew it bugged him. All this “family time” and he had no family to spend it with, or at least none that he would want to spend it with.

“Any of your family here yet?” Lee asked sounding a little more excited than I would have liked. Lee knew exactly how strange my family was, and he got a kick out meeting them every time.

I glared at him and closed the front door. “Yeah, Stacy’s here, she’s in the kitchen, being force-fed coffee,” I explained and followed them into the observatory.

There was a crash and then the sound of shattering glass that came from the kitchen.

“Aw, damn it!” Lee exclaimed and crossed his arms over his chest, obviously frustrated. “She already broke the first cup didn’t she?”

I grinned and nodded. “Sounds like it. Poor you, now you won’t get to see my aunt in a drunken rage,” I said with mock sadness in my voice.

“I’m no stranger to sarcasm, Hayden,” Lee said huffily, uncrossing his arms and looking up through the glass roof with a goofy grin on his face. That roof always fascinated him, of course, it wasn’t nearly as impressive in the daylight. That didn’t keep him from staring through it though.

“Hey, Loser, where’s the grub? I had to drive all of an hour to get here, I’m starving,” Dame complained then paused. “Oh, by the way, did your dad tell you about the vacationing arrangements he set up?”

I frowned.

“O-kay, I take that as a ‘no’, well then I’ll just tell you now--”

“He’s bunkin’ with you,” Lee said, cutting off the tension before Dame could build up to it.

“Aw, come on Lee, seriously?” Dame complained, “I was building up the moment and you totally just fucked it up. Nice going.”

Lee just grinned and said, “Sorry, I don’t like tense moments, they remind me of scary movies.” By that he meant to point out that he didn’t like scary movies because they made him jump too much. The twist of foreboding silence and sudden music seemed to do a number on him, blood and gore was fine with him though.

“Wait, what? You’re staying with us for the rest of break?” I asked, frowning slightly.

“Yeah, you know, if that’s alright with you, I guess. I just figured you’d be cool with it,” Dame said with a shrug, tugging absently--if not nervously--at his ear.

I thought quickly about Raven and the living arrangements I had at the moment and forced a smile on my lips. “Dude? Seriously? Why would I not be alright with that? You know we aren’t sleeping at all, right?” I spoke like Raven wasn’t even an issue, which I guess, for the moment she wasn’t. However, I would have to tweak the household up a bit to make sure they never came in contact…Hmm…I’m making my Christmas break more annoying than it has to be. But I’ve never been that “go with the flow” kind of guy.

“Fine with me, you’ve got World Tour now, right? Don’t lie just because you don’t want to lose all of your high scores,” Dame pointed an accusing finger at me and smiled. I just rolled my eyes.

“Okay, enough with the chatter, can we actually do something? Hayden, I’m your guest and I demand entertainment,” Lee said in a condescending voice.

“Hold up there,” Dame interrupted before I could respond, “I want to ditch my shit in your room first.” He looked at me for a minute, me having a blank expression on my face as I thought about that. That was dangerously close to Raven’s room, but he would have to walk by it eventually. “You know, so I don’t forget about it later and then wake up having to walk all the way down stairs just to get some damn underwear.”

I paused, raising my eyebrows in Dame’s direction. “I don’t know who’s house you think you’re staying in, but while you’re here, you’ll be wearing underwear twenty-four-seven. No free-balling allowed,” I said trying to remain completely serious.

Dame just grinned and rolled his eyes defiantly, which, I got to admit, made me worry a little. Not once would I ever want to see Dame without underwear. Other than that the conversation was lost as I led Dame and Lee out of the house and we made our way to Dame’s beat up car.

He had very few things that he packed, and the only thing he grabbed out of the back of his car was a plain black backpack which he slung over his shoulder. Which left the duffle bag and roughly five wrapped presents for Lee and me to grab. Lee made a dive for the nearest box, but I shoved him to the side, sending him tumbling into a strangely smooth cartwheel. With a build like his, most people wouldn’t expect him to be able to pull off a stunt like that, but I was expecting it and the moment he was back on his feet, I hurled the duffle bag at him, confident that he would catch it.

While he was occupied, I swiftly examined each present and frowned when I realized there weren’t names attached to them. Way to be real fucking annoying Dame. I scowled and yelped when Lee picked me up from behind and threw me over his shoulder, and I mean that in the literal sense, not as in he was holding me, but he actually tossed me over his shoulder and into the dirt. Luckily, I had been trained to land with perfect grace. I landed on my feet in a kneeling position, sliding in the dirt only for a moment from the force Lee had used to throw me.

I stood up from my squatting position and dusted off my hands. “Don’t bother they aren’t labeled, I checked,” I said casually, glaring at a smug looking Dame, who was waiting near the front door already.

“Queer!” Lee called at Dame with half-hearted malice in his tone.

Slowly, I packed up three presents while Lee took the duffle bag over one shoulder and grabbed the other two presents, then closed the back of the car.

I led Dame and Lee down the hall, through the observatory and up the stairs. I could see Raven’s room at the end of the hall and mentally tensed my shoulders, although I showed no physical discomfort. I swear to God, time slowed down, and every step I took toward that door felt heavier and heavier, even though I knew that it was all in my head.

Then I was past it, I had hung a right and kept going down the hall where I would be home free, giving me more time so I could at least warn Raven--

“Hey, retard, did you forget where your own room is?” Dame asked as he turned the doorknob and nudged the door open with his foot.

My insides froze and I swiveled around to stop him, but it was too late, he had already walked into the room. The invasive bastard.

“What the--?” I heard Dame say from inside the room.

“What?” Lee asked as he entered the room too, dropping the presents on the floor on the way in.

“Hey! Careful with that shit,” Dame protested and suddenly his head poked out of the room. “What’s up with the decorations? No Playstation 3? No Xbox 360? There’s something wrong with this picture,” Dame commented with a suspicious narrowing of his eyes.

“That’s not my room anymore, Dumbass,” I said casually, rolling my eyes at his stupidity as I walked hurriedly to enter the room too. I frowned when I found that it was empty. Where the hell had she gone? With some crazy stroke of luck had she meandered into the bathroom and avoided detection? I stole a glance at the bathroom door which was closed, so I may or may not have been right.

“This is a guest bedroom now, so come on, I’ll show you my new room. It’s way bigger than this place anyway,” I said, sounding glad to be rid of the room, which I wasn’t. Not really anyway. It had been my room for eighteen years whether I had been there all eighteen years or not.

Lee packed up the presents he had dropped, Dame monitoring him for a second longer before following me out of the room. I continued down the hall with a silent sigh of relief, I had dodged that bullet. How was I going to explain this shit anyway? “Oh yeah, guys, by the way, I found Raven and she’s living with me now” didn’t seem to cover it in quite the right way.

I had time to work that out though, no worries. I walked past my dad’s room and found that my door was closed, so I adjusted the presents in my arms and fiddled with the doorknob before getting it open.

“Hey! I said be careful with that shit! Money doesn’t drop out of the sky you know?” Dame protested again and I heard Lee cursing at him for “whining like a bitch”.
I shook my head and walked into my room without them, dropping the presents on the floor by the door, chances were Dame would move all of his stuff into a guest bedroom later, no need to give them a place. I straightened up and glanced at the TV which had been left on, the screen showing “You Rock!” in bold lettering. I took a sharp intake of air and swiveled around, following the wire of the plastic guitar to my bed. My eyes widened when I saw Raven lying on top of my blankets, tugging absently at the corner of the blanket to pull it closer to her face.

Dame and Lee were just down the hall now and I rushed out to meet them, pulling the door shut behind me with a quiet thud. Dame nearly ran into me and scowled before saying, “Hey, what the hell? Are we dating or something, back off.” He was joking, I knew, but I had to think quickly, and therefore forgot to laugh.

“You know what? I just remembered I completely forgot to clean my room, so, you guys can’t go in there,” I said with a wide grin on my face, keeping my hand on the doorknob, just in case Dame tried to fight his way into the room. I didn’t put it above him.

Lee quirked and eyebrow at me and repeated slowly, “Forgot…to clean your room…?”

“Yup, total mess,” I confirmed with a nod of my head.

Dame narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Your room’s never messy. The only time I’ve seen you with a messed up room was when you were sharing one with Raven.”

I hardened my expression instantly, reacting exactly how he had expected me to react, bitter and cold toward any mention of her name. It was, after all, how I had been for the past few months. No need to give it away with a new response.

“Good point,” Lee admitted, looking suspicious too.

Before I could whip up a new excuse, realization seemed to dawn on Dame and he raised his eyebrows in something that seemed to be surprised understanding. “Oh, your room is dirty, alright, gotcha.” He nodded knowingly and I frowned slightly trying to find out what it was that he thought that he found out…wow that was a little confusing.

Lee frowned too, obviously as lost as me and then, he got it, grinning in understanding while I still remained in the dark. What exactly did they think I meant by that?

“You know we’ve seen porn before, right?” Lee asked with raised eyebrows.

A knot twisted in my stomach and I couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at what they had surmised. “Uh, still, um, I’d like to pick up a little…” I muttered. Never had I pictured myself talking to my friends about porn that I actually didn’t have…

No seriously. Don’t give me that look. It’s true. I didn’t have any…Okay, you know what? Go ahead and give me all the looks you want, because I’ll just ignore you.

“Fine, fine, hurry up, this shit’s heavy,” Dame complained.

“What are you talking about? I’m carrying more than you!” Lee protested, but I didn’t stick around to listen to them argue. I slipped into my room and turned the lock, just in case.

Raven was still sleeping on my bed, now half-curled under the covers with one of my pillows kicked onto the floor. God damn, she could make a mess anywhere with any given amount of time, even in her sleep. I picked up the pillow she had knocked off the ground, gripped two of the corners on one side of it, hoisted it over my head and slammed it against her shoulder.

I realized this was a stupid way to wake her up when she yelped and started stammering nonsense, kicking my blankets off of her and stealing glances around the room. She acted like she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. Instantly I covered her mouth with my hand and made shushing noises while she attempted to claw my hand away. Only after a minute had passed did she recognize me, blush and pinch me under my arm, near my triceps.

“Ow!” I exclaimed in a fierce whisper, pulling my hand away from her mouth. “Don’t pinch me,” I ordered firmly. Seriously? Getting pinched sucks.

“What the hel--”

I covered her mouth again and said in a fierce whisper, “Hey, hey, shut up will you? Dame and Lee are here. They don’t know that you are here, unless you keep talking so damn loud.”

Her eyes widened for a moment and she nodded, prying my fingers away from her mouth. “When did they get here? Why are they here? I thought you said just your family was supposed to be here!” she accused in a harsh whisper.

“It was supposed to be my family, looks like my dad had some extra invitations I didn’t know about,” I explained in a growl, suddenly realizing that my dad had probably been hoping that having my two best friends over would be a pleasant surprise. And for the most part, it was.

And on the other hand, they were unnecessary complications. It would have been better for them to see Raven again once she was back at Shadowstep Academy anyway. I wasn’t even sure if they would recognize her, I mean I sure as hell didn’t, her hair grew, like, six inches in a matter of months! She must have used miracle grow on that shit or something.

“You gotta hide or something,” I persisted in a low whisper, leaning closer so that she could hear me better.

“Okay, okay, damn, don’t be so pushy,” she said defiantly, rolling carefully in a backwards summersault and landing silently on the floor--how the hell did she always do that? Silence wasn’t something that was supposed to come naturally to people. Then again, I had always stolen because my dad had stolen and it just seemed like it was what I was supposed to do. I didn’t do it for a living, as she obviously had. She had the jumpiness of an actual street thief, not a pampered school thief like me…ouch, I don’t like admitting that, I’m just never going to say that again.

Controlling that silence, Raven’s eyes darted around the room until she saw the desk that was tucked away with my computer on it. She walked swiftly to the desk, crouched down and crawled underneath the part where someone could put their feet if they wanted to. Okay, that was a little hokey for a hiding place, but I guess it had to do for the moment. I could lure Dame and Lee back out of the room later anyway, giving her time to go elsewhere.

I strode over to the door, turned the lock back and pulled it open. “Alright, sorry guys,” I said with a sheepish grin, allowing the two into my room.

“Seriously? How long does it take to pick up a few magazines? I think I got a cramp in my leg,” Dame complained jokingly, dropping his backpack in the middle of the room, while Lee put the presents down on my bed.

“Whatever,” I dismissed with a roll of my eyes. “Hey, want me to show you where your room is?” I asked as a last thought, it was a little random and out of the blue, actually.

Dame snorted. “Heck no, techno, I’m putting off any more laborious activities until break is over. If it doesn’t include shredding on plastic guitars and moving toward the nearest food, I won’t be doing it,” he joked and flung himself onto my bed, regardless of the presents that had been occupying the space.

Lee, however, spotted the computer chair and the wheels that allowed it to roll around any place one could imagine, within the boundaries of non-shag carpet and hard wood floors, of course. I opened my mouth to make some suggestion regarding food, but it was too late, Lee bolted for the chair and slammed against it with all of his weight sending the chair hurtling across the room, with him in it. Until he hit a wall with a loud thump.

“Hey!” I protested, my heart pounding at how close he had gotten to Raven’s hiding spot. “Careful with the drywall! It isn’t freakin’ concrete!” I walked over to where he had struck the wall, pretending to inspect it, but Lee just rolled his eyes.

“Concrete, dry wall, same difference,” Lee said with a dismissive flap of his wrist.

“Yeah, they’re just so similar,” Dame mocked, laughing at the annoyed look on my face.

“You guys hungry? I think I can get Stella to whip up something for us to eat before the ‘big Christmas dinner’,” I offered with a casual shrug of my shoulders.

Lee nearly knocked over the chair in his haste to stand. “Food?” he inquired dramatically and started pushing me toward the door. “Lead the way buddy,” he persisted happily, throwing Dame a quick nod as an order to follow us.

“Good God, is your stomach the only think you think with?” Dame asked sarcastically shaking his head sadly.

“Yeah, the same way that you only think with your dick,” Lee shot back without turning around.

“Burn!” I shouted behind me, although I wasn’t allowed to turn around, lest I slow down the haste to receive food.

“Shut up Hayden!” Dame called back, following me down the hall at a sluggish pace.

At least I had lured them away from the room for a little while. Hopefully, Raven had the common sense to find a better hiding spot.

However, we were just passing my dad’s room when I heard Dame swear quietly before shouting to me and Lee, “Hey you guys go ahead! I forgot my iPod.” With that said, he turned and started back down the hall before I could stop him. But can you blame me? With Lee pushing me it was like trying to fight with a fucking wall.