Mess To Be Made

15

I was over at Tyler's house at 4pm sharp on Monday afternoon, knocking on the door.

I heard a commotion inside before the door opened, revealing a middle-aged man with a large smile on his face. I was surprised that him and Tyler hardly looked alike. This man had jet black hair, dark brown eyes, and his skin tone was extremely fair.

He smiled at me. "Allie, right?"

"Mr. Hennessy." I returned the smile, assuming this was Tyler's dad. "Nice to finally meet you."

"Call me Tristan," he said, opening the door wider to reveal Tyler standing in the foyer with an annoyed—although, that wasn't unusual—look on his face as he glared at his father. "It's nice to finally meet you too. Make yourself at home."

"Thank you," I replied sincerely as I walked towards Tyler. His eyes flicked from his dad to me, before his head jerked towards the nearest door. I got the hint and walked through it, into their kitchen.

I remember this house from the few times my family came over to Mr. and Mrs. Boyle's for dinner. It was a little smaller than the other houses in our neighborhood. Fairly old architecture and floor plan. Cozy, verging on cramped.

The kitchen had a small breakfast table in the corner with two chairs. I saw that books were already spread out on it, so I figured that's where Tyler and I would be studying. I made my way over, seating myself and setting my backpack down. Tyler came into the kitchen and opened a cabinet. I heard footsteps in the other room and a door close.

"Want some water?" Tyler asked.

"Do you have something stronger?" I smirked, flashing him my most mischievous look.

Tyler glared at me.

I huffed and rolled my eyes. "I'm joking, Tyler, Jesus. Water would be great, thanks."

He shook his head and let out a hard exhale while he filled two glasses to the brim with water.

"Where are your books," he asked after setting the waters down for us on the breakfast table.

"I'm going, I'm going," I murmured, reaching into my backpack to pull out my Spanish binder and book.

Tyler wasted no time. We quickly dove into what the test was going to be on and exactly what we needed to work on for me to get a good grade. He gave me a list of things to focus on and told me to ask him questions if I needed.

In the meantime, he was working on something else. When I asked him what it was, he let out a dramatic sigh, like I'd asked him to borrow fifty dollars. "AP Econ. It's kicking my ass."

I nodded. The Spanish work Tyler had tasked me with was easy, but I had to pretend to be struggling. "I took Econ last year. Not AP. But it wasn't so bad."

I could feel Tyler's eyes on me. "What'd you get?"

"A minus," I replied nonchalantly. I shifted my gaze to him and smirked. "I can help if you want."

"I told you," Tyler grumbled. "I don't need help."

"Right," I replied, thinking how I didn't need help either. The only reason I was asking for help with Spanish was so I could talk to him. Get to know him better. With that thought now at the top of my mind, I asked, "What's your favorite music genre?"

Tyler exhaled through his nose. "You should be focusing right now."

I lifted my eyes from my paper to him, only to see he was looking back at me. A shock hit my lower spine, but I pushed through it, retorting, "I can multitask."

"If you could multitask, you probably wouldn't need to be here right now," he growled. "And I'm trying to get work done. So can you shut it, please."