5. Thursday Evening Week Two

I spoke to Mrs Graceford, aka. Old Crone who's not that old, on Tuesday and told her I wanted to try the tutoring thing. She was really happy, like weirdly happy, I guess it's cause no-one ever says they'll do it. So I had got the evening off from work and was now I was on my way over to some kid called Riley's house to try to somehow teach a 14-year-old boy Shakespeare.

Yay me!

I was driving my convertible white Golf Mark One which had been left to me by my dad. He collected old cars and left a Porsche 944 S2 for Tyler when he got older, it was amazing but Nan refused to let me drive it, said I was too irresponsible, I would've argued with her but she was right.

I turned down the music on my stereo and started paying attention to my surroundings when I realised I had reached the rich part of town. It wasn't like our town had a line straight through the middle separating rich and poor, there were just certain neighbourhoods where only the rich lived and this was definitely one of them. 

Who was this Riley kid?

Google maps told me I had reached my destination when I pulled up to a huge gate with a tannoy outside it. I wonder how rich you had to be to have a tannoy.

I pressed the button and spoke into it, so weird, "Hello, my name's Reillyn Cole, I'm here to help Riley out with his English work." There was nothing but static for a minute and I started to think I was at the wrong house, awkward.

But then, "Hello dear, yes, of course, come on in," what sounded like an elderly woman's voice sounded through the tannoy scaring the shit out me.

The gates in front me started to open and I assumed she had pressed some button to allow me in. How rich do you have to be for that?

I followed the driveway down, there was dense forest on either side of the road until it opened up into a roundabout which was actually a fountain. Okay, I'm done. They have a water fountain! I pulled up outside the closed garage doors which are to the left of the front door and get out my car with my mouth hanging open.

Oh my shit, they have pillars!

There was a kind-looking elderly woman standing in the door who appeared to be waiting for me. I grabbed my bag with all my books from the car and made my way over to her, still trying to take everything in around me. I would kill to able to draw half the things here.

When I reached her I smiled and stuck my hand out, "Hi ma'am, my name's Reillyn or Rei for short."

She smiled back at me and shook my hand, "Come in, come in." She pulled me into the house and shut the door behind me. "My name is Rosemary, I am the housekeeper for the Ryker's. It's a pleasure, Rei." Aw, she was so sweet, I liked her already. And then I paused.

Wait a second.

"I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. Did you just say, Ryker? As in Elias Ryker?"

At that exact moment as if summoned by speaking his name aloud (cough, devil alert, cough), Elias Ryker came sauntering down the stairs without a shirt on. As in, no top. Shirtless.

What. A. Joke.

 Firstly his right nipple was pierced. Secondly, my guess from the night of the fight was right, he did have tattoos. Both his arms had them littered all across them and there was one on his left shoulder which curled around onto his chest and up to his neck. There was a bird on his left ribcage and a dead tree on his lower right hip which curled around his body, along with a few more little ones. His hair was wet as if he just had a shower and hung in loose strands on his forehead. He was wearing black joggers which hung low enough on his hips for me to see his v-line and he had a silver chain dangling from his neck with some sort of pendant on it. The artist inside me was going crazy, she wanted to admire his tattoo work up close but the normal inside me realised how weird that would be and so I stayed firmly rooted where I was.

He stopped completely when he saw me, his face remaining impassive but I'm pretty sure confusion and surprise flashed through his ocean coloured eyes. His eyes swept up and down my body as if assessing me and his eyebrows raised when he saw my knee-high lace-up boots. I shifted uncomfortably on my feet as I felt another weird shiver go down my spine at his look, at least my outfit was nice.

I took a moment to regain my composure and then I screeched, "You live here?!"

He finished walking down the stairs and stopped when he stood directly in front of me and rolled his eyes.

"No, I just walk around shirtless in strangers houses when I have free time." Dickhead.

"Between that and the illegal fighting, you must have a hard time avoiding the cops."

He scowled.

I smiled.

"What the fuck are you doing here? Did I not make myself clear on Monday?" He was talking to me but his eyes kept flicking down to my boots, weird. I cocked my head to the side a little to draw his attention back to my face. Yeah asshole, eyes up here.

Rosemary gasped before I could respond, "Ryker!" She scolded, "Have some manners!" 

He rolled his eyes again and stomped off with a mumbled 'whatever'.

She turned to me once he was out of sight, "I'm sorry about him, he hasn't got the best of manners." Yeah, I'll say. She offered me a small smile which I returned. This was actually the perfect opportunity to talk to him and get what I want after his asshole-ish behaviour on Monday.

"It's okay, I actually kind of need to talk to him about something though. Do you think you could show me where he went? I won't be a minute and then I'll get to working with Riley."

She looked confused for a moment before she nodded and I could understand why. What sane person would want to willingly talk to the guy who was just rude to her for no reason at all? She led me to a massive kitchen, it was literally the size of the entire bottom floor of my house, so my whole house. 

Rosemary pointed towards Elias who was stood with his head in the fridge and then left saying she was going to get Riley.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and took a minute to admire Elias's basically perfect form, he had some more tattoos littered across his back with something written on his right shoulderblade, but then I shook myself out of it and realised I had something to do.

"Yo, Boxer Boy," he turned out of the fridge with an apple in his hand, "me and you," I waved a hand between the two of us, "we need to talk."

He leant casually on the counter behind him and bit into his apple whilst signalling with his other hand as if to say, go on then. The whole time his face remained impassive, unreadable, emotionless.

"On Monday, when you spoke to me, you were an asshole."

He shrugged, "So. I am an asshole, tigru."

"I don't speak whatever the fuck that was but how about trying not to be for two seconds maybe?" he didn't say anything so I took that as my queue to talk.

"I've decided I'm willing to keep your secret, on one condition." He stood up straight at this and started making his way over to me, opening his mouth as if to argue with me but I held my hand up as a way of telling him to stop and surprisingly he did.

"I get it, you'll make me feel pain, yada, yada, yada," I rolled my eyes, "but you can take your empty threats and shove them up to your ass."

I gave him a pointed look and his lips twitched upwards again. I frowned, I'm trying to intimidate him, not amuse him.

"Look, my point here is, I am willing to take your secret to the grave," I made an 'x' cross over my heart, "as long as you teach me how to fight."

He said nothing for a while and I just stood there awkwardly shuffling my feet whilst I waited for him to reply.

"No"

He threw his apple in the bin and started walking out of the kitchen but I stepped in his path before he could leave. He raised an unimpressed eyebrow at me, what is with that, but I stood strong.

"Look, Boxer Boy, you don't really have a choice in the matter, you either help me or I squeal about your very illegal activities" I obviously wasn't gonna tell but he didn't know that so I just crossed my arms in an attempt to look tough and prayed he didn't call my bluff.

He leant down so he was eye level with me, he smelt like apples now too. "Why do you wanna learn how to fight tigru?"

I tried my hardest not to let my gaze flicker down to his bare chest, but it was right there and very distracting. He cleared his throat in what I assumed was an attempt to get my attention.

I looked up at him and hoped my voice doesn't come out shaky, "That's my business, just like the reason you fight is yours." 

He clenched his jaw as he stood up straight again and seemed to be contemplating what his next move would be in his head. I took the time to unclutter my own thoughts and focus on getting what I needed from him which was lessons, fighting lessons.

"Please," He looked down at hearing my plea, he looked curious, like he wanted answers; answers that I wasn't willing to give.

"I thought I didn't have a choice, why are you begging?"

I rolled my eyes, "That was a single word, hardly classifies as begging."

He leaned down so close to my ear that I could feel his breath against the side of my face, "I bet I could make you beg."

I didn't move.

He stood back up and winked at me with a smirk. Then completely calmly as if he hadn't just frazzled my brain, "fine, give me your phone." He held his hand out.

I sputtered ridiculously for a moment, "I-I-you-I-what?"

"If I'm going to train you, tigru, I'm going to need to send you the address of the gym and the times I'm free. So, your phone." He waved his hand impatiently and I realised how ridiculous I must have sounded as my cheeks flamed.

I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my dress and handed it to him. He typed his details in and handed it back to me with a wink before he swivelled on his heel and sauntered off to do whatever it was that he did. I looked down at my phone and smiled when I saw what he had saved his number under.

Boxer Boy.

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1945 words^

Edited ✅