(Woo-Hoo! We're hitting triple digit! Gimme double the powerstone to celebrate!)
[Edward POV]
After Luke and Manny finished with their homework, they came to the living room with Claire and Phil following them from behind.
"Oh! Thank god!" Phil muttered as he saw Haley had finally stopped watching the movie.
Haley was currently glaring at Alex who disrupted her intimate moment and pretending to be on the phone, while Alex kept discussing the decathlon materials with me without caring about the hostile gaze.
Claire saw the scene in the living room and smiled brightly as we kept things PG without her there.
"Ed, do you want some snacks?" She asked.
"No need Claire. Can I go to the room now, or do you still need some time to clean it up?" I asked.
Claire was taken aback and then smiled wryly as she was caught. She said, "I…No, Luke's room is clean enough…for now…"
"Okay thanks."
"Are you boys going to sleep?" Claire asked casually as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Manny and Luke turned to each other while I looked at the clock. "Claire…it's 8.30."
"Luke's bedtime is at 9…So…" Claire said before clapping slightly, "All the kids should go to sleep at the same time. Manny…and you included Ed."
I paused for a while and said while meeting her eyes, "Yeah…I'm not going to do that."
"My house, my rules." Claire parented skillfully.
"I still need to do some work, Claire." I debated.
"No arguments." Claire said sternly. I narrowed my eyes at her, making her flinch.
"What?" She asked warily.
"Nothing. Just wondering about something." I muttered.
"W-W-What are you thinking about?" Claire asked as she crossed her arms together.
"I'm wondering why you want me to follow your rules so badly." I said. "Does it stem from your cripping need for control, or maybe you wanted to pop open a glass of wine and have a good time with Phil after all the kids were forced to go to sleep-"
"OKAY STOP!" Claire said and put her hand on my shoulder. I still have an innocent smile on my face, which made Claire feel twice the horror than if I made a scary face at this moment.
"I'm not letting you sleep late. I'll allow you to…extend the bedtime…until 10 o'clock. Then, all of you will have to go to sleep!" Claire said decisively before she harrumped away.
"WHOA HO HO HO~!" Luke and Manny exclaimed in excitement before Luke said, "Nice. We have a later bedtime! Thanks ED!"
"Whatever. I'm not sleeping at 10. Otherwise I will wake up at 2. Phil, do you have any workout instruments?" I asked as I turned to Phil.
"Umm…I think so?" Phil questioned himself. I scrunch my face in confusion, so did Haley and Alex.
[Phil's commentary]
"I have…a…. 5 lbs pink weight and the street strider…Oh, and also a trampoline!..." Phil said with excitement at the last part before he turned depressed again, "So no…I don't have anything he could use to work out right now…"
[commentary ends]
"That doesn't matter. Luke, get on my back." I ordered.
"ON IT!" Luke saluted before running to follow me from behind as we moved to his room. "Manny, you're joining me!" I shouted at Manny who was frozen at his initial spot. Phil seemed helpless, and Claire patted his shoulder and chest to comfort him as she could guess what he was feeling right now.
[Claire's commentary]
"Both boys, and even the girls were looking at Ed for direction and guidance…I guess Phil was a bit jealous… But he's settling for Ed looking at HIM…for guidance." Claire explained before she lowered her eyes and whispered, "But I need to make sure Phil doesn't turn him into another…well you know…Phil."
[Commentary ends]
"Is this really necessary?" Manny asked whiningly, and he definitely didn't want to work out this late at night…or ever.
"You're asking me how to make a girl swoon right? If you don't come, I won't tell you~" I said cheekily, making both Haley and Alex grin. Manny saw the girl's reactions, and was immediately filled with motivation.
"WAIT FOR ME!" He shouted as he ran to catch up with us. Haley and Alex decided to watch and they followed us to Luke's bedroom and leaned on the doorframe without actually coming into the room. I took off my shirt as we got into the room, revealing my toned abs, but not yet sculpted.
"Hum-" Haley bit her lower lips and let out a turned on groan, making me roll my eyes at her. I turned to Luke and said, "Can you ask your mom for a spray bottle filled with water? I want to spray your sister everytime she looks at me like that." I censored my wordings as I was with 2 ten years old, otherwise my words would be a lot more crude.
Haley was taken aback while the others laughed at her. As I started to work out, Manny was a bit apprehensive to follow me in doing the routine.
"Why?" I asked.
"I don't feel comfortable exercising with people staring at me."
Alex rolled her eyes and said, "We're not even looking at you-"
"You know what Manny. You're right. If you don't feel comfortable doing it, then you don't have to force yourself to do it. But in this case, there's a simple solution for it."
"Huh. What's the solution?" Manny asked in confusion.
I walked to the door, making both of the girls stare at me in confusion. Then, I waved at them and slowly closed the door to their faces.
"What the fuc-" Haley almost cursed from outside the door. "HALEY!" Claire heard it and shouted at her. I smiled in satisfaction, while Manny was thoroughly impressed by my actions.
"What?" I asked him.
"You know, I don't think I will ever have the bravery to do what you just did." Manny confessed.
I placed my hand on his shoulder and comforted him, "Yeah. I know."
"..."
After teasing Manny, we started working out for real. I let him do simple body stretches first as a warm up before coaching him. Luke was laughing at Manny's misery from beside me, so I slowly turned toward him with a stern expression.
"This is all your fault." Luke was accused as he was forced to do the exercise beside Manny.
"I don't even want to do this in the first place." Manny exclaimed, and he could no longer do the knee on the floor push ups I gave him, and laid flat on the hardwood tiles.
"I quit." Manny said while breathing heavily.
"Hmm? I thought you wanted me to teach you how to get girls?" I asked.
"If getting girls means changing who I am, then I don't want to do it anymore." Manny argued as he turned and laid on his back.
I nodded and said, "Then. That's that."
"What? You're not trying to motivate me? Or tell me about the benefits of needing exercises?" Manny asked in confusion after seeing I gave up so easily.
"Why should I? With you knowing that question, I could assume that you're already familiar with it. You're a smart boy. I'm sure you've already figured it all out by now."
Manny hesitated for a while, and his face turned crestfallen. I didn't want to torture him for long, so I baited him. "Too bad your mother could only live for 20 more years because of you."
"Huh? Why? Will Manny kill Gloria?" Luke asked in confusion, and tried to stop exercising, but I noticed it and used my eyes to stare at him until he did the pushups again.
"Will I kill my mother Ed? Why?" Manny asked in puzzlement. His face lit up and there was a certain madness in his eyes – a mama boy's 'I will protect my mother no matter what' madness.
"Or will you kill his mother cause he's not listening to you?" Luke hypothesized.
"You BASTARD-"
"Nah Nah. You misunderstand me. No one is murdering Gloria. I'm just saying, when Manny dies from a blocked artery at the age of 30, then Gloria will die from a broken heart and follow him into the afterlife." I replied casually while holding Manny's head with one arm, stopping him from trying to lunge at me.
Manny froze and he trembled with the fear of losing his own mother. I know I was being manipulative, but as Gloria said before, 'the only thing stronger than fear, is Manny's love for his mother.'
Now inside of Manny, his unwillingness of changing and trying to be better, the feeling of burdensomeness when he actually needs to take care of himself every single day to get better, were all being rewritten by the fear of actually killing his own mother…allegedly. This whole conversation was hypothetical.
"You're exaggerating." Luke said in disdain.
"Luke. You don't know a Latina mother. Especially a Colombian one." I replied. Manny had the tiny trace of suspicion in his heart before, and it was promptly distinguished by this statement.
"ARGHH!" Manny broke into full speed squats and push ups after his spirit was lit by his love for his mother. But, he fell lifelessly on the bed just half an hour later.
"Aren't you going to clean up first?" I asked Manny who was sweating all over. Luke only did the initial part, so he wasn't sweating, but he was tired as it was almost 10 pm right now.
Luke's bedroom has a bunk bed. Luke climbed into the top part, while Manny was already sleeping on the second part. Also, Manny couldn't even climb to the upper part of the bunk bed without help – further intensifying my desire to help him get the proper fitness a normal 10 year old boy should have.
"Sweet dreams you guys. If we see each other in our dreams, let's pretend we don't know each other. Goof around a little bit before we get together. Alright?"
"Uh." Manny answered with a groan and a thumbs up.
"I will not be able to see you anyway. I'm thinking of becoming Godzilla and destroying New York, so don't come around that town." Luke muttered as he rubbed his tired eyes.
I was taken aback at first before I replied, "Okay got it. Avoid New York."
Luke nodded before he smiled and rested his head on the pillow, peacefully falling asleep.
"I pity the residents of New York Dreamland." I muttered before walking out of the room to take a shower.
…
[General POV]
Inside of the girls room, Haley grunted in annoyance after the door was slammed in her face. She paced from left to right, and right to left in her room, just muttering madly to herself about the ways Edward had slighted her.
"Calm down. So he could see that you couldn't keep yourself single any longer. He's right, you know. Relationships are like a drug in your system. It's only been 2 months of you being single, and you're now having withdrawal syndromes. Messing with Ed is like your nicotine patch. It's good to alleviate the symptoms, but it's not really the cure." Alex said in rare calmness despite her sister's annoying behavior going on in front of her.
Haley was taken aback for a moment before she said mockingly, "I know that!" Then, she added, "But he shouldn't throw that to my face. And you threw yourself at him too."
Alex was flabbergasted and defended herself quickly, "What- I didn't-"
"Oh please. Where's your boyish shirt, huh!? Why are you wearing a blouse right now? And why are you sticking to him like glue when I'm trying to watch a movie with my boyfri-"
"See right there? Relationship withdrawal. You know you really have a problem do you?" Alex said in a concerned tone as her sister's behavior was alarming for her.
"Shut up! Without being in a relationship, I don't even know myself anymore!" Haley admitted with gritted teeth before she sat on the edge of her bed.
Alex thought for a while and warily asked, "Don't a lot of boys in school already ask you out? Why don't you pick one of them and be done with it?"
Haley scoffed but she didn't answer. How could she reply that she felt they were nowhere near Ed? That would make her an obsessive bitch, and she didn't like that.
"I'm going to take a shower." Haley said after thinking for a while.
"You didn't name your electric toothbrush Edward, did you?" Alex asked in disgust.
"NO!!!" Haley replied exasperatingly.
There was only one bathroom on the upper floor of the house, outside of the girls room, shared by both Luke and the girls while Claire and Phil had their own bathroom inside their bedroom.
Claire and Phil had already eased up on the bed as they both had a busy day today. However, they weren't quite asleep just yet.
After 5 minutes, Haley was showering inside the bathroom, free from all thoughts. She stood underneath the shower head stark naked inside the tub before putting on shower cream on her body. As she picked up the shower cream container, a bushy, 8 legged creature suddenly greeted her as it was exposed!
She froze, her eyes blinked twice to process what was happening.
"ARGH! SPIDER!" Haley screamed!
…
[Edward POV]
I had already taken off my clothes and was only wrapping my waist with a towel and stood in front of the bathroom door. My hand halted as I was going to turn the knob as I heard some showering noise coming in from inside the room. Therefore, I turned back and decided to wait until the one inside was finished before I cleaned myself up.
Until, I suddenly heard a distress shout coming from inside the room.
"AHH! SPIDER!!!"
"Wait. Haley? HALEY, DO YOU WANT ME TO COME IN?" I asked as I could hear she was wreaking havoc inside the room.
"YES PLEASE!" Haley yelled while trying to throw the soap dispenser to the 8 legged creature. The creature avoided her attack by moving to the left and right before inching its way toward her, causing her to scream again.
I twisted the door knob hard, and the lock broke so easily that I was almost surprised by its brittleness, and almost fell down as the door was propped open abruptly. I entered quickly, unaware that I had closed the door as I slammed it shut.
"KILL IT KILL IT!" Haley pointed her finger at the 'monster' attacking her. I saw that the little guy had fallen down to the water and was almost sucked into the drain despite its tremendous effort to avoid Haley's assault.
"Hey. It's alright." I said calmly to the both of them as I slowly scooped the spider out of the water.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! KILL IT!" Haley screamed and slapped my hand away from behind me, making the spider roll 3 times in the air before falling on the dry floor of the bathroom.
"UGH! Haley!" I groaned in frustration as she kept throwing things at the creature. It kept avoiding her, but it seemed that its stamina was already on the brink of draining. Haley kept grabbing some stuff near her, until she finally grabbed something she was not supposed to– my towel, and threw it at the spider.
I was so baffled, that my jaw dropped as I turned to look at her. She froze as she saw what she had done, and now, there were 2 naked people inside the bathroom, staring awkwardly at each other for about 10 seconds as no one knew how to react to this situation.
Taking advantage of the situation, the spider crawled to the tiny window up above the bathroom wall, and jumped outside of the house before spraying a web parachute and got picked up by the wind to go someplace else. Or that's what I imagined it had done.
"Hey. What happened?"
Both of us could hear Claire's anxious voice coming from in front of the door, breaking us out from our daze.
"I'm coming in!" She said and the door was opening slightly. Without me realizing it, Haley grabbed me and pulled me into the shower tub before closing the shower curtain and opening the shower faucet again. Claire entered the bathroom, and almost reached the shower zone. She grabbed the shower curtain with one hand, preparing to open it and see what was going on.
Haley held her breath and before she could open her mouth, I cupped it and shouted first, "Claire. It's Me!"
Claire instinctively stopped her hand and froze as it wasn't one of her children inside of it. If it was Haley or anyone else, she would just barge into the shower without any concern about their embarrassment.
"E-E-Ed? I thought I heard a girl's voice?" Claire asked in confusion and a bit of embarrassment.
I mouthed to Haley, 'Why the hell did you pull me in here?'
'I PANICKED!' She mouthed back as I released her mouth.
'What should I say now?' I asked anxiously.
'Make something up! She can't know! Or She'll ban you from coming…EVER!'
"Ed? What's going on?" Claire asked again, her suspicions grew as I took so long to answer. I swear to god I got so many IQ points that it lowered my EQ points greatly to balance it all out.
"Uhh… I sound like a girl sometimes when I scream." I muttered, and regretted what I said the second it came out of my mouth. Haley almost laughed, and I glared at her, making her keep her voice down .
"Really?" Claire asked in both confusion and bewilderment as she processed it.
"Yeah…I'm…self conscious about it… And will definitely suffer if you ever told someone else what happened here today. I might even stop coming here forever." I said with a grim tone.
Claire was surprised behind the curtain, but she still hadn't let go of the thin layer of barrier separating us.
My heart palpitates like crazy, and my extreme skin-to-skin contact with Haley allowed me to hear her crazy heart beats too. But she was distracted and kept looking down during my whole ordeal, which drove me almost insane.
'Stop looking at it!' I mouthed.
'SORRY. It's just ... It's right there.' She replied with no sounds while pointing at something.
"Oh. Are you sure you're fine? " Claire asked again in a worrying tone.
"Yeah. The spider is gone now." I replied, hoping that she would go away soon without noticing anything weird inside the room.
"Oh okay. I'm glad then. I'll help you pick up the shower dispenser." Claire said and handed me the bottle of soap from the gap of the curtain.
"That's close enough Claire. Thanks." I said hurriedly as I grabbed the bottle. I handed it to Haley to hold as her hands were running wild.
"Also Ed, there's an interesting feature on the shower if you feel that the water is not hot enough-" Claire said in excitement as she wanted to share her knowledge of technology to me right now…while I was stark naked…in the shower…
" Mrs Robinson, I'm going to stop you right there. Remember what I'm doing over here… and I don't have any clothes on right now. Although I wouldn't mind you joining me, I just couldn't do that to Phil-"
"Oh! OHHH!!! Right right. Sorry." Claire was finally snapped back to reality and retreated hurriedly to the door. "Hey, why is the door broken?" She asked after collecting herself.
"I don't know. It broke before I even came in." I made some excuses.
"Oh. I'll have Phil take a look at it tomorrow. I will stand guard and not let anyone else come in while you're showering, so you can be at ease!" Claire said, offering her hospitality.
"No It's okay Claire. I'm still going to take a while."
"It's okay. You shouldn't feel unsafe while you're showering. I will stay." Claire said and closed the door behind her as she walked out.
"Okay thanks Claire. I appreciate it." I said with gritted teeth while shaking my fist in frustration as she kept lingering, but I couldn't actually say it was logical to ask her to go away.
"Now what?" I asked Haley. However, she hit me in the chest and said, "A naked girl is standing in front of you, and you're still hitting on her mother."
"Well speaking as most men, if I have the chance with both mother and daughter, and especially together, I will not be afraid to take it. But this is a separate topic no? Now, how the hell should we get out of here?"
Haley pumped off a couple of soap into her hand and started to wash me beginning from my chest.
"What the?"
"We're in the shower. She's going to be suspicious if you're not showering." She said and her hand tried to go down below the belt, but I grabbed it and said, "True. We're in the shower."
To her surprise, I pumped out the shampoo and started washing her hair.
"Oh my god, that's so good." Haley moaned with her eyes turned to the back of her head as she enjoyed the head massage. Finally, blood could reach her brain and she said casually, "Big deal. You go out first, and then, I'll come out after you lead her away."
"Haley. You had lived with your mother for 16 years. Do you really believe that after a guest comes and uses her shower, she won't come to check, and even clean it?"
"Oh shit. You're right? What should we do?" She finally understood the severity of the situation and freaked out a little. "By the way, you're really okay with both of us naked in the shower together huh?"
"Well…it's nothing I haven't seen before. And you're right, you did 'grow'." She replied casually before whispering seductively in my ear, "I'm a bit curious now to see where this will go."
I smiled and whispered back, making her bite her lower lips as she heard it, "The thought of taking your virginity while your mother is directly next door is like the devil's whisper in my ear. I'm… REALLY trying hard right now to keep myself rational, so please don't make it even worse."
"Humm~" She let out a cute moan before trying hard to calm herself up. She whispered, "You might have awakened something dangerous in me, or maybe there was always a seed there…"
"Focus Haley."
"Right. Sorry."
"Ummmmm…." Haley and I thought for a while, before Haley snapped her finger and said, "I got it!"
My eyes lit up expectantly and I asked, "What is it?"
"When you open the door and meet my mother, drop your towel."
"What the fuuc-" I paused…thought about it for a while, and replied, "That might work."
Haley and I both nodded our heads as we were sure of the plan was going to work, and she suddenly said, "Now with that solved, the next important question is…Are we sure we're not going to do anything while we're here?"