The Little Of Oz Series

#Chapter10-02

#Chapter10-02

"Do you have any plans while your brother is gone?" he asked causally once it became apparent that silence was my weapon of choice.

Yup! I had a list lined up.

Sulk.

Cry.

Moan to Patch about how unfair Isaac leaving me was.

Play the Sims until I was reminded that I was lonely and alone.

But I doubted they were the answers he was looking for, and ended up shaking my head no. "Eat nuggets?" I guessed, offering a weak smile. It earned another one of those half-smiles in return.

"You know what I meant," he said, rolling his eyes. He was about to say more, but the waitress appeared, a cheery-face young girl with flushed cheeks and hair that was slowly escaping her messy bun.

She smiled a polite, but welcoming smile, her words a chipper string that seemed far too enthusiastic for somebody who had been dealing with people all day. True to his word, Blake took control with an ease that I envied; he commandeered her attention with simple and fluent words, watching as she scribbled it down and repeated it back to him.

He watched her scuttle off before his eyes once again found me. "Are you going to your dad's this weekend?"

Making a face, I was once again reminded of Isaac's abandonment. When my parents had divorced, I had been forced to go to my father's house every weekend. Now that I was older, it was optional. I liked playing with Chloe, so it wasn't so bad, but I would only go if Isaac was going, too.

I loved my dad, and in his own way, he loved me, too, but the bond we shared was an odd one. He didn't understand me, and I always felt that I was everything he couldn't stand to see in a son. Mom said that it was all in my head, but I disagreed. He cared about me, I wasn't trying to take that away from him, but I couldn't sit down next to him and fall into an easy discussion about sports or whatever, the way Isaac could. Our interactions were usually limited to him asking me how school was.

Without Isaac, it was an unnecessary torture, and I didn't feel the need to endure it. I would make it up to Chloe another time.

"Not without Eyes."

Rather than quiz the answer I gave, he simply nodded. "What about friends from school? You hanging around with any of those?"

Cheeks heating, I adverted my eyes and gave a slow shake of my head. It wasn't a secret that I didn't have very many friends. It was why I had refused a birthday party for the last three years in a row. I had a friend at school who I sometimes ate lunch with, and one that I sometimes hung around with, if I was lucky, but they weren't the kind of friends that I knew well enough to hang around with outside of school.

Isaac had lots of friends. He and Blake were inseparable, but there were times when he would bring other friends back home, or that I would decline hanging out with him because he was going out to hang with a much larger group than I was comfortable being in.

"Great. You can hang with me then."

"What?"

"You can hang out with me. I'm busy tomorrow, and maybe the day after, but after that, I'm free. You can hang around with me, if you like."

"You'd want to hang with me?" Weird little otter Oz? Maybe I was just hearing him wrong.

"Why wouldn't I?" He actually seemed quite confused by how shocked I was, head tilting.

Glancing around to spare myself from answering immediately, scanning over the couple on the opposite side of the diner that were taking selfies, I shrugged.

"You don't have to be my babysitter," I said at last, despite the way my brain tried to decipher whether he would have made a good one or not. "I know you're only being nice because you promised my brother."

Lips thinning, eyes tightening, the smile left his face. He didn't seem mad. He didn't seem happy, either. "You think I'm doing this just because your brother asked me to?"

What other reason could there be? I nodded.

He shook his head, scowling. "You're my friend too, Oz. I like hanging around with you. We always have a good time, don't we? Besides, Isaac asked me to check in on you, not babysit you. I wouldn't have made that offer if it wasn't genuine."

We did always have fun, but never by ourselves. My brother had always been present. Could it be the same without him?

I was spared from replying by the return of the waitress. She held a silver tray in her hand, two milkshakes balanced on top. She told us that our food would be ready soon as she placed them down on the table. Blake didn't respond.

He waited until the waitress had walked away before speaking. "Saturday morning. Be dressed with teeth brushed and hair combed by nine. No excuses. Do you understand?"

And when he spoke like that, tone strict with authority, and his eyes swirling pools of raw power, how could I have done anything but nod?

It was rewarded with a dimpled smile, his shoulders relaxing as he slouched back into his seat. He palmed his glass before waving to the tall, thin glass that had a curly whirly straw poking out of the end of it. "Good. Why don't you try your milkshake?"

It turned out to be one of the most delicious milkshakes I had ever tasted. It was sweet and creamy, and the taste of bananas was monkey-licious. The food, when it arrived, was great, too. It arrived ten minutes or so after our drinks, and it was worth the wait. Blake had a burger, sheets of crinkly green leaves producing from beneath the toasted bun, and steam coiled from it in thin streams, as though it were more cartoon than anything else. Curly fries surrounded it, and he sprayed them with ketchup.