Page 8 of Seeds of Malice

He adds a set of plates inside the cupboard and turns back to me. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. "Yeah, I have all that and a bunch of boring people who are overrated and only know how to do the same thing."

"What's that?"

"They know how to be boring," he claims.

"You can't tell me all your friends are boring," I insist.

"Well, Bobby's mostly interesting, although he's getting boring too. But everyone else, yeah, they're boring. But you... Now, you seem pretty interesting," he says with more enthusiasm.

I bite my lip. How am I in any way interesting to him? I'm just a girl from West Virginia.

"Why do you look like you don't believe me?" he questions.

"I just find it hard to believe your life is boring."

His lips curve. "Well, you're going to have to hang out with me and then you can judge my life. But again, I said the people around me are boring. I'm pretty sure it won't be boring if you and I hang out. Like right now, I'm not bored."

I shake my head, pointing at all the boxes. "You can't tell me this interests you...unpacking my stuff."

"Oh, but it does," he claims, breaking down a box. He studies the room, adding, "We'll have the whole kitchen done in no time and then it'll be time for a break."

I reply, "I still have the bedrooms to do."

"The bedrooms will wait. You can't be all work and no play. That's not good for you," he says with mischief in his eyes.

Something about it makes me nervous. I question, "And what is it that you want to do?"

"I told you we can go to the pool. Or if you want, we can go on the boat."

"The boat?"

"Yeah. We can pick one of the boats."

I laugh. "Oneof the boats?"

He shrugs again. "Sure, you can pick. Don't tell me no. I'm helping you so we can go hang out."

Does this guy really want to hang out with me that badly? Surely, his life is not that boring.

He challenges, "Come on, Ivy. What's it going to be? Boat or pool?"

I take a deep breath. "Let's start with the pool. I don't think we have time to go boating when I have to do the rest of the house."

"I'll help you."

"No, I'll do my bedroom and my dad's bedroom myself," I say, for some reason thinking we need a little bit of privacy.

"Okay, suit yourself. Let's finish this kitchen, but we're going on the boat on a different day," he insists.

I try to stop my smile. "Okay, that's a deal." I wonder if my life is really getting this amazing. It's only been a day, and I've already made a new friend. And he's super hot. But I'm not worrying about that because there's no way he can seriously be interested in me. Not with all the girls I'm sure he's around. But it'll be nice to hang out by the pool, and boating does sound like fun. I've never boated except for the few times I went in a row boat one of the kids in my class had.

"You can swim, right, Ivy?" he questions.

"Yeah, I can swim. I used to go in the lakes up in the mountains."

"Ah, all right, good. I don't have to worry about you drowning, then."

"Do you always worry about people dying on your watch?" I tease.

---