forty-two

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height


"Hey, Jesse. How big is that abandoned house that they use for the haunted house?" I hear Ryan come into my room as I'm laying on my bed, surfing the web on my laptop. Moving my laptop over to the left, I look over at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Why do you ask?" I ask him back

He slumps down on my bed with Cyrus following suit, leaning against the wall over my room looking at us closely as we converse.

"I need to know how many square feet so I can tell Paola."

"Who's Paola?" I ask confused

"Um...Karma's friend?"

"Again who's Paola?" I ask again genuinely not knowing who this woman is.

He raises his hands in disbelief and jerks his head back, "My girlfriend!"

"Oh!" I say in realization, "The small squeaky one." I'm sure Karma has talked about her to me before but I never really caught her name. But my mind always tricked me to believe her name was Patricia.

His face drops and he snarls back to me, "Yes...that one." he takes a breath and I have to restrain from laughing at the annoyed look on his face, "So how big is it?"

I smirk at the question, not wanting to let the opportunity to mess with him some more go to waste, "The house or my di--" I say and sigh as he cuts me off

"Don't' say it!" He rushes out covering his ears and I place my hands up in surrender, deciding to stay quiet

"Well don't ask Karma, it's not like she'd know," Cyrus says and Ryan slaps a hand to his mouth as I glare at Cyrus, going back to typing on my laptop.

"The house is 3,500 square feet, Ryan. Again, why does Paola need it?"

"She needs it for the party that she and Justine are throwing for Karma that I'm not supposed to tell you about," he says quickly slapping his hands to his mouth cursing himself out under his breath. I raise an eyebrow at this and close my laptop as Cyrus slowly walks over to the edge of the bed next to Ryan.

"The party that you weren't supposed to tell me about?" I ask. I take it that Karma finally told her friends about her and I the same way that I've told Cyrus and Simp. I'm guessing she also told them that we had a falling out.

He sighs loudly and says, "Yes. Paola and Justine would rather you not be there because it's Karma's birthday party." That's even more of a reason for me to go.

"I'm showing up to that party." I laugh at the face he makes as he shakes his head quickly.

"Fuck! No. No. NO. Jesse. She'll kill me if she found out that I even asked you about the measurements never mind the fact that I even told you it was for Karma." He groans at me and Cyrus laughs at this.

"You let your girlfriend scare you this badly, Slim?" Cyrus asks smirking at him as he howls in laughter at the horrified look on Ryans' face.

Ryan crosses his arms and says, "Justine."

"She doesn't scare me she just keeps me on my toes a little." he defends himself pointing at Ryan, "There is a difference." We all know that that's bullshit. He knows she frightens him.

His voice gets higher whenever she reprimands him as he tries to stand his ground. I can't lie, she's pretty hilarious.

Deflecting from the topic of scary girlfriends, I say, "If I'm not going then she can't rent the house for the party." I shrug and Ryan's jaw drops. I don't even know how Paola thought that she could throw this party without anyone's permission. That means the haunted house this year would be canceled. My dad owns the house. We used to live there when I was a kid before my dad upgraded to where I live now with the guys. It's just listed as abandoned because he refused to put it up for sale. Another way he brought in money was by having the house rented out every night on Halloween.

One of his right-hand men would collect the money that the people who rented the house for Halloween paid and give that to him. It's gone on for years, and the same guy who he had in charge of that is still meant to collect that money this year. He'd have to tell Mr.Williams, the man who rents it out every year, that it's going to be rented out to Paola.

Which I won't allow if Paola and Justine are purposely not going to put me on the guest list.

I'm aware that her birthday is on Halloween as it was one of the things she had told me when we played 20 questions that one time. I'd already gotten her gifts, the party would be the best place to give them to her. Especially since she won't give me the time of day.

"But why!" he complains, stomping and crossing his arms like the child he is and I roll my eyes, "You even told her yourself that you didn't want to be around her!"

"I already apologized." She didn't accept it but whatever, "She already knows that I don't feel that way."

"They're gonna have to beg me for it." I shrug

"Do you actually want me to die?" he asks and I sigh, "No, like really, you genuinely want her to delete me from this world. Do you not value our friendship?"

"She was going to have to get permission from me regardless, Ryan."

He groans loudly, "She didn't know! How do I even tell her that your family owns it?"

"You tell her that I own it and get her to talk to me directly. I don't even know why you're upset with me. You can't keep your mouth shut to save your life sometimes." shaking my head at him he looks from me to Cyrus who's howling again at what I'm saying knowing it's true.

"I hate you. I hate Cyrus by association since he keeps fucking giggling." he stands up from the bed and reaches inside his pocket to grab his phone, dialing Paola, I'm guessing.

The phone rings twice and he looks over at me saying, "See. She probably won't answer."

After the fifth ring, we hear a small, Hello? Ryan? On the other side and Ryan quickly drops the phone onto the bed and begins pacing around. I look at the phone as it lays face up and I look back up at him shaking my head pointing at him telling him to answer as she keeps saying his name over and over.

Over dramatically, with shaky hands, he grabs the phone off of the bed and continues pacing, "H-Hey Pao."

'Why'd you take so long to talk, boy?' She asks him hurriedly with some attitude in her voice and I begin to hear the anger he's always talking about

"I just wanted to let you know that I ended up finding out how big the house was."

"Oh! Forreal? How big?"

"Um 3,500 square feet?" he says

"Ok, great! I'll just speak to the owner of the house and give him the money. We need to get all kinds of decor--

Ryan cuts her off and says, "Actually, babe. I have the owner of the house right here." causing me to smirk as he looks at me and rolls his eyes, Cyrus snickers off to the side.

Boo! Look at you! You're always looking out, babe. Can you put him on the phone, please? I wanna negotiate because I'm a little on the broke side right now.

He slowly hands me the phone and I plaster a smile on my face, enjoying his discomfort saying, "Hello." I say and I'm met with immediate silence on the other side of the phone.

After a few seconds she says, "Why are you talking to me?"

"Oh? But I thought you said you wanted to talk to the owner of the house?" I ask with fake disappointment in my voice

"I did. Now, where is he?"

"Speaking." I say and she starts stuttering in confusion as she says, "Wait what?"

"My father owns the house, meaning that I now own the house. If you want to rent it then you're going to have to speak to me."

"What do you mean you own the fucking house?" she screeches, "I don't think I've ever even seen you at a haunted house."

"That shit's boring. So do you want the house or not?"

"Yeah, I want the house, as long as you're not in it."

I laugh into the phone and say, "Fuck that. Either I go or you guys are going to have to do it at Karma's house and I already know her parents aren't going to want drunk and horny teenagers dressed in cheap and provocative costumes walking all over the place. You wouldn't want to get Karma in trouble on her birthday and Halloween. Would you?"

"I have so many things I want to say right now to you, but I don't want Karma me to kill me if she finds out I'm even speaking to you." Karma wouldn't do anything to her even if she wanted to, my girl's not even close to being as intimidating as Justine. She wouldn't hurt a fly.

The phone goes silent for a while before she says, "Give Ryan back his phone please."

I shrug and hand him the phone as he snatches it from and gives her a quick, "Hello?" into the phone.

"Take me off the speaker, Ryan."

He takes the phone away from his ear and presses a button, before placing it back up into his ear saying, "It's off."

Cyrus and I can't hold back our laughter when we hear her shouting at him on the other side of the phone even with the speaker off.

"I-yes. Yes, yes I know you told me that." he says back to her, "I-um. Wait can you slow down." he sighs and slumps his shoulders, "I can't comprehend what you're saying if you're going to yell at me in Spanish, hun, we talked about this. Deep breaths." he tries reasoning with her and he goes silent for a few seconds before his eyes widen and he hangs up the phone.

"Yeah um so...she'll take the house. She said you can come and she wants to know how much you want?" he shakes his head looking at his phone with wide eyes even though it's off

I smile widely, leaning back against the headboard of the bed, "It's Karma's party. I won't make her pay. You can even tell her you made me lower the costs." and he sighs loudly saying thank you

"Now can someone tell me what 'Hijo de puta' means?" he asks as I and Cyrus start snickering again.

-------------------------

Sorry for the delay, but thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter <3

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net