Chapter Three: The Lawn Mower Man
“Have a safe walk home,” Ms. Cheng called to us as we walked back to our house.
“She knows we live across the street right?” I asked my mom.
“Of coarse she does… I think.” We then both laughed at ourselves, “Anyways, we’re going to be eating Chinese food for the next couple days because of all the extras she gave us.”
“Great…” I said unenthusiastically.
The next morning I woke up to the morning sun coming in from my stained glass window, just like my mom had said. I got up expecting to smell coffee as I came down the stairs like I usually did when I woke up but instead I smelt no coffee and found no mother sitting around reading the morning paper. Instead I found her unpacking some books and stacking them neatly on some bookshelf she must of put together before I got up.
“Where’s the coffee?” I asked, yawning.
“Haven’t found the coffee machine yet.” My mom said sleepily. “I’m about to crash already and I’ve only been up 2 hours.” I went to the kitchen area (which was now a box holding room) to find some sort of breakfast when I heard the sound of a lawn mower in our back yard.
“Is there someone mowing our yard?” I yelled back to my mom.
“Oh yeah. Some guy came by today asking if we wanted our lawn mown for $15. I didn’t feel like doing it so I told him he could do it this time. I made some lemonade and it’s getting hot outside, so why don’t you go take it out to him?”
“Fine,” I called back. As I left the room with a glass of lemonade in hand I said under my breath, “So you made some lemonade but you couldn’t just find some way to make coffee. That’s just great.”
I walked outside to find myself looking at something that made me lose my breath where I stood.
In front of me I found a shirtless Greek god pushing our hand-me-down lawn mower across our yard. His perfect tan complemented his tightly sculpted body that seemed to shimmer in the sun. He turned away from me as if he didn’t notice me and flexed his hands upward to crack his knuckles. I had to take a deep breath so I wouldn’t scream. I knew I only had seconds to look him over before he looked my way so I took advantage of the situation. He was turned around so I couldn’t see his face or chest so I had to look at what I could. He had short black hair that was gleaming from the sweat… hot, and a tight muscled back… hot. I stopped my observation. Oh my. His butt. Um… how could I describe it? Well it had the perfect roundness to it and yet was tight and muscled, the butt only a supermodel could have. Before I had a chance to stop staring he started to turn to look my way. I panicked so I ran inside almost spilling the glass of lemonade.
“WHO’S THAT?” I forcefully yelled at my innocent looking mother.
“Don’t you like him?” my mom said, looking almost shocked at the thought that I didn’t like the god that was mowing our lawn, “he’s hot right!” Ewww… no one likes hearing their parents say someone’s hot no matter how true or untrue it was.
“Yeah he is but WHAT is he doing here?”
“I told you, he’s mowing the lawn.”
“But, but, but… he’s hot.”
“Yeah I know.” Eww again. “But I figured if you hooked up with him it would make up for leaving your quarterback boyfriend in California.”
I didn’t know how to respond. It was true, hooking up with him would make up for leaving my quarterback boyfriend big time but… still, he was just too hot. He was the forbidden apple that was not meant to be touched.
I was still at a loss for words so my mom gave up on waiting for me to respond and said, “why don’t you just go give him the lemonade and see how it goes and if nothing happens I won’t hire him again. Ok?”
I sighed and nodded my head in defeat. She then did her victory smile. Twice in two days, jeez she’s making a record. I stomped off to grab the lemonade and hoped that somehow it got 20 degrees colder in the three minutes I was gone so he would put his shirt back on. Then maybe… just maybe I wouldn’t faint as soon as I started to talk to him.
I walked out side and saw him. Ok so far so good, I don’t feel light headed yet. I walked up to him with much difficulty. Oh no, he saw me! I felt a shiver go up my spine.
“Are you cold?” he asked as he walked up to me tossing his muscled chest around like it was a new Gouchi handbag.
“Umm… no.” Ok so far so good I got one real word out of me. “Are you cold?” NO, NO, NO! Stupid question. Of coarse he’s not cold he has his shirt off for god’s sake!
He then bellowed a large laugh that I thought even if what I had said was funny didn’t deserve. “Funny,” he said, “My names Tristan. Yours?”
My name… my name… what’s my name? I panicked; I looked around as if somewhere my name was painted in big red letters.
“Hailey,” my mom yelled as she walked outside, “did you give him the lemonade I made?”
Oh right, the lemonade. “Here you go,” I said cheerfully as if that would make up for the huge mistake I made just moments ago.
Again he laughed. “Thanks, well nice meeting you Hailey.”
“You too,” I said back to him, “nice meeting you.” I felt like I had crashed and burned right in front of him. So I did the only thing I knew I could do with a situation like this, retreat. I turned around and ran inside almost knocking my mom over. I kept running until I hit my bed sobbing. I was so embarrassed. How could I be so stupid? I lay there for what seemed like an eternity until I heard a knock at the door.
“What?” I yelled at the door. The door opened up to show it wasn’t my mother.
“Hey,” Tristan said. He must have seen that my eyelashes were wet cause he asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Allergies,” I said, lying without hesitation.
“Oh, well I just stopped in to say if you ever wanted to do something sometime to just give me a ring. I gave your mom my number so just call whenever you want to do something.” And with that he gave me a smile and left. Oh god he’s hot.
A while later I went downstairs after I cleaned my self up after my crying spell and immediately I was bombarded with questions from my mother.
“Do you think he liked you? I think he liked you. He gave me his number for you! Are you going to call him?”
“I have no clue. I’m glad you think that. I know. I don’t know,” I answered.
“That’s real nice. Well I think you should. He’s way cuter then your last boyfriend.” Once again, eww.
I walked outside to take a breath of fresh air. My mom had set up the hammock in my absence so I decided to take advantage of it. I lay there, just taking in the fresh smell of newly cut grass. I must of dozed off because I awoken suddenly to the sound of the bushes once again rustling.
“Who’s there?” I said as I got up. “I’ll go get an umbrella and come beat whoever it is with it.” I regretted saying that as soon as I said it because I had no idea where any sorts of weapons were because they were still packed in boxes.
“Iggy!” someone yelled from over the white picket fence. From the yard across from us sprang a guy.
“Ahh!” I screamed as I stumbled backward, almost tripping over the hammock.
“Oh my god. Umm… I’m sorry. Iggy come out and explain yourself right now!” the guy yelled, “I’m so sorry. My name is Jackson.” Jackson had blonde curly hair with light brown streaks in it that almost covered his eyes, a muscled build, long lanky legs, and as I looked more closely the most brilliant blue eyes I’ve ever seen. My observations were once again interrupted by the moving bushes. This time a kid no older then 11 came out of them. “Iggy,” said Jackson looking irritated and stern.
“Sorry maim, it’s just that… that,” Iggy started to say but then started bawling with no warning. I didn’t know what to do so I looked at Jackson hoping he would.
“ God I feel like I’m saying this a lot but sorry,” Jackson said, looking sympathetic towards his brother, “it’s just that my brother’s kinda an emotional kid and in those bushes is where his pet frog is buried. You see we used to live in your house but we moved out a couple years back to another house four blocks down.”
“Oh I see,” I said still looking at teary-eyed Iggy.
“Yeah and he’s been visiting his frog lately since he died 3 years ago yesterday.” I just nodded my head not knowing what to say to something like that. Obviously I wasn’t sure how to handle crying children or the death of pet frogs. Another reason (of many) that I’m scared to become a parent.
“Well, Iggy you can come visit your dead pet frog anytime you want. Just next time don’t hide in the bushes like that,” I said. After that Iggy looked up at me with the same blue eyes as his brother and started crying worse then before. I felt awful. Jackson gave me a reassuring look like I didn’t do anything wrong and whispered something in Iggy’s ear. He nodded and jumped over the fence with ease.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem. It happens a lot believe it or not.” We both laughed. “You must be new here cause I don’t recognize you and I know almost everyone in town.
“Yeah I am.”
“Where are you from?”
“Monterey, California.”
“California? Wow that’s not around here is it? What grade are you in?”
“Senior.” I felt awful that I was hardly contributing to the conversation but he seemed like he enjoyed talking so I let it go. It was so easy to talk to him (no matter how little or much I said).
“Really? Me too!” he said, really excited.
“Sweet well I guess I’ll see you around then.” I said. He looked sad for a moment but then he immediately perked up again.
“Ok, nice. I’ll try to make a point to come over again except next time I’ll use the front door instead of the fence.”
“That would be nice.” We both laughed again and he nodded at me.
“Okay, so I’ll see you around then.”
“Bye …” But before I could finish he had went the same way he had entered, over the fence.
“Who was that?” my mom asked as she backed away from the open window where she obviously was spied on our whole conversation.
“His name is Jackson.”
“He’s cute.” Eww. “How did he get here?”
“Didn’t you hear from the window?”
“I missed the first part of the conversation.”
“You’re a sad, sad women. You know that right?”
“Just looking out for my baby.”
“Right,” I laughed.
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Thanks for reading my story. It means a lot to me. Please do read chapter one and two as well, so you know what's happening and such. And when you read those then please review them! 
I'm terrible at grammar so if you have anything to tell me then let me have it! I need all the help I can get. Lol.
