Dane

Apple pies, the scattered flour sacks on the counter that I had to stop procrastinating to clean up on the white marble counters, and Jacquelyn Bargers were the only things that I could think about. All I wanted to do was kick back into one of the black leather couches and let my mind take me away from reality.

All the chores for my father's welcome home and birthday celebration were complete, so there was no better time to relax than now.

But the couch was about thirteen steps too far. I guess the floor will have to do. It was a shame that Mike had to decorate everything in the living room with white marble and black leather with the occasional gold décor. It looked so strict and cold; in other words, void of all emotion.

But it did have the perfect touch for a furniture magazine.

Slumping down to the cold and spotless white granite floor, I was finally able to find some time to relax.

"Dane, come here!"

Out of all the times that he could have showed up and helped me out, Mike decided to come when everything was done and when I was taking some time to enjoy the peace. He must have telepathy to know the perfect time to bug me.

Maybe if I didn't respond, he would give up.

"Dane!" Mike hollered again, "Haul your big ass out here and help me! All the servants seemed to have disappeared and Gardner's got some stuff to do!"

I sighed as I stood up from the floor and languidly slumped my shoulders forward. "With what?" I called out with a loud and heavy sigh. I'm not helping him with something ridiculous and stupid.

All the setting up that I have done for the party was a whole lot harder than I thought. It's starting to turn me into Mike-grumpy, complaining, and annoying. Man, did I really need a rest to calm my nerves or have another quick visit from Jacquelyn. Another little smile crept up my face. That would be nice.

Maybe if I just laid down for a few seconds I could be a little better-

"Come out here and you'll find out yourself Curious George!" Mike snapped.

'Yes, your Majesty' was what I wanted to say to him, but I restrained myself from doing anything stupid. The quicker I get Mike's silly little job out of the way the sooner he could clean things up with me. I love him because he's my brother, but there is a limit to how much crap I can take. Mike's no saint and it's hard to not yell back at him.

The moment I walked outside, a violent gust of wind blasted into my face and threatened to push me back in, making me wonder if helping Mike was really worth it.

With the fresh and crisp smell of ozone winding into my nose and nipping at every inch of my skin with dark columns and hoards of ice black clouds crawling closer to LosAngeles, it couldn't be any more obvious that bucketfuls of rain were going to pour down at us in any moment.

Both of us had to go inside quick before we were flushed by nature's natural water park.

Sheltering my eyes from the raging winds, I stumbled to Mike's side, "Alright, what do you need-"

When I got closer to the scene of the crime, I saw Mike pull out a limp body from the back seat. What the hell did Mike get himself into? I knew today was rough for him, but it couldn't have been this rough.

Forgive me for my language, but what the fuck was Mike doing with a body! Did he expect me to bury it because there is no way that I was going to help him with that. He could do all the bloody work himself, no pun intended.

Maybe I was wrong. I had to be. Mike may have been a spoiled brat but he is not a murderer.

As I ran closer to the scene -because curiosity got the best of me- I saw the face. The girl's long brown hair that at least reached down to the middle of her back was scuffled together in front of her face in big knots from the rough handling Mike did to get her out from the car and her thin small features was scrunched together like she was scowling before she last opened her eyes.

Even with her temporary irritable complexion, she seemed like a person that would be generally happy.

For a few mere seconds, I could only just stare at her and race names in my mind to match the face. I knew that I had seen her before. But oh yes, I made that innocent mistake before.

I wasn't the best with faces. Every person I take to be devilish is the sweetest person on earth and the most innocent person turns out to be the chili hot red pepper devil himself.

How could I have forgotten her? She punched Mike twice.

Mike groaned as he inched the girl's body out from the car inch by inch, struggling to wiggle her out of the seat. To see him struggle under the dead weight of an average girl had me wonder if I was able to even hold up a small portion of the weight and help.

I know I make myself sound like a twig that will snap under two pounds, but I promise I can lift weights and do average day to day things. Maybe even more that that.

However, you don't understand. Mike takes his work outs very seriously and does them at least twice a day to keep up his perfect impossible shape. I constantly marvel how he has ever managed to build such a perfect body, but then I remembered that he was practically breed for the sake of the entertainment business.

If he has a hard time carrying something, I sure as heck will buckle under it.

Mike has gone way too far with this. I understand that it was a big blow to his ego but the girl didn't deserve to die. Stuttering before I continued, I leaned in to get a closer look to confirm my suspicions. It was her. "Isn't this the-"

"The devil from Hell? You got that right. Help me put her in the guest bedroom."

"Is she dead?" I asked cautiously as I searched for any visible signs such as blue lips, rotting skin, and any possible wounds that killed her at impact. CSI is a wonderful show. It inadvertently taught me to look out for the many signs and clues of a dead person.

Now that I look at it, her lips were a little pale. It threw me off sense her skin was pretty tan from being under the sun quite often. I could see a little sliver of pale skin from a swimming suit or tank top running off her shoulder to her back, disappearing behind her grey sweatshirt.

Suddenly, a pair of fingers appeared in front of my face and snapped in two quick beats. "Earth to Dane? Are you going to help me? It would be great just about now."

I could only stare back up at him with my mouth hanging. "Is she dead?" I repeated louder. "Is she?"

Mike scoffed and shook his head staring at me with ridicule, his eyes turning into a darker green- a sign that he's had enough of it and getting slightly agitated. "Please tell me you're joking. Do you honestly think that these million dollar hands would commit a murder in the prime of his life? Like before with Nata-Marissa, she was talking so much I had to do something to stop her yapping."

What part of, 'don't do it again' did he not understand? Definitely not the 'don't' part.

What could I say to have him think a little more before he does something way out of hand like this? "Mike," I began as the rest of what I had to say slowly tumbled out of my mouth, "what makes you think that putting a girl to sleep with your pills makes everything okay?"

My brother scowled and tightened his grip-his knuckles cracking as his anger intensified and the creases in his forehead deepen. 

"She crashed my car. Oh wait, she first damaged it and then crashed it and wouldn't stop yapping afterwards. If she was awake for one more minute my ears would have bled and my temper would have flared. She kept talking and talking like she was never going to stop. I would have gone crazy!"

I rolled my eyes at the irony. "Now you know how I feel around you sometimes."

Snapping his eyes up at me with his mouth slowly falling open from the surprise, he was finally able to pull the girl fully out of the car with one forceful and unexpected tug. What was he gaping his big mouth at?

His older brother made a comeback, was that so surprising?

Well, I guess it was a surprise since a good comeback only comes to me once every year.

"Woah, watch it!" I shouted as I leaped forward to catch the girl's feet before they smashed against the driveway, her feet digging into my forearms and for a split second pulling me down with her from the sudden drop of weight. "Don't you think she had a beating as it is with you yanking her out?"

Mike refused to respond, pulling up one edge of his mouth to make a dissatisfied glower.

 "Let's just get her in the guest bedroom and-" Mike let out a grunt and a stretched his face from the strain and tossed the girl's body up to get a better grip, "get this thing over with."

Right now, I could not agree with him more. "Let's."

After what seemed like forever, we were able to toss the girl's body on the bed and sit down in the extra old arm chairs that Mike stuffed in these rooms once he got the black Italian leather sofas in the living room.

It was last year when he got into the whole 'Italian leather deal'. It was a popular fad at Ridgewood at the time, and knowing my brother, he just had to jump on the bandwagon.

Now that the ridiculous fashion has ran it's course, Mike feels enforced to buy the white Italian leather couches because the color black was too 'over rated' for the teenage students of Ridgewood.

Now this room will have three new members to it's couch member society which consists of ten other citizens. All he can do now is just wait and put them here, hoping for them to 'be cool' again.

Taking another look at it, I just started to the realize that this was a really funky old room.

Before, it looked alright, but with all the random colored couches sprawled all over the place it made it appear random and splattered. It was like a nyan cat had swallowed a bomb and exploded inside this very room.

The walls were a faint shade of peach with gold linings running down the side in sharp gold pin stripes, which could be looked at as the pink icing on the nyan cat with the gold sparkles. And with the tan leather sofas, the bright green eco recliners, and the deep magenta chairs you could almost see the rainbow flash before your eyes.

"So," Mike drew out as an effort to break the silence "whose going to watch the little devil so she doesn't escape?"

I scoffed and raised my eyebrow in concern. "I thought you two were dating. Are you sure that this is a girlfriend not some sort of demon?"

Widening his eyes and staring down at the floor to avoid contact, he swallowed hard. "You stay here, and I'll go clean up." Not eager to stay around any longer, he shuffled out to the door and started to close it behind him. "And about that girlfriend or demon thing, it's both."

Never will I ever understand Mike and his odd ball relationships.

"Hold up," I started as I met him at the door, so I could be quiet and not wake the girl up, "You're cleaning?"

"Yeah! Now let me go."

Man, this was strange. I never seen him so eager to clean up in his life; something had to be wrong here -the way he was constantly fidgeting like he couldn't wait to get out of this room was a dead  give away.

Before Mike could leave, I lunged my hand out from the crack of the door and grasped his arm -only holding onto him by a pinch of skin. "Dad won't be happy about this if he finds out that you brought a girl to the house."

He shook my hand off of him like a wet dog and defiantly glared at me. "Yeah. Yeah. The only girl I'm allowed to bring inside this house is my fiancé, but that's ten years from now!"

"But still-"

Mike let out a husky scoff. "Besides Dane, it's not like I had thousands of hot parties in here before! I'll do what I always have done, hurry them the fuck out before dad gets home!"

What part of that was supposed to make anything better, let alone solve any part of the situation?

Anyway, the term hot parties was right. Just thinking about it gives me a hammering headache -all the sweat piling up, skin constantly rubbing up against each other, crazy neon strobe lights in pitch black darkness enough to give anyone seizures, and a bunch of people stumbling and bubbling off of the smuggled drugs and alcohol.

One would think a party drawn out to that drastic measure would be enough, but Mike had created these monstrosities from freshman year.

Right as he entered high school and finished reading The Great Gatsby in their English class, Mike took it upon himself to become the Great Gatsby of Ridgewood. Unlike the book, Mike's parties were immature and had violated every single rule in California's state law book.

Hosting a big illegal party like that was risky, but Mike couldn't have enough.

He went through a phase of doing it every Friday of the month, which gobbled up most of his earnings making him limit it down to three times a year -finally shooting him with the bullet of reality.

But I guess the bullet didn't go too far because Mike didn't stop with the free bundle of illegalities and seizure guarantees. So far, Mike hasn't been discovered by the authorities or his dad.

If our father found out about the countless girls that he has brought over, Mike will become the Great Gatsby. In other words, a dead man or something real close to it.

Right now, he was playing a really dangerous game with letting this one girl stay in the nyan cat guest bedroom.

Mike's father doesn't know that Mike is dating anyone, let alone a major player at Ridgewood. In his mind, Mike is a good boy who swore to never love again because he had a hopeless childhood crush on one girl and has been left heart broken.

Although Mike is some angel in our father's mind, he still expects him to bring no one over. For some odd reason, he only expects that out of Mike.

I could make out with every single girl in the world and bring them to the house like Mike, but he wouldn't lift a finger to it. If he found out that Mike was playing around, he would skin him alive.

This was too risky.

"You should drop her off now before it's too late. Dad might come home early."

I tried to make my voice firm, but thanks to the excruciating work out of carrying that girl a long distance, my voice wavered at the end, making me sound like some nervous wreck. I'm not saying the girl weighed much, but it was difficult carrying her from the front door to the back of this mansion.

Mike waved it off. "I'll drop her off at my dorm as soon as she wakes up-"

Could Mike think for once?

"Why didn't you drop her off before!" I snapped but with my voice firm and slightly under control, my nerves starting to fray at the ends. "It's a whole lot safer that way! Just drop her off now. You know that medicine takes at least six hours to wear off. It's eleven p.m. now!"

Scoffing again, Mike walked away and turned his back to me and started walking down the hall. "Just let me know when she wakes up! I'll be cleaning." He hollered

I spun my head to take a quick look at the girl who was now hanging off the side of bed and then urgently threw myself half way through the crack of the door. "Why me!" I cried in desperation, "She's your girlfriend, isn't she?"

Watching over a sleeping person was boring and flat out creepy. What was I going to do when she woke up? What if she thought I kidnapped her or something?

I can't do this all alone! What if she slept through the night and woke up with me in the room with her?

That will spur up some crazy accusations in her head, I just know it. Any person would get those assumptions.

"Mike!" I screamed out again, stepping further out into the hall so he could hear me. "You should do it! I'm not really good-" I took another glance at the girl and I felt a knot in my throat and gulped it down, "I'm not good with watching... sleeping people."

That did not come out right.

"Please-"

A loud obnoxious groan echoed from the other end of the hall. "Damn, calm your ass Dane. It shouldn't be long okay? A deal is a deal. I'll clean up everything if you stay there! You got the better end of the deal!"

I'm not too sure about the 'better end of the deal' thing.

"Fifty bucks." I reasoned. That was the only thing to make this deal half way decent and even.

Soon after I put my bargain out on the table, my ears picked out the muffled sound of a groan and a slap like Mike face palmed himself. "What's up with people sucking money out of me." Then he cleared his throat and yelled at the top of his lungs. "Fine!"

Closing the door to leave the conversation at the perfect point that it was at, I let out a loud reluctant heave of despair while looking over at the sleeping girl, who miraculously changed her sleeping position dramatically in the past minute.

Instead of hanging off the side of the bed in the correct direction, she was positioned in the opposite direction with her head now lopsidedly hanging off from the bottom of the bed with her back curved at an angle to where her feet dangled from the back.

"I smell pies." She slurred, her eyes still clamped shut and she let out a loud and obnoxious snort- the ones that people make when they wake up.

There was no need for me to panic now. This girl was definitely drugged out so I had nothing to worry about.

I rolled my eyes as I plugged the old television to a neighboring socket and snatched the remote, nonchalantly strolling over to the push leather couch and resting my feet on the navy couch in front of me.

"I'm sure you do." I responded, just for the heck of it.

It wasn't like she was conscious anyways.

Out from no where there first was a gasp, and the springs groaned in the bed and popped when the girl flung herself awake. "Where the heck am I!" She screamed.

Obviously I spoke too soon. Maybe she wouldn't freak out if I slipped behind this couch and pretended that I wasn't here. After all, the back to this chair was pretty tall so-

Stumbling her way towards me, she groggily pointed an accusing finger towards my direction. She first narrowed her eyes the way my grandma did when she couldn't read something, but soon her green eyes shot wide open in surprise.

"You!" She gasped.

I let out a muffled screech at the surprise and pressed my back against the chair from the unexpected surprise and jump scare.

With her hair matted in several places but mostly hanging down in front of her eyes, she looked exactly like the Grudge. Why the hell did I accept this offer from Mike in the first place?

Fifty dollars was not worth this mess.

"You!" She said again, her voice quickly transitioning into anger- her eyebrows furrowing together and darkening her eyes, "you're Mike's brother aren't you!"

I flung my arms above my head in a sign of surrender, hoping that it would mean something to her and make temporary piece between us.

"I didn't do it!" I blurted out.

She clenched her teeth and tightened her fists, looking around the room but snapping her eyes back at me. "Where the hell am I! What did you do to me!"

Some people are afraid of heights, spiders, or guns but what everyone should be afraid of are raging girls. There is nothing way out of control like an angry girl, it's absolutely horrifying.

"Talk to Mike!" I stammered "He's in the kitchen. Take a right in the hall, go through the living room, and the kitchen should be right there"

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A/N: FINALLY LOL! THE CHAPTER'S OUT!

WOOWW!! Took me forever haha, but hope ya'll enjoyed :D Vote if you like this so far cause it helps and yeah ;) Vote lovelies ;)

AND I have to admitt that I'm a comment whore so just... yeah ;) Tell me what you think of this chappie eh? Well all of the characters send you kisses :D