chapter 2

Zeek kicked open his bedroom door and threw his jacket onto the bed, startling his friend, Calvin Romanova, his best friend really. Zeek took in a deep breath and tried to count to ten to calm his nerves only getting to three before his friend spoke up.

“Yo, what’s up with you?”

“Cal.” Zeek started, opening his eyes. “My god-damn family, that’s what! Dad thinks the sun shines out of Liz’s ass, while he’s always riding on me! He thinks she’s just some perfect little princess while I-”.

“Woah that’s crazy, man.” Cal said, holding out his hands in a calm down motion. “So do you have those sodas?” Cal interrupted, clearly not having been paying attention to his friend’s woes, and being more concerned about libations.

Cal had always been somewhat of a bad friend, even as he and Zeek came up together. Whenever Zeek pulled a prank, Cal was usually there egging him on, and often, the pranks would be his idea. Unlike Zeek, whose father cared too much to reign in his son’s behaviour at an early age, Cal’s parents were far more harsh on the boy whenever he pulled pranks himself, believing that it was Zeek being the one encouraging his childish behaviour. The nepotism was so strong that he had been blessed with a job by his family at their used car lot; a job as a gopher which only required menial tasks and asked little of him, though he still found ways to bunk off what few responsibilities he did have.

Zeek took in his friend as they stood up from his bed. Calvin was a good three inches taller than him, something that hadn’t always been true, Zeek stopped growing his freshman year of highschool while his friend kept on going getting up to five foot eleven. His eyes a light grey-blue, his skin paler much like himself from staying inside all day, possessing what Zeek would call almost broad shoulders compared to his slender frame, what Zeek assumed was manual labor from carrying boxes at his fathers used car lot. Cal’s mother used to work in a salon and always gave him haircuts. It just gave Zeek a good idea why she didn’t work professionally anymore considering the quality of said haircuts his friend got. Which was to say why Calvin had always possessed the style of short back and sides, with medium-length dark brown hair on top, his hair parted in the middle like a 90s Leonardo DiCaprio or the character Milo Thatch from that Disney Atlantis cartoon.

Like his friend, Cal was eternally single, their self-entitlement, laziness and childish demeanour putting off any girls whom they considered datable.

Turning his head to look at his friend, Zeek huffed in annoyance at the situation and himself for forgetting the purpose of going to the kitchen.“No, because my Dad was down there going on and on about how perfect Liz is. Again I might add.”

Tilting his head back a small smile came to Cal’s face. “Ah yes, your hot sister. I can see why your dad does that; Eliza is a lot prettier than you”, Cal ribbed, trying to diffuse the tension.

Zeek crossed his arms and gazed at his friend with a similar glare that he had tried using as a weapon on his father. “Fuck you, you know that. When will you stop horning after her, dude? She’s never going to be into you, especially if you keep on calling her by her full name, you know she likes going by Liz. Why do you keep on doing that?”.

“Well she’s always called meCalvin, so I do it right back to her. It's our thing and I know she’s into me. Besides, it’s a pretty name for such a pretty woman”.

The reality of the matter was that ever since the Downings had moved to the area when the kids were in elementary school, Cal had sported a massive crush on the beautiful elder sister. It was part of the reason why Cal had started hanging out with Zeek in the first place.

Liz, for her part, felt no such inclinations towards nerdy creep, regarding his brother’s bff as an annoying pest, calling him by his full name in order to eschew any familiarity with the boy. Unfortunately, this had backfired as the gesture went completely over Cal’s head, the love-sick boy thinking this was a term of endearment, a result of being so self-absorbed that he disregarded any emotions that weren’t his own.

“God!” Zeek raised his voice for the exclamation. “I just wish I could knock that perfect little princess down from her ivory goddamn tower”, Zeek bemoaned, ignoring his friend's delusion.

Cal was an expert at picking up on Zeek’s **** cues that he was ripe for manipulation; he smelled a prank brewing, and it didn’t matter if it was on his crush. So long as Zeek was the one to pull it, he could just feign innocence.

Sticking his tongue out just enough to touch his upper lip as the brown haired teen knew exactly what should be done. ‘Princess.’ He thought of the word, putting Eliza in a tall tower with her beautiful blonde hair that he thought wouldn’t look out of place in a shampoo commercial. Picturing it hanging down low from the castle tower in a long braid. “Rapunzel Rapunzel, let down your golden hair.” He said with a smirk. ‘It will be hilarious to see my Eliza lose her shit on Zeek and then I can slide in and comfort her, telling her how she is still beautiful.’

“What?” Zeek asked, confused by the fairy tale talk out of nowhere. Some of his anger evaporating as he sat down in confusion on his bed.

Unable to contain his shit eating grin Cal elaborated. “If you want her to be less perfect, you could mess up her long, beautiful, perfect… hair.” He said drawing out the word that seemed to be triggering his friend.

Looking at Cal with bewilderment, trying to understand just what his friend was getting at as he slowly connected the dots, Zeek’s eyebrows raising and head nodding in understanding. “She has always been a hair freak. She wastes her money at the salon like once or twice every month. I bet she does think that stupid mop of hers is perfect… And yeah, wouldn’t it be a shame if something happened to it?” Zeek pondered.

While Zeek worked through his suggestion Calvin nodded along. “Zeek, you’re a genius!” He exclaimed, happy to give credit for their future misdeeds.

Looking off at nothing and mentally patting himself on the back Zeek gladly took credit for finishing out his friend's half baked idea. “I know, I know.” the blonde teen nodded. “We just need to wait for her to come back from work…”

The sound of the front door opening and closing interrupted Zeek’s words, the sound indicating the time for action now coming much closer. “…And we can get this show on the road.”