Page 6 of The Time It Takes
I looked over at Taylor, just so he could see me roll my eyes. His light brown curly hair was thrown up in a bun and he had his arms crossed as if he’d rather give me a lecture right now just to see if he could make me squirm. The white t-shirt he was wearing stuck to his ripped golden skin. I could stare at those crisp ocean-blue eyes until the day I died. Taylor was a stunning dude on any occasion except right now. Right now, he was annoying me. I walked over to the wardrobe to grab my bag. The rain sounded dramatic yet glorious against the tin roof of the stand.
I wanted to go run down the beach in it.
“You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days,” Phoebe chimed in just as the sky roared again. If this was the outskirts of the storm, I knew it was going to be a good one. Florida always had the best storms, even if they never lasted long. The waves will probably be massive tomorrow morning and I found my mood lifting at the thought.
Well, that was not necessarily a good thing when I was teaching a beginner’s surfing class in the morning.
Phoebe hopped up on the desk, swinging her legs back and forth. She pushed her strawberry blond hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears. She’s had the same haircut since I met her. She always kept it just under her chin. I, on the other hand, had my hair falling just above my tailbone. It was as dark as chestnut, just like my eyes.
While Benji looked like our mother with his ashy-colored hair that didn’t know if it wanted to be blond or brown, hazel eyes that looked like honey in the sun, and he even had her nose. I looked like our father, at least from what I could tell by looking at pictures. I had his hair color down to the freckles placed across my nose and the shape of his mouth.
Sometimes I wondered if my mother couldn’t stand to be around me because of it. At times I wondered if looking at me made her sad. After all, she did take off in an RV to travel the world.
My brother was the smart one, despite what he’d say. He graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA. As for me, I couldn’t find the will to care about school. I’m more interested in the arts. Things like music and literature were the things that made life worth living. Thankfully, my mother didn’t oppose my preferences in life, not that she kept track. Ben went to community college so that he could stay home with me and no matter how guilty I felt about putting his life on hold, there was nothing I could do to change the situation we were born into.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and shot Phoebe a sarcastic smile. “Thankfully not today, because I’m starving.”
Phoebe huffed a laugh as she pushed herself off the desk, throwing on her oversized lifeguard hoodie.
Taylor's phone rang and when I looked at him, he was smiling like a fiend. He brought it up to his ear just as his eyes locked with mine and pure amusement flooded them. “Hello, Benjamin.”
I narrowed my eyes at him in warning, but he didn’t waver.
“Oh yeah, yeah, we’re about to head over there now. We got a little…held up. Your sister here decided to be a little daredevil and play with death again.”
I could hear a few curse words on the other side of the phone and tried to snatch it from his hands, but he was taller than me by a lot and I only managed to grab his bicep.
“That’s what I tried to tell her man, but women have selective hearing.”
I groaned in aggravation and pulled the tower key out of my bag then tossed it at his chest. “You can lock up.” I exited the tower and stepped out into the downpour.
I took off in a sprint even though I could hardly see where I was going. My house was located right on the beach, so it wasn’t far by any means. It was two houses down from Oliver’s, but everyone always hung out at ours because dear old Mum was never home due to traveling the world with her boyfriend.
Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing I strongly disliked about Frank other than the fact that he got all my mother’s attention while Ben and I got little snippets and video clips or our favorite: postcards with money for the rent attached. The freedom would be nice if I didn’t have so much of it all the time. My brother had very few rules. Two to be exact.
1. Don’t die.
2. Ensure rule number one doesn’t happen.
By the time I got to the house, I was drenched. When I stepped through the front door and walked to the living room, I found Ben, Oliver, and Dean laid out on the large blue sectional couch. Oliver had both of his arms stretched across the back. His blond hair was a floppy mess on his head. Dean was sitting with his legs crossed, hugging a pillow to his chest and staring warily at the television screen. His hair always remained buzzed thanks to his father who was a police officer. It was scary how alike they looked when standing side by side. It was like looking into Dean’s future.
And Ben was—yeah Ben was scowling at me. Hard. His grip was tight on the beer in his hand.
“Willow.” Ben’s tone made me want to ignore him and keep walking to my room upstairs, but I refrained from doing so. I’d just make it worse for myself. I’d let him play the protective brother role. I walked over to him and stopped in front of the television. I placed my hands on my hips, and stared blankly at him.
“Benji,” I mocked, knowing he hated being called that.
He took in a deep breath before exhaling rather excessively. I smiled.
Dean muttered something under his breath and tried to look around my body to see the baseball game. Dean went to school with me too. Aside from Ben, we all still had a year to go, which meant it was time to start considering a serious future for myself. The thought made me wish the sea would have taken me out today.
“Do you have a death wish, little sister?”
Little sister. My eyebrows pinched together. “I’m more mature than you most of the time and while I would love to sit here and chat.” I gestured at my dripping body. “I need to change.” I glanced through the window just as lightning struck the water causing a large flash of light as if the world just took a photo.
“Yeah, I’m sure she’ll just do something else stupid, and you can yell at her then,” Dean uttered and then finally looked away from the screen and pointedly at me. “Now if you don’t mind, we’re trying to watch a game, dork.”
I ignored the last part and pointed at him while looking at Ben. “Exactly.”
