Careless and Reckless — Chapter 18

It's dark outside. We've been driving for about twenty minutes, not too long but the sun doesn't stay up past about five at this time of year. Yay for shitty weather.

After another five or so minutes Wyatt finally parks his car. We must've driven quite far away considering how fast he drives. I'm still not a fan of his speeding and I doubt I ever will be but he doesn't listen no matter how much I badger him. It's a lost cause I suppose.

"Where are we?" I ask as I take off my seatbelt.

"You'll see," he replies, a smirk on his face.

I roll my eyes at him but get out of the car nonetheless. My feet hit the wet tarmac beneath me, it must've rained in this area recently. I close the car door softly behind me, not wanting to damage it and let my eyes scan my surroundings.

The sun has completely set now, the only thing illuminating my surroundings are the scarcely placed lampposts that are next to useless because the bulbs within them are so dim almost no light is given off. We seem to be the only ones around and I'm not quite sure if that unnerves me or makes me more comfortable.

I turn on the balls of my feet to face Wyatt and give him a curious look as I cast a glance at the black duffel bag now on his shoulder. "What's in there?" I ask, gesturing to the bag.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out," he says, still smirking. This time I audibly groan in annoyance at his cryptic response. He merely chuckles at my discomfort before taking three strides towards me, walking past me and telling me to follow him.

I do so with little protest, considering I don't want to be left here all alone. We walk for about five minutes, not talking because I'm too anxious to speak. Hundreds of scenarios run through my head, none of them good. I take a deep breath and shake the thoughts from my head. I'm overthinking this. It will all be fine.

Wyatt soon comes to a halt in front of some old looking buildings. I give him a strange look when he turns to see me but he just wears an amused smile at my reaction.

He throws the bag he's been carrying onto the floor, unzips it and starts to rummage around the contents. I hear the clanking of metal as he does so. What could be in there? Weapons? That's stupid, why would he have weapons unless–

I'm cut off from my ludicrous imagination by Wyatt pulling out two cans of spray paint and handing one to me. That's when I realise what we're doing.

"You want me to graffiti?" I ask incredulously.

He nods a cheeky grin on his face as he further thrusts the can into my hands. I take hold of the cool metal but shake my head at him. "Wyatt that's illegal. I don't want to get arrested," I tell him even though I was pretty sure he was going to suggest we do something illegal before we left.

He waves me off. "It's a minor thing green eyes. It's not like I'm asking you to kill a man. Let loose. The whole point of this is for you to have fun, be reckless and not care about the consequences. It's going to take time but if you won't even do the small things we're never going to get anywhere."

He's right about that. Heck, it was my idea to do this in the first place but my conscience is telling me that this is wrong. "But–" I start but am cut off by Wyatt talking again.

"No buts. There's no point to this if you refuse the minor things. Have some fun and stop being so boring."

Boring.

I am NOT boring. "Fine," I sigh, giving in.

He grins at me. "That's more like it. Now, which colour do you want?"

~*~*~

A little while later I'm finally done with my masterpiece. I smile at it proudly as I put a can of black spray paint back into Wyatt's bag.

"What did you paint?" Wyatt asks as he walks up to me, disposing of his own cans as well.

"See for yourself," I say, grinning at him.

He walks over to where I've been painting and takes a few moments to study my work. "It's the same design as your tattoo right?" He asks, eyebrows furrowed.

I nod at him.

"If you don't mind me asking, why is it that you chose the same design?"

I shrug at him but choose not to answer. Wyatt gets the hint and changes the topic. "Well, you did a pretty good job of it. I never knew you were good at art," he says.

I smile at him. "Thanks. I actually take it as an after school thing. I didn't have enough space to take it as an A-level and I didn't want to take an extra subject and give myself more work so I just do it on the side as a hobby," I tell him.

He looks at me for a moment, almost as if studying me before he nods. He goes to pick up his duffel bag and it's at that moment that we hear police sirens.

"Fuck," he and I both curse simultaneously. I send Wyatt a look of panic as he snatches the duffel bag from the ground. Before you could even say 'Disney is life' he has grabbed my hand and started sprinting in the direction of the car. I match his pace without too much difficulty seeing as I run regularly and have a high stamina. Wyatt's stamina is pretty good too though, I've got to give him credit there.

We sprint like our lives depend on it, rather our criminal records, and make it to the inconspicuous black vehicle in a matter of minutes. I hop in the car and Wyatt chucks the bag in the back seat before jumping in himself and zooming off at lightning speed.

"Wyatt," I start uneasily after a few minutes, "don't drive so fast you're just drawing more attention to us."

He slows down a considerable amount at my words but is still going about fifteen over the speed limit, for him that's a miracle. We drive in tense silence, both of us still on alert. After ten or so minutes we hear police sirens again. Fuck.

Wyatt and I both know that there's no point in speeding away as we can already see the blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror so instead we pull up on the side of the road, waiting for the policeman to come up to us.

Within moments the sirens and flashing lights stop and a car door slams. Yep, we would've never gotten away. A man who's considerably tall, with neat black hair, stubble, chestnut brown eyes and a strong build knocks on Wyatt's window. He has a stern expression plastered onto his sharp features but upon seeing Wyatt's face it changes to a lighthearted one. I'm guessing that they know each other.

"Wyatt," the man begins in a teasing tone, "I hear you've been speeding again."

Wyatt shrugs but grins at him nonetheless, "you know me uncle Mitch, always up to something."

Uncle Mitch? I look between the two of them trying to notice the resemblance. Whilst it's true that they both have many attractive features I wouldn't have thought them to be related. Wyatt notices my confusion and says, "Aurora this is my uncle, Mitchell, he's my dad's half-brother. Uncle Mitch this is my friend Aurora," gesturing to the both of us with his hands. Okay, that makes much more sense.

"Pleasure to meet you," I say in a quiet voice, my shy-self kicking in as it does when I'm around new people, "I wish I could've been under better circumstances."

He waves me off with a chuckle, "lovely to meet you as well, it's not often I see my nephew out with a girl, especially doing something he actually enjoys like graffitiing."

I look at him in shock, he connected the dots quickly. "Didn't take you long to figure us out, huh?" Wyatt says.

"Nah, I had a feeling it was you to begin with plus I can see the cans poking out of that duffel bag in your backseat." Wyatt gives him a sheepish smile at that.

"And Aurora," he says, looking from Wyatt to me, "don't worry about this. I've seen Wyatt do much worse and let him off so this is nothing," he smiles.

I send him a small smile back and nod in thanks.

"Great. Now that that's all sorted I need to speak to my nephew quickly. Wyatt, come outside please."

He does as he's told with no protest and himself and his uncle walk in the direction of the police car. A few minutes later Wyatt comes back in the car, waving at his uncle as he starts the engine.

A few moments later were on the road again this time driving at the speed limit. Maybe his uncle told him not to speed anymore. I doubt it and even if he did I doubt it would work but regardless I'm just glad that he's driving at a normal pace for once.

"What did your uncle want to talk about?" I ask, trying my luck at finding out more about him.

"Nothing much," he says but doesn't elaborate so I choose to change the subject.

"He seems like a great guy," I say and when I do I know I've hit the jackpot because Wyatt's mesmerising blue eyes light up.

"He's great, honestly one of the best people I know," he tells me, a smile on his face.

"Tell me about him."

That was all I said for the rest of way back. I let Wyatt speak of his uncle without interrupting once. It was nice to see him so comfortable and happy. I'm glad his uncle does that to him. The whole way back Wyatt spoke of stories of his uncle and times they've shared. He sounds like a legend, I definitely like him after hearing all about him.

Who knew just listening to people's stories could be so interesting? I sure as hell didn't but I guess there's a first time for everything.