“I TOLD YOU NOT TO WAKE ME.”
On the positive side, Elle was feeling better. Better about me and better about life, apparently. No more death-glares and bans on the word “fuck.” On the negative side: Elle was feeling better at seven in the mother-fucking morning. “Is the fucking sun even up?”
I yawned with my eyes still closed, as Elle bounced excitedly on my bed. I knew it was her even before she’d said anything because of the bouncing. Clay or Violet wouldn’t have gotten onto my bed, for one, and for another if either of them had wanted me at this time of morning then it would definitely be the beginnings of a fight.
Ugh. Like a month ago someone had played a prank on Violet and filled her shampoo bottle with spiders. They were fucking tiny rubber things, but she’d still run out naked and screaming. I’m not gonna lie and say that Clay and I didn’t crack the fuck up about it. I mean, I might have to bleach my brain at some point to get the image of her naked ass out of my head… But it was fucking hilarious.
Still. I wasn’t the one who did it. I had no part in it, actually.
Sometimes I ate her food, I was guilty of that shit. And sometimes I recorded over her stuff on the DVR. And—okay!—sometimes I helped Clay to pull a prank on her when she needed to be taken down a peg or two. But that girl had the worst fucking attitude, I swear to God. So really she deserved it.
Doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t do the Spider Shampoo Prank. But she does not fucking believe me, and she keeps boobie-trapping my shit.
Point is, if Violet was waking me up at seven in the morning then she would be doing a lot worse than just bouncing on my bed. And no way was Clay up right now. So, yeah, I knew it was Elle. Plus, it was always Elle.
Well usually. But lately we’d managed to get out of sync with each other, and every little thing seemed to push her moods to the extreme these days.
Elle climbed on top of me—right fucking on top of my prostrate body, laying comfortably in my bed, ensconced in my covers. She straddled me and poked me in the face.
“Wakey-wakey! Eggs and bakey!”
She smelled sweet and flowery in this entirely girly, entirely fantastic fucking way that made me want to push her right on the damn floor.
She felt even better than she smelled.
“There better be eggs and bacon when I open my eyes,” I grumbled, cranky, and still not looking at her. I yawned again. “I am trying to fucking sleep, Elvis Hirsche.” The full name was serious business and she knew it. Usually I just stuck with “baby.”
“Don’t be grumpy, Gavin.” She actually fucking chided me. Unbelievable.
“Elle.” I swatted at her, but it was half-hearted and she was too wide awake not to be able to dodge it. I hit nothing but air.
“Gavin, Gavin, Gavin!” She bit the bottom of my chin and my eyes popped wide open.
“Fuck, Elle.” I would have pushed her off of me if she hadn’t moved the second before I could do it. This was the thing about Elvis Hirsche: She did not fucking understand personal space. She was always touching me, and I definitely didn’t hate it. But sometimes, like first thing in the fucking morning when a girl is literally sitting on you when you wake up?… Yeah. I liked it too much.
And that was not a feeling I wanted associated with Elle. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
“Come on, sleepyhead. I’ve had four waffles with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Oh, and a hot chocolate.” Her smile was too wide not to be adorable, but I was still too irritated to be charmed.
Okay. That was a fucking lie. But I couldn’t help myself, Elle was literally the cutest person in the entire world.
I still groaned, though. “Who the hell let you have that many waffles?”
“They let you make your own in the East Campus dining hall, duh! No one let me, I went to breakfast by myself.”
“Damn it, Elle. Where was Eli?!” Elle’s twin brother usually monitored her sugar and candy intake when I wasn’t around to do it. Although I had my suspicions about what “monitoring” really meant to Elijah Hirsche. But that was another story for another day.
Elle on this much of a sugar high was dangerous for everyone and everything.
“Sleeping in.” She shrugged. “There better be some candy in my fucking candy drawer.”
I groaned. At this point, I was almost entirely sure that she did that shit on purpose. But that didn’t stop my body’s reaction when I heard her say fuck. All the blood rushed south. There was something about her saying it—the worst part was that it was person specific—that turned me on. Maybe it was because I knew that Elle never swore—she didn’t even like to—unless she was trying to get a reaction out of me.
“I’m taking a shower. Stay the fuck out of that drawer.” I grumbled at her, pushing the covers away and reluctantly climbing out of bed. It was definitely a better option than laying in bed and letting Elle push all of my buttons. If she didn’t look so damn innocent then I’d be one hundred percent sure that she knew exactly what she was doing to me.
“You said you’d give me guitar lessons today,” she reminded me, as if I didn’t already know why she was there. I nodded at her, yawning again, and ran a tired hand through my sleep-dragged hair. She grinned at me.
“You look like that duster from Beauty and the Beast.”
I flipped her off and she grinned wider. “You said you wouldn’t wake me up.” I reminded her. I didn’t have any classes today until two in the afternoon, and Elle had agreed to let me sleep in if she came over early. She always agreed to let me sleep in and she never, ever did it.
“I’m sorry. But I was so excited!” She squirmed where she was sitting, as if she couldn’t keep still, and I knew that she really couldn’t. Yeah, I bet she was excited. Four fucking waffles? And whipped cream and chocolate sauce!
Elle crinkled her nose at me. “Hurry up and shower, you stink!”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Oh, yeah?” And even though I knew I probably shouldn’t, I paced the bed and pounced on her anyway.
She screeched, already giggling before I even started to tickle her, and tried to wiggle away from me. “Yeah! Get off me before I throw up!” But she was breathless as she said it, so the words came out through laughs and pants as she fought me off.
“You love it.” I teased, letting her go. “If you wake Violet, I’m gonna pretend I don’t know you.” Elle kept giggling, unfazed.
“I’m going to tell her you gave me a key.”
I shuddered at even the thought of Violet’s reaction to that. She could be a real—I hated to use this word, but in this case it was so fucking necessary—bitch when she wanted to be. Not because she was a woman. I fucking loved women. But because she was just plain psycho.
“You better not, baby.” I leveled a look at Elle but she just looked back at me, innocent and serious. I shook my head at her. “I mean it. Stay out of the candy drawer.”
“I mean it! You smell like a garbage can.” She plugged her nose at me and I rolled my eyes.
“I’ll know if you sneak one bite,” I warned.
She giggled. “I know you count the candy, Gavin. Relax, you big baby. I’ll be good!”
Yeah, she knew I counted the candy but that had never stopped her from sneaking some. And it wasn’t like I could do anything about it once she’d already eaten it. Elle on too much of a sugar high was like watching the Energizer Bunny act in an episode of Glee. Life became some sort of high speed musical.
Seriously.
I groaned at the thought and shot her one last threatening look before snatching up a change of clothes and heading to the bathroom. It was a quick shower (and a cold one), but I was slowed down by the fact that I had to make sure there weren’t any traps set in the bathroom for me to encounter. No dye in my shampoo bottle or anything like that; I wouldn’t put it past Violet, especially because I was fucking serous about my shampoo product. Hair this fantastic didn’t come without some maintenance.
So when I came out and found Elle curled up on the couch, munching on a frosted Pop-Tart, I was hardly surprised. I glared at her and she smiled beguilingly at me.
“Oops.” But even as she said it, she was shoving the last bit of it into her mouth, so I knew she wasn’t sorry. I sighed.
“You can’t possibly have any room left in that tiny stomach.” Except I knew she could. I’d seen her pack down the food like a starving teenaged boy-band… Well, I’d also seen her in action every day, too, and she pretty much never slowed down unless I made her. So it made sense that she never seemed to gain a single pound.
Elle shrugged, her cheeks puffed out, and talked around the last of her food. “Hey, I found this in the kitchen, fair and square. It was lost behind the microwave.” She licked her lips contentedly and I tried really hard not to see the trail of her tongue as she did it. “Come here, let me see if you smell better!” And just like that she was up and bouncing around.
Yeah… It looked like it was going to be a long day.