Unravelling

Chapter 37 - City Lights

I got lucky for a change.

When Finn and I arrived at Jayden's place, no car was in sight, although we were more than ten minutes late. We quickly hid Gracie's bike behind a few bushes and snuck around the house just as the headlights of a car turned into the driveway. We managed to climb up to the tree house without being discovered.

To say that Jayden and Gracie were not very amused is putting it mildly. Apparently, spending three hours in a treehouse in northern California in November is not exactly a very desirable way to pass an afternoon. Gracie claimed to not be able to feel her toes anymore as she was basically frozen to an icicle. I guess I am not the only one with a tendency to act overly dramatic.

We quickly caught them up on what happened but had to cut it short when Jayden's mom called us back inside the house.

Which brings us to now and to my claim of being lucky for a change. Because, as it turns out, Luke is my designated driver.

I have to suppress a laugh when I find him standing in the middle of the O'Neill's kitchen, stuffing cookies into his mouth as if they were going out of fashion.

"Hi, Luke," I greet him with a wide smile and steal a cookie out of his hand.

He rolls his eyes at me but instead of complaining, he just uses his now free hand to ruffle my hair. Which he knows I find annoying. That is why he is doing it.

"Hey, kids," he replies, looking at all of us but then he zooms in on me and narrows his eyes: "Why is your face all red?"

I instinctively reach up to touch my cheeks and find them to be ice cold. When pedalling back to Jayden's place I was so preoccupied with worrying about us being caught that I hadn't even noticed how the temperature had dropped since the sun went down. Only now that we have gone inside the house, I feel the familiar tingling sensation in the tips of my fingers that usually occurs when your fingers "defrost" after being out in the cold for too long.

"We were in the treehouse all afternoon," Gracie jumps in when she realises that I am too caught up in my thoughts to react fast enough to not raise any suspicion with my brother.

"Why would you do that in November?" Luke wonders, shaking his head. "Silly kids."

"I asked them that, too, but they were adamant about staying outside," Mrs. O'Neill says with a sigh.

"You should be glad that we prefer fresh air over hanging out in front of the TV, playing computer games for hours," Jayden replies, sounding very mature and reasonable, if you ask me.

"And who are you? I don't think I've seen you before," my brother then shifts his attention to Finn.

Oh shit, here we go.

I have completely forgotten that he is there, too. In the heat of the moment, I forgot to ask him to not follow us inside. Mrs. O'Neill met him when we got to the house after school, but we could have just told her that he had to leave early. I can only hope that none of my teenage brothers have brought up Finn to the rest of my family. But even if they did, the chance of Luke having been present for any such discussions is slim to none. He is not home often enough for that.

Actually, seeing him here is a bit of a surprise. Although I was hoping that it would be him or Jack, I didn't really think that Luke picking me up would realistically happen.

"I'm Finn. Finn Harris," my new friend introduces himself. "Sir."

Despite my apprehension about Luke's reaction, Finn adding on a "sir" to his reply to Luke's question is so unexpected and so unfitting that I cannot hold back a giggle.