I really could've killed Zac the next day. Honestly now. Of
course that meant he did something to get on my nerves,
again. Which wasn't a huge surprise. But, did he have to
go and leave his precious baseball hat at the Saunders'
house? No, he didn't. But he did it anyway. Which meant I,
of all the other people in that house, had to drive him back
to get the stupid thing. I was just going to swing by the mall
with him and pick up another for him, but he insisted that it
wouldn't be the same as his own and then proceeded to pout
like a five-year-old who was told not to eat a cookie before
dinner. He could be so immature sometimes.
So, of course, I ended up driving back to the house I had
been stuck at the day before. To top the very thought of
being there again off, Zac refused to settle on one radio
station as he just 'hated' whatever song was playing when he
flipped the station on. Or he just didn't like the end of a song
so he had to change it before the last verse or he swore on his
life that he'd puke in my car. And I wasn't about to let the
little pain in my ass puke in my car; so I settled on just letting
him annoy the hell out of me during the entire trip. He'd pull
the same stunt on the way back, but by then I'd have the fact
that I drove him to pick up his hat dangling over his head.
There was no way he'd even touch the radio on the way home.
Pulling up in front of the house, I turned to Zac, who already
had his hand on the door handle. "Get out and go get that
stupid hat of yours" I said, pointing to the house hurriedly. I
really did not feel like being pulled in there and striking up a
conversation with any of them. Not like yesterday. That had
been one of the worst days of my life. Stupid Bethany. Stupid,
gorgeous, beautiful Bethany. I wanted to strangle her yesterday,
but, of course, I didn't. I loved her, didn't I? And I couldn't just
go and strangle all the people I loved, that would've started
some nasty tabloid bashings. Not exactly what I needed.
Zac, who had jumped out of the car the second I had told him to,
was now staring at me through the open window. "Aren't you
coming in with me?" he asked expectantly. I knew what he
figured had gone down yesterday; and he was dreadfully mistaken.
I quickly shook my head, not even bothering to answer him with
any words. "No, Taylor, you're coming in with me. Get out of the
car" was he demanding things from me? Was that little, annoying
brother of mine demanding things from me? "Now." Oh yes, he
definitely was.
My eyes widened as he made his way around to my door, walking
in front of the car with his hands in his pockets. Before I could
even lock the door, it flew open and I had my little brother dragging
me out of the car. And, when I say dragging, I mean it. I nearly
fell over when he roughly stood me up on the ground and let go of
his grip on my arms. When we got home, he was dead. I'd see to
it that we picked out his coffin on the way home. Yes, Zac had to
die. But, for obvious reasons, I couldn't kill him in broad daylight,
especially not in front of this house. Damn.
We didn't even bother to ring the doorbell, we never had, and I
pushed the front door open forcefully. In all the time we had been
friends of the Saunder family, none of us kids ever rang the door-
bell. It just never seemed like we had to. They never rang our
doorbell, and we never rang theirs. Of course, back then I never
thought when we walked into their house unaccepted I'd ever come
face-to-face with a nearly naked Brooke either.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" she demanded, quickly
pulling the towel in her hand up to cover her bikini-clad body. If
I hadn't known better, I would've said that the girl was blushing.
But Brooke never blushed. I heard Zac snicker, and I elbowed him
as I gave him a side-glance. "Why the fuck are you in my house?"
I pointed to Zac, "Jackass here forgot his oh so precious hat. So
I was forced to bring him back" I replied with a shrug. It wasn't like
I had known she was going to be making her way to the indoor pool
when we walked in. And it wasn't liked I enjoyed seeing Brooke in
nothing but her bikini. Brooke just wasn't my cup of tea. Or coffee
for that matter.
Flinging her towel at Zac, Brooke placed her hands firmly on her
hips. How come I had never noticed that she actually had hips?
Quite the shocker. Brooke was actually female. I never knew that,
honestly. "Well, don't you knock?" she questioned, shaking her
head with a sigh. In reply, we both shook our heads and I added
an innocent smile, just to prove I knew we were just doing what we
had always done; dropping in unannounced and not bothering to
ring the stupid bell. "You both suck, you know that, right?"
Making a disgusted face, Zac replied, "I do not suck anything.
Don't make assumptions about my sexuality, Brookie." In turn, I
laughed, high-fiving him then turning back to the Brooke, who
did not look amused at all. The girl really needed to lighten up,
or at least develope a personality.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact-" I was cut off by Brooke throwing her
sunglasses at my head. I dodged them, barely, and put a hand
on my hip. "What was that for?" I knew I didn't like her. But, I
had to hand it to her, the girl had one hell of an arm on her. She
always could kick my ass in baseball.
Rolling her eyes, she picked up her towel, which Zac had tossed
aside, and continued on her way toward the huge pool that I had
spent hours in when I was younger. Glancing at each other for a
second, Zac and I scampered after her. There was no way in hell
that we could just let her walk away from us like that. We were
two Hansons, and she was just one Saunder. The odds were
against her, and we just had to take advantage of the situation.
Brooke was going down.
As soon as we were both in the glass room that had been built
for the pool area, it was time to strike. Zac grabbed her first,
lifting her easily off of the ground. Of course, shrieking was to
be expected. And, as I grabbed her ankles, I could've sworn
that she made my eardrum burst. She certainly had a hell of a
pair of vocal cords on her; always had, as a matter of fact.
"One..." Zac said as we shuffled to the edge of the pool, me
holding onto Brooke's ankles and Zac onto her wrists. "Two..."
We didn't even opt to go for three, she was going in now.
With a heave, we launched her into the water.
During our wonderful victory dance, Brooke swam to the surface
of the water. She rang out her hair, which was an almost
unusual shade of ash blonde and nearly paper thin, and she
didn't look happy at all. "Thanks, but I think I could've done
that myself" she said with a scowl as she rolled her eyes. She
really needed an attitude adjustment. Maybe I could buy her
one for her birthday.
"Oh lighten up, it's just water. You were going for a swim any-
way" Zac answered, a grin plastered on his face. No, he
definitely did not have a thing for Brooke. That would just be
wrong. Really, really wrong. Utterly wrong even. The only
Hanson-Saunder hook up there should be going on would be
Bethany and me, not Zac and Brooke. That thought was
sickening.
With a nod, I gave my agreement. "Alright, it's been fun,
Brooke, really, but Zac needs to go find that damn hat of his
so I can get going" I said, putting my hands on Zac's shoulders
and beginning to guide him away from the pool and toward the
heavy glass door. "Bye now." And we were out of there. I
didn't need to look at her face anymore than I already had, I'd
seen enough of her at the cookout the previous day. Too much
Brooke was like... well, something really bad. And that was
exactly what Brooke was; bad.
