Addiction and His Name

Popping her gum carelessly, Kayla Wilkinson watched on behind her sunglasses in a bored manner as one of the many movers emerged from the moving truck that stood parked on the street in front of her new house. She followed the middle aged man with her gaze and watched him walk towards the house behind her with a big cardboard box labeled 'kitchen', until her eyes landed on the blue ones of her mother who was stood on the sidewalk a few yards away next to the moving truck.

She very well knew why her mother was looking at her with a disappointed look on her face; she had been sitting around doing nothing more than listening to music for the past hour since they had arrived to their new home, even though she had promised to help. But she was not in the mood, it was a hot day and she did not have the energy or will to stand around and direct a bunch of clueless moving guys and tell them where all their furnitures and boxes were supposed to go. So she had done just about the only thing she had felt like doing; relax in the shadow on the stone wall in front of their house and listen to her favorite music in an attempt to make time go by faster.

Noticing her mother beginning to walk towards her, Kayla quickly looked down at the phone in her hand in hopes of avoiding any conversation. She scrolled through her list in search for the next song she wanted to listen to, but quickly snapped her head up to glare at the woman now standing right in front of her, who had just ripped out one of the earbuds of her earphones from her ear.

"Rude," Kayla pointed out with raised eyebrows as she paused the music on her phone and pulled the other earbud out of her other ear in a more smoother way than the first one.

"You're the one who's being rude, Kayla," Debra Wilkinson spoke to her daughter and let go of the earbud still in her hand, "–Instead of just sitting here, could you please go inside and get some cold water and bring it out here for the movers to drink? It's a hot day and they've worked hard this morning."

"Why can't you do it? You don't look that busy right now."

Debra pursed her lips into a thin line in annoyance and was about to tell Kayla to stop acting like a little child when she over Kayla's shoulder saw two movers step outside the front door onto the front porch. She quickly masked her disappointment with her daughter and smiled politely as the movers walked by them, before she looked back at Kayla and spoke again in a softer tone, "Please?"

Kayla rolled her eyes and mumbled a 'fine' before jumping down from the stone wall, waving dismissively with her hand when Debra explained where she could find pitchers to use as she started walking towards the house. As much as she hated moving from Burbank, she had to admit that her parents had found a gorgeous new home for them in Huntington Beach. The house looked empty, with naked newly painted walls in every room and currently only two sofas and a grand piano standing in their right places in the living room, but she could see the potential in the house. It would take some time for her to adjust living here, but she was certain she could grow to love it in time.

She found two pitchers in one of the boxes that were stood on the island in the middle of the kitchen and filled them with as cold water as she could get from the kitchen sink tap before grabbing a stack of plastic cups from another box and heading outside again. Carrying two full, heavy pitchers and plastic cups under her arm without spilling any water proved to be quite the task for Kayla, but she managed walk down the front porch steps without spilling or dropping the cups. Looking ahead of her, she noticed that her mother had gotten some company down on the sidewalk, a woman with long red hair that looked like she couldn't have been a day older than twenty five. Getting closer to the twosome, Kayla smiled gently when the redheaded woman shot her a warm smile and set the two water pitchers and the stack of cups down on the flat surface of the stone wall she had been sitting on earlier.

"Ah, here she is!" Debra beamed just as Kayla turned back to face the two women again. "Allison, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Kayla!"

The woman known as Allison had an infectious smile, because Kayla could feel herself smile a little bigger than before as Allison reached out her hand and offered a handshake.

"Hi, I'm Allison Haner and I'm your new neighbor! I live in that house over there," Kayla looked over to the house Allison pointed at as they shook hands with each other, it was one of the houses next to her own.

"Nice to meet you, Allison, I'm Kayla," Kayla politely introduced herself before dropping Allison's hand, still smiling.

"Allison lives there with her husband," Debra smiled as Kayla stepped back a little and took place next to her. Allison nodded in confirmation before flickering her eyes over to her house.

"Speak of the devil..." she laughed lightly, making both Debra and Kayla turn around to see what Allison meant. A man was just walking out the front door holding a guitar case, and Kayla couldn't help but ask.

"He's a musician?"

Allison nodded once again and smiled, meeting Kayla's gaze briefly before calling over to her husband. "Hey Brian, come and meet our new neighbors!"

All three girls watched the man momentarily stop in his tracks and look over to them from where he was standing in his and Allison's driveway. They watched him swiftly put his guitar case into the car that stood parked there before he made his way over to them.

The man looked oddly familiar to Kayla, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was that made her think that. Maybe he was in one of those fairly famous rock bands she had heard her friends talk about, he fit the picture perfectly with his tattooed arms and knuckles, and the fact that he just loaded a guitar case into his car. He was wearing dark sunglasses so she couldn't see his whole face, but she was sure she had seen him somewhere, sometime before.

Just as Brian joined them out on the sidewalk and greeted her mother next to her, realisation hit Kayla like a smack in the face when she got a closer look of the man while simultaneously smelling that familiar cologne. She knew who this was, and she had met him once before. She couldn't help but smirk as she stared at him.

"This is my daughter Kayla," she heard her mother speak, making her snap out of her thoughts just as Brian turned to her with a smile and a hand outstretched to shake hands.

"Hi, I'm Brian."

He clearly didn't recognize her, so she smoothly pushed up her sunglasses into the blonde hair on her head and took his larger hand in hers firmly, her smirk never faltering.

"Hello, Brian."

In a second, she watched his smile falter and felt his hand loosen around hers as realisation now hit him. He was quick in masking his sudden shock by clearing his throat and giving Kayla's hand a quick last shake before letting it go. He was just as quick when he told his wife that he needed to go because the guys were waiting, and it didn't take more than a few seconds for him to say good bye to Debra and Kayla and giving a quick peck on Allison's cheek before he was climbing into his car.

Allison and Debra waved goodbye to Brian before they went back to their previous conversation, Kayla heard something about them going over to the Haner's for a cup of coffee later in the week before she tuned their talking out and followed Brian with her eyes as he drove by them on the street, smirking once again when he turned his head to look over at them, undoubtedly to look at Kayla.

This was going to be fun she thought as she put her earphones back in and once again took place on the stone wall.