Careless and Reckless — Chapter 17

He turns around and sees me before I have the chance to close his door, well shit. "I'm so sorry," I say, looking away from him, my cheeks a deep shade of crimson.

"That's quite alright," I hear him chuckle, "no harm done." I hear some scuffling but I don't know if it's safe to look so I keep my head turned away. "You can look now," Zack says, chuckling to himself. I turn to him but I can't utter a word, this situation is too damn embarrassing. I just want to crawl in a hole and die, is that too much to ask?

"Cat got your tongue?" He jokes but I still can't reply. Every time I open my mouth no sound comes out. Oh god, I'm just making the situation ten times worse, you're such an idiot Ari. "Shy one I see," he says when I don't reply.

I shrug at him, not knowing what to say.

"Well I know I've already met you but I think it's best if I introduce myself again. We can start over and pretend this never happened, does that sound good?"

I nod.

"Well then, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm Zackary but you, my lady, can call me Zack," he says, bowing his head and sticking out his hand for me to shake.

I shake it, giggling at his antics and can't help laughing as I reply, "it's lovely to meet you Zack, I'm Aurora but you may me Ari." I curtesy after saying this to add to the effect. Now he laughs.

"Aurora as in the princess?" he questions. Here we go again. I nod. "But you look nothing like her."

I can't help but roll my eyes. "True, but my mum loves Disney so she decided to name me after one of her favourite characters even though I don't look like her," I answer.

"Right," he says, nodding. "Well, Ari, may I ask what it is you are doing in my house at this fine hour?" he asks, still upholding the charade.

"I'm here to tutor Wyatt but I forgot which door was his and wound up here," I tell him.

At this he laughs — of course my idiocy made someone laugh, just of course. "I see, well you were not far off, his room is the one next to mine." Damn, I was so close.

"Oh, right, thanks," I say, blushing a little.

"No problem. And Ari," he starts. I hum in response. "I hope you're not doing anything more than tutoring my brother."

I can't help my cheeks turning bright red at the accusation. "No, absolutely not. I'm not sure what kind of girl you think I am but I don't just randomly sleep with people I hardly know," I say, not actually offended — he probably just wanted a reaction out of me — but I pretend as though I am.

He seems taken aback by my fake attack. "No, I-I didn't mean-I didn't mean it like that," he stammers. I have to force myself to hold back a laugh and let him continue. "I was only joking, honest. I would never perceive you in such a way, or any woman for that matter — okay that last bit is a lie but I'm being honest when I say I didn't think of you like that, not in the slightest. You seem like a genuine girl who isn't only hanging out with my brother for popularity or sex. You don't–" I cut off his rambling with my laughter, I couldn't hold it back any longer.

He looked genuinely frightened of me for a moment and it was just hilarious. "Sorry," I start, "do continue," I smile mischievously whilst saying this.

He gapes at me, mouth opening and closing like a fish. "You-you were-you were joking?" He asks in an accusatory but flabbergasted manner.

"Yep," I say, popping the 'p'. "I knew you just wanted a reaction out of me. My brother does this to me from time to time so I've learnt not to get offended," I tell him. "I just thought it would be fun to try and work you up instead, low and behold it worked," I grin.

For a few long moments he doesn't say anything. Oh god, did I take that too far. Shit, I didn't think it was that bad.

My thoughts are cut off by his barking laughter. Wait, what?

"That," he starts, unable to stop laughing. "Was. Bloody. Brilliant," he wheezes out. "Never in my entire life has any girl ever done that to me before, well, except my sisters. I get why Wyatt likes you now, you're more than just a pretty face, you've got a good sense of humour as well," he grins. I blush at the compliments but attempt, unsuccessfully might I add, to hide that behind my hair.

"Thanks," I grin shyly at him, trying to ignore my red cheeks. "Well I should go now, I've already kept Wyatt waiting long enough, he'll probably kill me," I joke, heading towards the door.

"See you soon, Ari. I mean that, I like you." He says as I close the door behind me.

I guess the Kings aren't that bad, so far they've all been great company, nowhere near as pretentious and snobby as I thought they'd be. I really shouldn't prejudge people. I actually feel quite comfortable around the ones I've spoken to, can't say how I'll be around the rest though.

I push my thoughts to one side and knock on Wyatt's door. I've learnt my lesson, I won't be opening any doors at this house without knocking for now. "Come in," I hear from the other side of the mahogany.

I open the door to see Wyatt lying on his bed staring at the ceiling. "Finally green eyes!" He exclaims once I'm fully inside. "It's five o'clock now, how come you're so late?" He asks, eyebrows raised.

"Well, I got kinda lost on the way here and I'm not the best driver so there may have been a few mishaps on they way. Tiny ones though, nothing to worry about. Because of this it took a while to actually make it here. Then I had a run in, literally, with your sister Brooklyn, she's such a sweetie pie, honestly she's too adorable for words. Anyway, moving on, next I heard crying so I went to investigate. Long story short I found out Nathan had a daughter. Did you know that? Oh, what am I saying, of course you knew that, she's your niece for crying out loud. After that encounter I couldn't remember which door was yours and walked into Zack's room by accident so I had a short chat with him, he's actually quite easy to talk to. Who would've thought, I only felt super awkward at the beginning. Anyway then I found out which room was yours and came in here. And that brings up to the present, now you're all caught up," I breathe in heavily after recalling the past hour of my life. I said it all so quickly, I have a tendency to do that some times.

Wyatt looks at me, not moving for a few moments, most likely processing the mass amount of information I just fed him at lightening speed. "Never realised you were such a talker," he teases whilst grinning. I scowl at him but he just laughs. "What I gathered from that is that you're a shit driver with a horrible sense of direction and you met some of my siblings. Also, somehow you found out about my niece? How you managed that is beyond me."

I smile sheepishly at him but quickly change my tack and morph my expression to a neutral one. "Firstly, my driving and sense of direction aren't that bad," I lie. Wyatt doesn't look convinced. It's weird most people can't tell when I'm lying, I've been told I've got a good poker face but Wyatt, he sees straight through me, it's bloody annoying.

"Secondly, I'm a curious person with a knack for finding out things I'm not supposed to, what did you expect?" I tell him with a shrug.

"So what you're saying is that you're a nosy person who goes looking to find out things she's not supposed to," he says. He doesn't look irritated by his statement just amused.

"No," I correct him. "I don't go looking for anything. It all seems to find me," I tell him honestly.

Wyatt lifts his arms in frustration. "Whatever," he breathes. "Anyway, we better get started with the tutoring otherwise we won't get to do what I have planned. We're already an hour behind schedule." He gets up and moves over to his desk after saying this. He sure is motivated to work, I've no idea why, I mean who actually wants to do work? Not me, that's for sure.

"Right," I say, walking over to him. "Let's get this over with."

~*~*~

As usual the tutoring session was a piece of crap but I think I'm finally starting to get through to him. That's a good thing I suppose.

After Wyatt packs away his things he grabs a black duffel bag from under his bed and leads me down the stairs.

"What are we going to do?" I ask.

"You'll see," he replies with his signature smirk. As usual his answer is very cryptic. Fucking hell, am I ever going to get a straight answer from him?

He takes me to his garage that is filled with cars and a few motorbikes. "Why am I not surprised that you have this many cars?" I say in a sarcastic manner.

Wyatt rolls his eyes at me as he grabs a pair of keys from a hook and leads me over to the least luxurious car he owns. It's black and is still nice but is nowhere near as flamboyant as the others, it passes as a regular persons car if you can believe it.

Wait, if we're going in a normal car it's probably so we don't appear conspicuous. Shit. That means he wants do do something illegal or close to it.

"Wyatt," I start hesitantly, "please tell me we're not about to do something illegal," I say as I get inside the car and put my seatbelt on, with his driving I could probably do with four.

"We could be," is all he says as he starts the engine. The garage door opens and Wyatt zooms off, so we're back to the maniac driving, fantastic–note the sarcasm.

I gulp, not just from his driving but from what he said also. 'We could be' means yes and I wanted to keep my criminal record clean, let's just hope we don't get caught with whatever it is we're doing.