D&J - Gratified Affair - 04/?
Gratified Affair
drake & josh. drake/mindy, josh/ofc. chapter four. 3,189 words. pg.
“How can I be a million miles away if I’m right here with you?” Drake asked, trying to summon up some of his famous charm as he flashed a grin.
previous chapters
The week had passed by like nothing for Josh and he found himself working a late shift behind the candy counter at The Premiere. Part of his happy mood was due to the fact that it was finally Friday and even though the movie theater was crowded and bustling with people, he liked it better that way because it usually meant he could keep busy. But the majority of his happy mood was undeniably due in part to hanging out with Lisa so much over the past few days; just thinking of her would cause Josh to randomly smile, often catching the odd stares of passersby. He didn’t care that much though; infatuation was hitting him hard and fast and he was just grateful to finally have someone that he could call his own again.
Even though Josh hadn’t been in love with her, getting over Mindy was still hard for him. He had even challenged Drake to that silly bet of getting all those phone numbers and even though he’d won with a sly victory, it had still left him with a hollow empty feeling and a broken heart.
Josh had just finished helping a customer when he saw Mindy amble up to the counter, all smiles. Even though she’d been at the house nearly every day helping Drake, this was the first time he’d actually seen her outside of class.
“Hey, what’s up?” Josh greeted her as she leaned on her crossed arms on top of the glass counter.
“Not a whole lot. Cathy had to call her parents, so I thought I would stop by and say hi,” Mindy replied, resting her head in her palm. “Has it been super busy tonight?”
“Oh you know, no more than usual. So how’s the tutoring going? Drake doesn’t really say too much about it.”
“Really?” Mindy asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m surprised he hasn’t complained about the work to you.”
“Oh he does; he just doesn’t really talk about what goes on during your tutoring sessions. You know Drake really isn’t one for words,” Josh replied, taking a rag as he began to wipe the counter top.
“Yes, I was very aware of that fact when he gave me a rough, rough draft of the paper we’re working on,” Mindy noted, rolling her eyes as Josh smiled knowingly.
“That’s pretty impressive; you were able to even get a rough, rough draft out of him.”
“I had to let him write it with crayons. The different colors kept him entertained, like a little baby chimp or something,” Mindy replied dryly. “Oh by the way…this might sound weird, but has Drake been acting strange around you?”
“Define strange,” Josh said as he stood near the soda machine. “Do you want a Mocha Cola or something?”
“Sure, diet please.”
“With no ice; I remember,” Josh replied, grabbing a cup from under the counter. He missed the small smile on Mindy’s face as he began to fill the cup. “I haven’t really noticed anything out of the ordinary with Drake. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, maybe I’m paranoid,” she admitted, taking the plastic cup when he offered it to her. “Thanks. It’s just that…well, he keeps avoiding eye contact with me and he goes out of his way to sit on the opposite end of the couch or something. I mean, it’s no secret that we don’t like each other, but this is weird even for him. I didn’t know if you noticed anything or he was just saving this crazy behavior just for me.”
“I haven’t seen anything, but I’ll keep my eyes open,” Josh assured her as a thoughtful look crossed his face. He broke eye contact with Mindy for a moment as his blue eyes scanned the lobby of the busy theater. He saw plenty of random people until surprisingly, a familiar face broke from the crowd. He waved and called out to her. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Hi Josh,” Lisa greeted him, sidling up to the candy counter as she held a brown paper bag. “My mom and I were just doing a little shopping and we passed by an Auntie Anne’s so…” She slid the bag to him as he curiously looked inside. “I thought I’d get you a little something.”
“A soft pretzel?”
“With cream cheese.”
“Yesss,” Josh sighed in bliss, closing the bag back up. “Thank you, that was so nice of you!” Both of them were smiling silly at each other; when Josh realized Mindy was still standing there, he was only slightly jolted at the sight of her. “Oh! Sorry, Lisa this is my…”
He paused because he wasn’t quite sure how to bring about his relationship with Mindy. Not that they had a relationship anymore, but he hadn’t even officially asked Lisa to be his girlfriend yet, much less talk about exes. Mindy must’ve taken the hint because she stuck out her hand and filled the silence.
“Hi, I’m Mindy.”
“Lisa.”
They politely shook hands and Josh felt the awkward silence settle over them until Mindy cleared her throat and looked down at the plastic top on her drink.
“Okay, well I’m gonna go see if Cathy’s done with her phone call,” she told him. “Thanks again for the drink Josh. Nice meeting you Lisa.” They both waved good bye as she took off in the opposite direction.
--
Carly was always an on-again, off-again thing for Drake. As much as they had in common, more often than not they would grate against each other and cool out for awhile before finding their way back together again. They hadn’t been together for a couple weeks when he had called her that Friday, sweet talking his way into meeting her somewhere private. Somehow, they’d ended up making out in the backseat of her car while turning their relationship back to on-again.
But he wasn’t fully into it, not like other times. While the week had flown by for his step-brother, Drake had felt worn out by the time the final bell at school had rung for the weekend to arrive. Between band practice, school, and tutoring sessions, he had flopped into bed every night, completely exhausted. But like clockwork, he began to wake up in a cold sweat as dreams of Mindy continued to plague him.
They weren’t even the fun kind of dreams he used to have about her, back when she and Josh were still dating; the kind where she would fall off a cliff or get attacked by a giant spider or something. No, these were the kind of dreams that made him uncomfortable just being in the same room as her. Drake had tried not to make it obvious that he was avoiding her, but it was pretty hard when Mindy made it clear they were going to see each other every day until his paper was finished. It was also difficult to concentrate on her talking to him about prepositions and pronouns when his imagination was recalling the way her hands had slid over his skin in his dream from the night before.
“Drake…Drake.”
She sounded so far away, but he broke from his reverie to realize that he was still lying across the backseat of Carly’s car with her thin, petite body weighted against his lanky one as her fingers twirled in his long, auburn bangs.
“Yeah?”
“What’s wrong? You’re like a million miles away or something,” Carly told him, pouting.
“How can I be a million miles away if I’m right here with you?” Drake asked, trying to summon up some of his famous charm as he flashed a grin. Her full lips pressed against his smile as she made a tiny mumble of agreement.
“All right, if you say so,” Carly murmured, leaving a trail of kisses across his cheeks toward the tip of his freckled nose.
It wasn’t supposed to be happening like this. Here was Carly; cute, funny, and totally into him when the mood suited her. Things should’ve been good right now; they should’ve been going his way like they usually did. But Mindy had somehow managed to weasel her way into his mind; it was one thing if she popped into his subconscious nightly because he had no control over that.
But he was imagining Carly’s hair was straighter and more of a darker shade of brown and a little longer too, past her shoulders. She was already wearing a skirt, but maybe if her lips tasted more like that apricot lip gloss he noticed Mindy always carried around…
“I can’t….stop Carly, stop,” Drake breathed into her ear as he removed her hands from working his belt buckle. “I forgot something.”
“What?”
“I need…I need to go pick up Megan from oboe practice,” he improvised, not sure if she would buy the lie. “Usually Josh goes, but today is my turn and I guess I just…forgot.”
“Oh,” Carly said flatly, sitting up so that she sat upright on top of him. A fleeting look of worry crossed her face as she tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. “Do you need a ride?”
“No, no,” Drake replied quickly, moving so that he could prop himself up. They were tangled awkwardly for a moment before they separated. “It’s okay; it’s not that far from here.” He leaned over and kissed the apple of her flushed cheek. “I’ll call you later.”
Before she could even say goodbye, he was out of the car and had slammed the door shut behind him. Drake picked a direction and started walking; ironically, it was the opposite way of where Megan’s oboe practice was held.
Lucky for him, Carly didn’t know that.
--
It was the middle of the afternoon the next day when Drake and Mindy met again for another grueling session. He was leaned back in the cushy desk chair, mindlessly spinning in the seat as he watched her sitting properly on the couch while she read over his paper. He had managed to pull something together the night before and he had the sneaking suspicious she realized that when he saw her sigh and toss the paper on the coffee table.
“I don’t know Drake,” Mindy sighed again, leaning against the back of the worn couch. “How do you feel about the paper?”
He shrugged and avoided her gaze. “I don’t know. It’s just a rough draft.”
“Okay, yeah it is just a rough draft. But a rough draft is supposed to be sort of like a blueprint for what the final paper is supposed to be,” she explained, tiredly lacing fingers through her hair. “I just…I don’t know, I just don’t feel like I’m getting through to you.”
Drake crossed his arms over his polo shirt and didn’t say anything as he continued watching her. This was a different side of Mindy he wasn’t used to seeing; all week, they had taken petty swipes at each other while she tried to explain the basics of English to him and well…he wasn’t going to sugarcoat the fact that he’d basically ignored her tips and gave her drafts that he thought he could get by on. He should’ve counted on the fact that she could see through his act and now they were left with her frustration and his boiling boredom.
What he hadn’t counted on was that in his boredom, there was a feeling of…guilt? True, Drake had been avoiding Mindy like she was the common cold, but he wasn’t blind to how hard she was trying to work at helping him. But his stubbornness was beginning to wear him out and maybe it would just be easier to give in to her.
“Mindy, it’s not…completely your fault,” Drake said, breaking the silence with soft words. “Look, you and I both know that I’m not a fan of all this school stuff. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of relating the stuff to something I’m interested in.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” Drake said as he stood from his chair and began to pace. “A few years ago, Josh helped me cram overnight for the Quiz Bowl - ”
“Wait, you were in a Quiz Bowl?”
“Yeah, it was for this insanely cute girl.”
“Naturally.”
“Can I finish please?”
“Sorry; go ahead.”
Drake moved from his spot near the window and sat down on the couch next to her and she noticed that it was the closest they’d been near each other all week. “Anyway, Josh couldn’t get the concept of atoms and molecules through to me, so he started relating it to music.”
Mindy looked at him thoughtfully and reached for his rough draft as her mind spun with possible techniques she’d learned from the tutoring program orientation. So far, none of them had worked on him, but something he said had sparked the beginnings of an idea in her.
“Relating it to music huh?” she asked rhetorically, her eyes perusing over his barely legible scrawl. It was a miracle she’d managed to make it through the first time. “Okay, so you write your own songs, right?”
“Yeah, all the time. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything!” She exclaimed, feeling an excitement build inside her as she enthusiastically waved her hand. “Writing a paper is like writing song; you want to make sure that everything flows together. Your intro paragraph, that’s like your first verse. It sets up what your paper, or rather your song, is about and sets the mood of everything. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does,” Drake replied. He looked at his paper for a moment and then reached over the side of the couch to grab the acoustic guitar that had been propped up there from the night before. Leaning against the couch’s arm, he rested the back of the guitar against his stomach and idly plucked at taut strings. “So…what, that makes the body of the paper like the bridge and chorus?”
“Yes! I mean, you throw some other verses in there, but you use the body of your paper to reiterate what you started out with in your first verse, or your intro.”
“Reiterate?”
“Repeating your intro paragraph,” Mindy said with a new found patience. “So when you’ve written about enough points to support your intro paragraph, that’s when you go into a conclusion. You can write it like a killer electric guitar solo or something, but that’s all there is to it!”
Drake looked at her with a little more respect than she’d ever seen in his eyes. He continued to move his fingers smoothly over the strings, a rich sound emanating from deep within the instrument. She was mesmerized with the ease that he seemed to play at and when she looked up from his hands to his face, she was treated to a rare smile.
“Okay, now that’s what I’m talking about,” he said appreciatively. “Your big fancy words will only get you so far, Crenshaw.”
Crenshaw. He was the only one who called her that and it reminded her of the time that he’d driven her home a few weeks ago. They’d had a nice moment between them, kind of like the one building between them right now. She didn’t want to ruin it by talking, but something was nagging at her.
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? Mindy, this is the most you’ve made sense to me all week!”
“Really?”
“Yeah; I mean, sometimes you’ll talk and I won’t really listen,” Drake admitted, feeling no shame in his words. She merely rolled her eyes, knowing that much was true. “But the more you relate music to this paper…I don’t know, I think that I can actually surprise Mrs. Hafer with this.”
“I guess I’ll have to brush up on my music knowledge then.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for.”
He looked so smug, so cocky grinning at her like that, but instead of the irritation that normally followed his smirks, Mindy was happy instead. She was finally getting through to him, but she had to know something from him first.
“Drake, do you really want me here?”
It was a loaded question, at least for him. A couple days ago, he would’ve gladly responded with an exclaimed no and probably would’ve been the one to push her out the door. But the sleepless nights coupled with Mindy actually talking with him instead of down to him like a petulant child (something Josh had called him in anger more than once), something inside him made him think about what she was asking.
“Why, what do you mean?”
“This week has been so hard and I don’t mind a challenge, but you have to admit that it’s been difficult,” Mindy told him, looking down at her lap to avoid his gaze. “I don’t want to give up, but if you honestly don’t want my help, I’ll back off.”
“Stay.”
He said it with little emotion, not giving her even the slightest clue as to what was running through his mind. With Drake, she could never quite figure him out; not like Josh, where she’d been able to read him like a book. He surprised her, to say the least, and she lifted an eyebrow when she raised her head to make eye contact with him.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Drake agreed, setting his guitar against the coffee table as he sat upright. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t trying to drive you away, but you stuck through it Mindy. If we keep working together like it was just now…it would be more than worth it to see the look on Mrs. Hafer’s face as she gave me back a paper with a passing grade on it. And I need your help to do that so…stay.”
“Okay,” Mindy replied as she sat up and smoothed out her rumpled skirt. “But we need some ground rules. No more showing up late when I come over.” Drake nodded as she continued. “No more avoiding me, and no more writing your papers in crayons. I don’t think a number two pencil is too much to ask for.”
“What do I get in return for these conditions?”
“Besides the help that I’m so graciously offering you?” Mindy asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Yeah, I need more than that.”
“Um…okay,” Mindy replied, thinking it over. “No more insults, from you or me. We can at least act congenial to each other, right?”
“What does having a birth defect have to do with anything?” Drake asked, confused. “I thought you said no more insults!”
“Birth defects?” Mindy asked, puzzled at what on earth he was talking about. She mentally went through her internal vocabulary list before sighing as she realized what he was talking about. “Congenial, not congenital. It means we can work together nicely. Agreed?”
He let his palm slide into hers as they shook hands in agreement. “Okay, I guess I can live with that.”
“Good,” Mindy replied happily and she looked down at his paper that was currently sitting in her lap. “Now let’s talk about your contraction use.”
--
chapter 05 | apology accepted
drake & josh. drake/mindy, josh/ofc. chapter four. 3,189 words. pg.
“How can I be a million miles away if I’m right here with you?” Drake asked, trying to summon up some of his famous charm as he flashed a grin.
previous chapters
The week had passed by like nothing for Josh and he found himself working a late shift behind the candy counter at The Premiere. Part of his happy mood was due to the fact that it was finally Friday and even though the movie theater was crowded and bustling with people, he liked it better that way because it usually meant he could keep busy. But the majority of his happy mood was undeniably due in part to hanging out with Lisa so much over the past few days; just thinking of her would cause Josh to randomly smile, often catching the odd stares of passersby. He didn’t care that much though; infatuation was hitting him hard and fast and he was just grateful to finally have someone that he could call his own again.
Even though Josh hadn’t been in love with her, getting over Mindy was still hard for him. He had even challenged Drake to that silly bet of getting all those phone numbers and even though he’d won with a sly victory, it had still left him with a hollow empty feeling and a broken heart.
Josh had just finished helping a customer when he saw Mindy amble up to the counter, all smiles. Even though she’d been at the house nearly every day helping Drake, this was the first time he’d actually seen her outside of class.
“Hey, what’s up?” Josh greeted her as she leaned on her crossed arms on top of the glass counter.
“Not a whole lot. Cathy had to call her parents, so I thought I would stop by and say hi,” Mindy replied, resting her head in her palm. “Has it been super busy tonight?”
“Oh you know, no more than usual. So how’s the tutoring going? Drake doesn’t really say too much about it.”
“Really?” Mindy asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m surprised he hasn’t complained about the work to you.”
“Oh he does; he just doesn’t really talk about what goes on during your tutoring sessions. You know Drake really isn’t one for words,” Josh replied, taking a rag as he began to wipe the counter top.
“Yes, I was very aware of that fact when he gave me a rough, rough draft of the paper we’re working on,” Mindy noted, rolling her eyes as Josh smiled knowingly.
“That’s pretty impressive; you were able to even get a rough, rough draft out of him.”
“I had to let him write it with crayons. The different colors kept him entertained, like a little baby chimp or something,” Mindy replied dryly. “Oh by the way…this might sound weird, but has Drake been acting strange around you?”
“Define strange,” Josh said as he stood near the soda machine. “Do you want a Mocha Cola or something?”
“Sure, diet please.”
“With no ice; I remember,” Josh replied, grabbing a cup from under the counter. He missed the small smile on Mindy’s face as he began to fill the cup. “I haven’t really noticed anything out of the ordinary with Drake. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, maybe I’m paranoid,” she admitted, taking the plastic cup when he offered it to her. “Thanks. It’s just that…well, he keeps avoiding eye contact with me and he goes out of his way to sit on the opposite end of the couch or something. I mean, it’s no secret that we don’t like each other, but this is weird even for him. I didn’t know if you noticed anything or he was just saving this crazy behavior just for me.”
“I haven’t seen anything, but I’ll keep my eyes open,” Josh assured her as a thoughtful look crossed his face. He broke eye contact with Mindy for a moment as his blue eyes scanned the lobby of the busy theater. He saw plenty of random people until surprisingly, a familiar face broke from the crowd. He waved and called out to her. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Hi Josh,” Lisa greeted him, sidling up to the candy counter as she held a brown paper bag. “My mom and I were just doing a little shopping and we passed by an Auntie Anne’s so…” She slid the bag to him as he curiously looked inside. “I thought I’d get you a little something.”
“A soft pretzel?”
“With cream cheese.”
“Yesss,” Josh sighed in bliss, closing the bag back up. “Thank you, that was so nice of you!” Both of them were smiling silly at each other; when Josh realized Mindy was still standing there, he was only slightly jolted at the sight of her. “Oh! Sorry, Lisa this is my…”
He paused because he wasn’t quite sure how to bring about his relationship with Mindy. Not that they had a relationship anymore, but he hadn’t even officially asked Lisa to be his girlfriend yet, much less talk about exes. Mindy must’ve taken the hint because she stuck out her hand and filled the silence.
“Hi, I’m Mindy.”
“Lisa.”
They politely shook hands and Josh felt the awkward silence settle over them until Mindy cleared her throat and looked down at the plastic top on her drink.
“Okay, well I’m gonna go see if Cathy’s done with her phone call,” she told him. “Thanks again for the drink Josh. Nice meeting you Lisa.” They both waved good bye as she took off in the opposite direction.
--
Carly was always an on-again, off-again thing for Drake. As much as they had in common, more often than not they would grate against each other and cool out for awhile before finding their way back together again. They hadn’t been together for a couple weeks when he had called her that Friday, sweet talking his way into meeting her somewhere private. Somehow, they’d ended up making out in the backseat of her car while turning their relationship back to on-again.
But he wasn’t fully into it, not like other times. While the week had flown by for his step-brother, Drake had felt worn out by the time the final bell at school had rung for the weekend to arrive. Between band practice, school, and tutoring sessions, he had flopped into bed every night, completely exhausted. But like clockwork, he began to wake up in a cold sweat as dreams of Mindy continued to plague him.
They weren’t even the fun kind of dreams he used to have about her, back when she and Josh were still dating; the kind where she would fall off a cliff or get attacked by a giant spider or something. No, these were the kind of dreams that made him uncomfortable just being in the same room as her. Drake had tried not to make it obvious that he was avoiding her, but it was pretty hard when Mindy made it clear they were going to see each other every day until his paper was finished. It was also difficult to concentrate on her talking to him about prepositions and pronouns when his imagination was recalling the way her hands had slid over his skin in his dream from the night before.
“Drake…Drake.”
She sounded so far away, but he broke from his reverie to realize that he was still lying across the backseat of Carly’s car with her thin, petite body weighted against his lanky one as her fingers twirled in his long, auburn bangs.
“Yeah?”
“What’s wrong? You’re like a million miles away or something,” Carly told him, pouting.
“How can I be a million miles away if I’m right here with you?” Drake asked, trying to summon up some of his famous charm as he flashed a grin. Her full lips pressed against his smile as she made a tiny mumble of agreement.
“All right, if you say so,” Carly murmured, leaving a trail of kisses across his cheeks toward the tip of his freckled nose.
It wasn’t supposed to be happening like this. Here was Carly; cute, funny, and totally into him when the mood suited her. Things should’ve been good right now; they should’ve been going his way like they usually did. But Mindy had somehow managed to weasel her way into his mind; it was one thing if she popped into his subconscious nightly because he had no control over that.
But he was imagining Carly’s hair was straighter and more of a darker shade of brown and a little longer too, past her shoulders. She was already wearing a skirt, but maybe if her lips tasted more like that apricot lip gloss he noticed Mindy always carried around…
“I can’t….stop Carly, stop,” Drake breathed into her ear as he removed her hands from working his belt buckle. “I forgot something.”
“What?”
“I need…I need to go pick up Megan from oboe practice,” he improvised, not sure if she would buy the lie. “Usually Josh goes, but today is my turn and I guess I just…forgot.”
“Oh,” Carly said flatly, sitting up so that she sat upright on top of him. A fleeting look of worry crossed her face as she tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. “Do you need a ride?”
“No, no,” Drake replied quickly, moving so that he could prop himself up. They were tangled awkwardly for a moment before they separated. “It’s okay; it’s not that far from here.” He leaned over and kissed the apple of her flushed cheek. “I’ll call you later.”
Before she could even say goodbye, he was out of the car and had slammed the door shut behind him. Drake picked a direction and started walking; ironically, it was the opposite way of where Megan’s oboe practice was held.
Lucky for him, Carly didn’t know that.
--
It was the middle of the afternoon the next day when Drake and Mindy met again for another grueling session. He was leaned back in the cushy desk chair, mindlessly spinning in the seat as he watched her sitting properly on the couch while she read over his paper. He had managed to pull something together the night before and he had the sneaking suspicious she realized that when he saw her sigh and toss the paper on the coffee table.
“I don’t know Drake,” Mindy sighed again, leaning against the back of the worn couch. “How do you feel about the paper?”
He shrugged and avoided her gaze. “I don’t know. It’s just a rough draft.”
“Okay, yeah it is just a rough draft. But a rough draft is supposed to be sort of like a blueprint for what the final paper is supposed to be,” she explained, tiredly lacing fingers through her hair. “I just…I don’t know, I just don’t feel like I’m getting through to you.”
Drake crossed his arms over his polo shirt and didn’t say anything as he continued watching her. This was a different side of Mindy he wasn’t used to seeing; all week, they had taken petty swipes at each other while she tried to explain the basics of English to him and well…he wasn’t going to sugarcoat the fact that he’d basically ignored her tips and gave her drafts that he thought he could get by on. He should’ve counted on the fact that she could see through his act and now they were left with her frustration and his boiling boredom.
What he hadn’t counted on was that in his boredom, there was a feeling of…guilt? True, Drake had been avoiding Mindy like she was the common cold, but he wasn’t blind to how hard she was trying to work at helping him. But his stubbornness was beginning to wear him out and maybe it would just be easier to give in to her.
“Mindy, it’s not…completely your fault,” Drake said, breaking the silence with soft words. “Look, you and I both know that I’m not a fan of all this school stuff. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of relating the stuff to something I’m interested in.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” Drake said as he stood from his chair and began to pace. “A few years ago, Josh helped me cram overnight for the Quiz Bowl - ”
“Wait, you were in a Quiz Bowl?”
“Yeah, it was for this insanely cute girl.”
“Naturally.”
“Can I finish please?”
“Sorry; go ahead.”
Drake moved from his spot near the window and sat down on the couch next to her and she noticed that it was the closest they’d been near each other all week. “Anyway, Josh couldn’t get the concept of atoms and molecules through to me, so he started relating it to music.”
Mindy looked at him thoughtfully and reached for his rough draft as her mind spun with possible techniques she’d learned from the tutoring program orientation. So far, none of them had worked on him, but something he said had sparked the beginnings of an idea in her.
“Relating it to music huh?” she asked rhetorically, her eyes perusing over his barely legible scrawl. It was a miracle she’d managed to make it through the first time. “Okay, so you write your own songs, right?”
“Yeah, all the time. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything!” She exclaimed, feeling an excitement build inside her as she enthusiastically waved her hand. “Writing a paper is like writing song; you want to make sure that everything flows together. Your intro paragraph, that’s like your first verse. It sets up what your paper, or rather your song, is about and sets the mood of everything. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does,” Drake replied. He looked at his paper for a moment and then reached over the side of the couch to grab the acoustic guitar that had been propped up there from the night before. Leaning against the couch’s arm, he rested the back of the guitar against his stomach and idly plucked at taut strings. “So…what, that makes the body of the paper like the bridge and chorus?”
“Yes! I mean, you throw some other verses in there, but you use the body of your paper to reiterate what you started out with in your first verse, or your intro.”
“Reiterate?”
“Repeating your intro paragraph,” Mindy said with a new found patience. “So when you’ve written about enough points to support your intro paragraph, that’s when you go into a conclusion. You can write it like a killer electric guitar solo or something, but that’s all there is to it!”
Drake looked at her with a little more respect than she’d ever seen in his eyes. He continued to move his fingers smoothly over the strings, a rich sound emanating from deep within the instrument. She was mesmerized with the ease that he seemed to play at and when she looked up from his hands to his face, she was treated to a rare smile.
“Okay, now that’s what I’m talking about,” he said appreciatively. “Your big fancy words will only get you so far, Crenshaw.”
Crenshaw. He was the only one who called her that and it reminded her of the time that he’d driven her home a few weeks ago. They’d had a nice moment between them, kind of like the one building between them right now. She didn’t want to ruin it by talking, but something was nagging at her.
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? Mindy, this is the most you’ve made sense to me all week!”
“Really?”
“Yeah; I mean, sometimes you’ll talk and I won’t really listen,” Drake admitted, feeling no shame in his words. She merely rolled her eyes, knowing that much was true. “But the more you relate music to this paper…I don’t know, I think that I can actually surprise Mrs. Hafer with this.”
“I guess I’ll have to brush up on my music knowledge then.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for.”
He looked so smug, so cocky grinning at her like that, but instead of the irritation that normally followed his smirks, Mindy was happy instead. She was finally getting through to him, but she had to know something from him first.
“Drake, do you really want me here?”
It was a loaded question, at least for him. A couple days ago, he would’ve gladly responded with an exclaimed no and probably would’ve been the one to push her out the door. But the sleepless nights coupled with Mindy actually talking with him instead of down to him like a petulant child (something Josh had called him in anger more than once), something inside him made him think about what she was asking.
“Why, what do you mean?”
“This week has been so hard and I don’t mind a challenge, but you have to admit that it’s been difficult,” Mindy told him, looking down at her lap to avoid his gaze. “I don’t want to give up, but if you honestly don’t want my help, I’ll back off.”
“Stay.”
He said it with little emotion, not giving her even the slightest clue as to what was running through his mind. With Drake, she could never quite figure him out; not like Josh, where she’d been able to read him like a book. He surprised her, to say the least, and she lifted an eyebrow when she raised her head to make eye contact with him.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Drake agreed, setting his guitar against the coffee table as he sat upright. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t trying to drive you away, but you stuck through it Mindy. If we keep working together like it was just now…it would be more than worth it to see the look on Mrs. Hafer’s face as she gave me back a paper with a passing grade on it. And I need your help to do that so…stay.”
“Okay,” Mindy replied as she sat up and smoothed out her rumpled skirt. “But we need some ground rules. No more showing up late when I come over.” Drake nodded as she continued. “No more avoiding me, and no more writing your papers in crayons. I don’t think a number two pencil is too much to ask for.”
“What do I get in return for these conditions?”
“Besides the help that I’m so graciously offering you?” Mindy asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Yeah, I need more than that.”
“Um…okay,” Mindy replied, thinking it over. “No more insults, from you or me. We can at least act congenial to each other, right?”
“What does having a birth defect have to do with anything?” Drake asked, confused. “I thought you said no more insults!”
“Birth defects?” Mindy asked, puzzled at what on earth he was talking about. She mentally went through her internal vocabulary list before sighing as she realized what he was talking about. “Congenial, not congenital. It means we can work together nicely. Agreed?”
He let his palm slide into hers as they shook hands in agreement. “Okay, I guess I can live with that.”
“Good,” Mindy replied happily and she looked down at his paper that was currently sitting in her lap. “Now let’s talk about your contraction use.”
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chapter 05 | apology accepted