The Tribuo - 5. part 1, chapter 5

- V -

FRIDAY

It was five-thirty in the morning when I woke up. At first, I couldn’t figure out where the hell I was. Then I remembered. And then I realized with sweet, tingling horror that I was encircled in Jennah’s arms, my back pressed firmly against his stomach, his warm breath in my hair. Oh dear God, we were spooning… Jesus. The weird part was that it didn’t even occur to me to get off that couch or to move away from Lucas’ body. I remembered my last night conversation with Jess and immediately cracked up.

“Hey,” Lucas muttered into my hair sleepily.

“Morning,” I said, wondering why I didn’t feel even a little bit uncomfortable right now.

I felt him kissing my shoulder gently.

“What’s funny?” he asked after a few seconds.

“Oh,” I laughed again. “I just remembered Jess’ reaction on the phone last night…”

“Oh, right,” he snorted. “You hungry?”

“Not for food,” I sighed and turned towards him.

“Right,” he hemmed and then he was kissing me again.

Well, we were both starving for food around seven in the morning.

“IHOP is open,” Lucas said thoughtfully. “What’s our first class?”

“Math?” I frowned a little. “Or maybe lit… I am not sure.”

“Skip the first class for food sake?” he offered.

“Sounds good to me,” I agreed immediately.

“So,” he said when were chugging down coffee.

“Mmm?” I asked.

“That thing you did…” he said very seriously. “It was… umm…”

I blinked.

“What thing?”

“With your tongue,” he was still very serious. “That was amazing…”

“Oh,” I smirked. “Yeah, thanks. It’s something I wanted every single girl I’ve been with to do to me… They never did though,” I sighed.

“Ha,” Lucas said as seriously as before. “Well, demonstrate it a couple more times, and I am sure I’ll be able to copy that…”

“Deal,” I nodded and he finally smiled.

“Be right back,” he said and set his mug on the table.

There was almost nobody in the restaurant at the moment, and not a single waitress was looking our way. So, before walking away, Lucas kissed my mouth and I kissed him back. I watched him walk away and my mood was beyond good. It was almost ecstatic. Then someone breathed very heavily into my ear and I almost chocked on my coffee.

“Good… God…” she said in a quiet, terrified whisper.

I whirled around.

“Jess!!” I hissed at her.

She stared at me without blinking.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” I was seething. “Get out!”

Instead of getting out, she marched towards Jennah’s side of the table and sat down. Of course, she was my sister, what did I expect?

“Last night…” she said very evenly. “You know, I was so positive that you were with some girl… Or girls… When you said, 'Jennah’s house,' I figured that you had an orgy or something, you know?”

“Jess…” I closed my eyes. “Will you just…”

“But then…” she ignored me, of course. “Then you were all weird… It sounded that you were with…” she stuttered. “So at first, I was all like, 'Oh my God!!' you know? And then I thought, no way. He is just bullshitting me, as usual… So then, I couldn’t sleep… And then…”

“What did you tell Mom?” I demanded and she grimaced.

“I told her that you were staying at some guy’s house to do the project. And she actually believed that, by the way.”

“Oh thank…”

“So then,” she continued without even listening to me. “I am thinking, okay. I wonder if he shows up at school tomorrow. So I wait for you in the parking lot, and of course…” she paused and drank some coffee out of my mug. “Of course, you are not there… So I am thinking, okay. If he did have an orgy last night, he’d be probably stuffing his face with food right now…”

“Jess…”

“So then I am thinking, it’s early, Jennah can’t be living too far from here… So what place is open this early in the morning? So I came here.”

“Yes,” I grumbled. “Your deduction skills are fantastic. Now get out!”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” she finished my coffee and shook her head. “You are buying me breakfast. Because after what I just saw, I might collapse, you know…”

“Shut up,” I moaned and buried my face in my hands. “God, Jess… Why can’t you just…”

“Ummm, good morning…?”

Yeah, yeah. Great.

“Lucas,” I muttered. “My evil twin was spying on me…”

“Whatever,” Jess snorted and I looked at her, surprised by her tone of voice. It wasn’t hostile, unbelievable!

She was staring at Jennah with raw curiosity, her fingers hugging my coffee mug. She kept sitting in Jennah’s seat without making any effort to move. Lucas shrugged and sat next to me.

“So,” Jess said very thoughtfully. “You fooled me.”

“Oh yeah?” Jennah hemmed, pulling his mug away from her.

“Yeah,” she said. “I would never even imagine that you and my brother…” she snorted and shook her head. “This is too weird… I mean, I would never imagine that my brother would… After all those girls… He would…”

“Shut up,” I hissed at her and, to my enormous surprise, she did.

“Well,” Jennah shrugged again and opened the menu. “I am hungry.”

“Me too,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, me three,” Jess sighed. “Oh hey, do you think we can get another coffee mug? This one is dirty…”

I threw a spoon at her and she actually laughed.

****

After we were done with breakfast, Jennah and I had no desire whatsoever to go to school.

“Jess,” I said finally, and she just rolled her eyes and got up.

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “You are sick, whatever… Throwing up on your deathbed as we speak…”

“Thanks,” I smiled at her. Wow, I really loved my sister right now, how weird is that?

“Thanks my ass,” she muttered. “You are not getting away with thanks, mister!”

“I know,” I nodded.

“You'd better be back at school on Monday!”

“I will.”

“And you'd better come home tonight!”

“I wi… Actually, I am not sure about that one.”

“Ugh! Then call Mom yourself!”

“Computer disaster,” Lucas said thoughtfully. “Those are always believable. And if you add a broken printer… And a vicious deadline…”

“I’ll have a winner,” I agreed immediately.

Jess sighed and picked up her backpack.

“Matt,” she said.

“What?” I asked her after she fell silent.

“Nothing,” she finally shook her head. “At least now I can see why you were such a pig before…”

I would say something nasty to her but I didn’t. I mean, she was covering for me and all, you know…

****

Jennah was absolutely right. After a couple more demonstrations, he was more than capable to copy the thing he liked so much. He even managed to add something else to it.