88Closer to the Edge
© Sorraya T 2012
Chapter Two: Golf Buggies
"Archer, I love you. Be my twin brother forever." I gushed through a mouthful of his famous home-made mi goreng.
"I'm pretty sure I couldn't stop being your twin if I tried, Pippy." He deadpanned. I grinned, mouth full, at him. He grimaced and shielded his eyes. "I did not need to see that!"
Psh, baby.
"You two arguing again?" my mom called from the kitchen.
"No, mom, Pippy is just being gross." He hollered back.
I scowled at him, offended. I would have retorted, however there was food in front of me, and I have priorities. Food is higher on the list than arguing with my occasionally-okay twin brother.
My blissful food enjoyment was disturbed by the entrance of the son of Lucifer. As always, he was grinning. Why on earth is he always so cheerful? If I was the spawn of Satan, I would implement my intimidation tactics far better. Waste of demon-powers, I tell you. I mean really, who smiles that much? It's not normal. He must be about to do something evil. "Afternoon, Raven twins." He greeted, collapsing with a content sigh onto our sofa. "Why is there a golf buggy next to your garage?"
Oh, crap.
Archer looked up, confused. "There's a what?"
"A freaking golf buggy, dude." The awful demon boy who was going to get me killed, told my twin. "I thought you might have something to do with it."
My brother shook his head, stunned. "No, I- Piper, you did not steal a golf buggy."
I picked up my bowl and frantically shoved the rest of the noodles in my mouth, swallowing the entire lot rapidly and standing from my chair to make a hasty exit. "Oh, would you look at the time, I gotta get going, wouldn't wanna be late for all the things I'm doing."
Right as I prepared to make my ninja escape, I was tackled down. "Okay, Arch, this is a bit of an over-reaction, don't you think?"
"Why do you have a golf buggy?!" he cried, sitting on my stomach to hold me down.
"Get off, and I'll tell you! It's like having a whale sit on me, you fatty. I thought you went to the gym." I groaned.
He rolled his eyes and stood up, pulling me to my feet after him. "I'll ask you again: Why do you have a golf buggy?"
I smiled weakly at him. "I... uh... found it?"
"Where did you 'find' a freakin' golf buggy?" Tyler asked, bewildered.
I glared at him. "On a golf course."
"By 'found it on a golf course', do you mean 'stole it from a golf club'?" Archer asked sternly.
I gulped. "Uh... no."
"You're an awful liar, Pip." The devil spawn snickered.
I frowned at him. "You aren't helping, you know."
Archer punched me in the arm. "Piper! Why the fuck were you at a golf course, and why the fuck did you steal the buggy?"
I sighed in defeat, and rubbed my dead arm. "I was hanging out with Andy Holt last night, and he wanted to go to the golf course. I got bored and decided to get... uh... creative."
Tyler's seemingly permanent smile dropped. "Hang on. You were with Holt?"
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I believe that's what I said."
Archer groaned. "Holt isn't the issue here, we need to get that buggy back to the golf course."
I don't understand my twin at all. A perfectly good golf buggy was in our possession, why would I return that? I mean seriously, they have plenty to go around, why would one itty bitty buggy matter?
*-O-*
"Archer actually made you drive it back?" Flick snorted.
Flick was one of my few close female friends. Her hair was dyed a flaming orange and she was a musician, and part of the group I hung out with. She had called me up the next day and suggested we go down to the freshwater lake.
The lake was where everyone hung out on weekends, and Flick and I normally used the small, clay pebbles that lay on the shallow bank to draw pictures, as they were like crayons if they'd soaked in the water for long enough. Currently, though, we were throwing them at the stone cliff wall that spanned out a few meters behind the bank, and seeing the smudges the pebbles would make on the rock.
When I had explained to her the situation with Archer, she had merely laughed. Both at the part where I had... um, commandeered... the golf buggy, and the part where Archer made me return it.
"Ah, man, Pipes, what are we gonna do with you?" she chuckled.
"I dunno," I thought for a second. "Feed me?"
She snorted again. "Shame you couldn't keep it, though. That would have been awesome." She threw a large pebble and it made a greenish smudge on the rock.
I scowled. "You can blame Whitehouse for that."
Flick shook her head. "I don't get why you hate him so much. I mean, he's actually one of the nicest guys in the school."
I scoffed. "So not true, he's a total manwhore devil child."
"Piper, what do you actually have against him?"
I panicked as I wracked my brain for an excuse, but nothing was coming. "Uh... OH! He interrupts me whenever I'm doing something important."
She raised an eyebrow at me. "Like what?"
"You know," I again searched frantically for an example. "Uh... sitting down."
Flick's jaw dropped. "Let me get this straight. You hate Tyler because he interrupts you when you're doing something important like... sitting down?" she asked, disbelief coloring her words.
I nodded emphatically. "Yep, sounds about right." I threw a pebble and no color was made.
"That one hadn't been in the water long enough." Flick commented absently. "You hate an extremely attractive, nice, athletic, smart and funny guy... because he interrupts you when you're sitting down."
I snorted. "I have no idea what you're on about. I hate Tyler Whitehouse because he interrupts me when I'm sitting down. I don't hate the guy you're describing."
"They're one and the same, honey." Flick told me dryly.
I forgave her ignorance as she clearly didn't know of his father's identity as Satan. "You're so wrong." I sighed, "But yeah, now Archer's mad at me. Again."
Flick frowned. "He looks so much more badass than you. I mean, he's all big and broody and muscle-y, and you're all small, and blonde and angelic. But then it's like you're the bad kid, and he's the responsible one." She threw another pebble and it made a yellow-ish mark.
"That one was good." I turned to scowl at her. "Hey, he's not responsible!"
"He's more responsible than you, blondie."
"You could say that about anyone though!" I argued.
She grinned. "Yeah, you could, huh?"
I grimaced as I realized what I'd said. "Oh, shut up. You tricked me somehow. It's all your fault."
She rolled her eyes at me. "Yeah, yeah. How was your first week back?"
We'd been back at school for a whole week, and I was already bored as hell. See, I have this policy that guides me through life. The main point of which, is to do as little work as possible. Work equals effort. Effort equals tired. Tired equals cranky. Hence, work equals cranky, and Tyler equals evil.
Sometimes, I wonder why I haven't been recognized as a mathematical prodigy yet.
"School blows." I replied simply, throwing another freshwater pebble at the wall, and being rewarded by a red clay mark.
"Hey, that one was the same color as my hair." Flick commented, holding a few strands of the artificially colored hair before her eyes to compare them to the clay. "But yeah, agreed dude. I have Marsden for Biology. He still hates me 'cause of that time I pick-pocketed his phone and sent that picture of him from Halloween to the principal. You know, the one where he's dressed as a duck?"
I laughed. "Yeah, I love that picture! Aw, man, your life is gonna be hell this year."
"Don't I know it." She grimaced. "Hey, what's this I hear about you hanging out with Andrew Holt?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, he's nice. Who told you?"
I was shocked to see the always stoic and cool Flick morph into a tomato right before my eyes.
No, I don't mean literally, I mean her face. As in it turned red, not into a tomato… um, yeah. She was blushing. Nobody just turns into a tomato. Although that would be really cool, but I'd be worried that if I became a tomato, I would only be a small one, or one of those weird yellow ones. I wonder if they grow on vines like normal tomatoes. If people turned into tomatoes, would that mean we'd live on vines?
"Pipes? You in there somewhere?" Flick clicked her fingers in front of my face and narrowed her hazel eyes at me.
"Where, the tomato vines?" I asked, bewildered, focusing on my flame-headed friend once more.
She looked at me oddly. "Whatever you're taking, you have to give me some." Not quite sure what she meant, I chose to smile widely and nod. She rolled her eyes at me. "Anyway, what I was trying to say was that your brother told me. Apparently Tyler's been on Archer's back about you hanging out with Holt since you told them."
My brow furrowed at this. "Why would he care that I hung out with Andy?"
I earned another disbelieving look at this. "You're really not faking it, are you? The whole oblivious to life thing that you do."
I shrugged. "I don't even know what we're talking about now."
She sighed and rubbed her temples. "Long story short, sweetheart, Tyler isn't a fan of your buddy Holt. What's going on between you and the guy, anyway? He's on the football team, you've never dated one of them before."
I rolled my eyes. "Nothing, I think. At least to me, he's just a friend. Besides, you make it sound like I spend all my time dating."
Flick grinned. "Piper, you go on more dates than any girl I've ever met."
"I don't go on that many." I retorted with a frown. Silly girl!
"You're pretty much the most gorgeous girl in the school; hell, maybe even in the whole town. And you're nuts and don't try to hide it. Guys have been lining up for you since Freshman year, dude." Flick sniggered.
I glared. "That's crap."
My friend sighed. "Pipe, you're tall, blonde, with good bone structure, big green eyes, and an awesome body. Face it, you're prime rib around here."
I wrinkled my nose at the mental image. "Ew, I'm round, bloody and have weird lumps of fat in strange places?"
She snorted. "I don't even get why I bother. Come on, let's go to your place and steal food from your pantry."
I brightened immediately. All that talk about tomatoes and prime rib had left me hungry as… something that wants food all the time.
Screw being a mathematical prodigy, I'm definitely going to become a poet.
*-O-*
"Tylertylertylertylertylertyl ertyler-"
"SHUT UP, PIP!" the devil spawn groaned, blocking his ears. "I think you've given me a brain tumor."
I scowled. What a baby. "That's highly unlikely," I pointed out. "I'm not radioactive."
He gave me an odd look for a moment, before rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "I'm not even going to ask."
I'd come home and hung out with Flick for a while before she left to return to her humble abode, and was now sitting with Tyler and attempting to annoy him, as payback for how his existence annoys me. My twin was currently in the shower, and his evil best friend, who apparently didn't have a home of his own to go to, and therefore plagued ours, was playing our X-Box.
I shrugged. "What I was trying to ask was-"
"Oh, there was a point to you being my own personal irritant?" He asked sarcastically.
I, being the bigger, and also prettier, man, continued without acknowledging his childish remark. "Have you seen my bracelet?"
His brown eyes softened. "The one your dad gave you?"
I nodded. "Can't find it, I took it off to go to the lake with Flick, and now I don't remember where it is."
"Sorry, I haven't seen it." He told me, "But if I do, I'll let you know."
I smiled awkwardly, standing up so that I could make a quick getaway. I didn't really know how to cope with nice Tyler. "Uh, thanks. Um, I'll be going to do things, now."
The boy raised an eyebrow. Does he always look this… good? "Like what?"
I shook the unbidden, and clearly insane, thought about the child of the devil looking attractive out of my head and fumbled for an excuse for the third time in the same amount of hours. "Oh, uh… I have to go and, uh…"
He stood from the sofa and closed the gap between us until there was only about an inch of space between our bodies. For some reason, I was now finding it quite a challenge to breathe normally. "You have to do what?" he murmured, his cool breath blowing slightly against my cheek. I never realized how tall he was…
"Sitting… yeah… Sitting down… I have to go and… do that." I managed, slightly dazed.
Tyler lightly touched my wrist with the tips of his fingers and leaned his head down. I tilted my head back, lips slightly parted. Just when I thought he was going to close the gap between our lips, Archer's voice came floating down the stairs, followed closely by the huge man-child.
"You ready, Ty? Pippy, you better not have been a pain."
Suddenly, Tyler was again reclined on the couch, X-Box controller in hand, as if nothing had happened. "Yeah, dude, ready when you are."
I stared at him, open-mouthed. What the freaking hell?
Archer gave me a funny look. "You alright, sis?"
I snapped my mouth shut and nodded stiffly, giving him a strained smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just going to go up to my room and do some more… sitting down."
Archer snorted. "You do that. Come on, dude, let's skate."
Tyler stood, switching off the console and picking up his flannel over-shirt. "Am I DD tonight?"
I gaped at my brother and the really freaking evil son of the Devil and cause of everything bad in this world. I bet you could link Nicki Minaj, Nickelback, and Internet Explorer all back to Tyler freaking Whitehouse. "You idiots are going out tonight? It's a Sunday!"
They looked at each other, then back to me. "Fuck yeah." They answered in unison.
I frowned. "Why don't I ever get away with that?"
"One very important reason, Pippy." My twin chuckled. "Mom always knows you've been drinking 'cause you get monster hangovers. We know how to hide them." He finished smugly.
Tyler grinned, as he always freaking did. I was gonna wipe that stupid smile off his attractive face and laugh at him when I did it. That'll teach him to try and kiss me… "Yeah, Leah always thinks we've been out to the movies."
I glared at him. "Shut up and get your own mom."
He chuckled and Archer glared at me. "Dude, overkill. Leave him alone, alright? And don't talk about his mom."
Tyler shrugged. "I'm okay, bro. She doesn't know, it's fine."
Wait, what? I didn't know? What didn't I know? I wanna know. I like knowing things, they make me feel like someone who's everywhere, and knows everything, and who's all God-like… y'know, sorta like… uh… Dumbledore.
"Tell me what it is I don't know." I demanded.
Tyler simply shook his head and clapped Archer on the back. "Come on, dude, let's head. See you tomorrow, Pip."
With that, they left. And I was more confused than ever. What didn't I know? Come to think of it, I'd never actually met Tyler's mom. I'd met his dad, who was kind of a jerk, but not that bad, yet I'd never met his mother. I wondered if she had the same tan skin he had, and the soft, rich brown color hair. And his eyes, were they like his mom's? They were big, soft, and brown…
Hang on, was I obsessing over features of Tyler that are… aesthetically pleasing?
No. Impossible. Because underneath the pretty skin, and the pretty hair, and the pretty eyes, and the pretty face, and the pretty muscles, and the pretty- UNDERNEATH the pretty things, there were horns, a tail, and a large pitchfork.
I just had to remember that Tyler was the worst. Tyler is the worst. Tyler is the worst. Tyler is the worst.
… Tyler looks really good when he's busy being the worst.
AWOOHOO second chapter up!
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