'Pray' For This Dude

Chapter Seven

Craig-

My mom came into my room, waking me up. She kissed my forehead then rubbed the kiss mark deep into my skin. "Get up Jr, it's time for school." She gently said, rubbing her hand through my messy hair.

"Right, school," I said sitting up and rubbing my eyes. "Come to the kitchen whenever you're ready, I made pancakes."

"Yum!" She smiled and got up from my bed, leaving the room.

I put on my outfit and headed out to the living room. My dad was still in his draws, reading the newspaper while taking small bites of the pancakes. "Mr. Crippen, if you don't put that paper down and eat your damn breakfast."

"What are you going to do Mrs. Crippen? Make me?" My dad said smirking. "Oh, you know it." She winked back at him. "Ew gross," my mom giggled and place a plate of pancakes in front of me. "Eat your food, little boy." I rolled my eyes and poured syrup over my pancakes. As I was eating I saw Ray standing outside, looking into my house. His was signaling for me to hurry up. I started scarfing down my breakfast to finish faster and the pancake bread clumped in my throat.

"Whoa, honey, calm down, if you keep eating like that, you're going to choke."

"Yeah I know," I mumbled. I grabbed the glass of milk and chugged it, trying to help everything go down. "Mmm, so delicious mom, I have to go now." I got up from my seat, heading for the door, but my mom stopped me in my tracks.

"Uh, Jr, your bookbag?"

"Oh right, kind of need that for school," I hesitantly laughed. She looked like she was going to say something, but fought against it. "Alright my crazy son, have a good day at school."

"I will." That was a close one. I ran out the front door and Ray was leaning against my fence in his perfectly pressed uniform.

"It's about time."

"Sorry, sometimes my mom goes all out for breakfast, and today happened to be one of those days."

"Well let's get out of here before my father sees us. I know a perfect place for us to hang out." I nodded and followed behind Ray. He led me to a park that was close to our church. It had different posts for different sports activities and it was more of a big field than a park with a playground. It was honestly a really beautiful piece of land. "Wow, I have never been here before."

"Oh, yeah, it's pretty hidden from the church, but I used to come here all the time with friends and we'd play frisbee golf or just regular golf."

"Haha, is that some kind of rich people sports." He chuckled, "Yeah I guess, I never understood it, but it was actually pretty fun once I got the hang of it."

"Well Mr. Rayan, did you bring equipment for said sport?"

"Nah, I thought we do something else, like climb trees and look at the blue sky while eating picnic foods." Oh? he had this already planned out, that's very romantic. He smirked and walked over to a tree and pulled out a basket and blanket from behind it.

"I've been planning this for a while now, we haven't had any real time to get to know each other or go on a real deal with the predicament I'm in and well, no one would really leave us alone if we went out in public."

"Aw that's really sweet, and yeah you're probably right."

"It's pretty early to be eating sandwiches so I think we will save this for later and just take a walk on the trail for now."

"Yeah, I'm down for that," I never been a nature person, I kinda hate being outdoors, there are too many bugs and it's usually so humid outside, I just can't stand it, but this was nice. I will risk the humidity to spend the day with Ray.

"So, what's your favorite color?" He asked. "Haha, my favorite color? Really?"

"Yeah, I said I wanted to get to know you and this is something I want to know."

"Haha, okay, my favorite color is Red, you?"

"It's purple," he replied. We continued walking and Ray would point out cute little houses in the distance and tell me stories from his childhood. I can't believe I lived right next to him basically my whole life and I never noticed him once. I know he went to a boarding school, but he must have come home sometimes and my family knew his family, so I don't understand how last Sunday was the first time me actually meeting him. I can't believe the Rev had s*x before. I swore I thought the Rev was a virgin, I can not imagine that man getting it down with no one. He seems to 'Godly' to be doing something like that. My thought was then interrupted by Ray shoving me to the side.

"You're it!"

"What? Tag? Are we back in preschool?" He smiled and started to run off. "Alright if you want to play, let's play, just letting you know I did track for two years."

"All I hear is talking and no action," he said, sticking out his tongue. I bent down, rolled up my pant legs and stretched out my muscles before I got ready to chase after him. "What are you doing? Come on loser!" He was now jogging backward and taunting me.

"I'm not trying to get a cramp."

"Oh, come on, old man." I smiled and got in running position then I took off after him. "I'm going to get you now for talking all that shit." I kept getting closer but he would jump from side to side every time I tried to touch him. "You have to be quicker than that," he teased.

Eventually, I caught up to him and pulled him down to the ground and I straddled him. "Got you."

"Finally."

"Shut up, pigtails." I looked down at him and he smiled. The sun was beaming on his face, making him look like an angel. I leaned down and pecked his lips.

"I really like you." I said, "I really like you too Craig, come on." I got off of him and we continued to walk on the trail. "Do you like climbing trees?"

"I guess so, I haven't done that since I was a kid."

"Well today's all about being a kid again, I come here when I need time to myself and I'll climb this tree and just think, or not think, climbing trees is my therapy."

"Let's do your therapy then." I followed his lead up the tree and grab onto branches to help lift me up. Once he got to the top, he held out his hand for me to grab and pulled me up to the thick branch he was sitting on. "See, you can basically see everything from here."

"Yeah, it's nice." We stayed up in the tree and goofed off, talked more about our hobbies and what we wanted to do in the future, but I had a question for him that I've been dying to know. I breathed in slowly, feeling so relaxed. I haven't had this much fun in such a long time. I looked over at Ray, he was staring up at the clouds swaying in the sky. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"What happened to your mom?" He gazes still fixated on the sky as he began to speak about his mother. "Well, she died." I regret even asking him now, from the looks of it, he doesn't seem like he ever got over it. He gulped and then continued. "She had cancer and it spread pretty fast throughout her body, you know we weren't all church savvy until she died. She always prayed and was the one who was really into God and my dad wasn't but when she died, I got sent to Christan boarding school and my dad became the preacher of the towns church."

"Wow, sorry I asked, I just never saw anyone ever live with your dad, I always assumed he was single and didn't have kids."

"Yeah, it is weird, my father tried his hardest to keep us hidden, but I knew your mom, I didn't think she was a mother though, she never spoke about you."

"You met my mom?"

"Yeah, she used to come over often,"

"Huh, that's interesting, I had no idea our parents were such good friends." He nodded his head and I leaned back on the tree.

We spent the rest of the afternoon, eating our picnic foods and bonding, but the day was slowly coming to an end. I texted my mom earlier and told her I will be staying late after school and Ray did the same, but it was beginning to get dark and we didn't want our parents to get suspicious.

"Alright I have everything packed, let's start heading home." When we got back to our houses, I saw the Rev staring out the window at Ray and me.

"Oh s**t, your dad." He looked over and the Rev's arms were crossed and he looked very upset.

"Yeah, he definitely looks angry."

"You sure you want to go home? You can stay with me."

"No, it's okay, it's probably something dumb, I'll see you later." I was a little bit upset that I couldn't get a kiss goodbye but that thought quickly left when I saw my mom standing a few feet away from the front door with an angry expression and her arms crossed too.

"Where the f**k have you been Craig!?" Oh s**t.