Invitations had been made for this weekend and Jack had shoved over fifty dollars worth of booze in his kitchen cupboard and fridge. Now there was nothing much to do but lay around the house. His exams were finished, but his friends still had theirs, so they didn't have time to find something to do.
There was a knock on the door again. Oliver stood on the landing, in cloths that fit him this time. They were muddy, tattered and torn. A look that most suited his attitude. Though the cloths looked like the expensive kind that should actually be clean and pressed. He held a bundle of text books and note books. Oliver didn't even say hi, but walked right in, past Jack and sat down by the kitchen table.
“Can I help you?” Jack asked.
“Exactly,” Oliver said opening one of the books.
“Sorry?”
“You made me miss my exam, so you owe me. My teacher told me I could retake it next week on Tuesday, but that I'd better get good grades in exchange. You are going to tooter me.”
“Tooter you!?”
“You don't have anything else to do, do you?” Oliver said.
“As a matter of fact, I'm very busy today. I have to... ah...” for the life of him, he couldn't think of a lie.
“Good. Then you have time.”
“Hey, I don't owe you squat.”
“I have a theory of how I ended up in your shed naked,” Oliver said.
“Oh, do tell.”
“I sleepwalk.”
“Okay, that's part of an explanation,” Jack said sarcastically.
“And... You can't tell anyone about this, right?” Oliver said raising one eyebrow. Jack wasn't sure if Oliver knew about his parents deal with him.
“I won't tell,” he promised.
“Well, sometimes, when I sleepwalk... I strip,” Oliver said, mumbling half his words.
“Okay...?” Jack said. “So you strip walked in your sleep to my shed. Unlocked it with out a key. Let out the dog. Somehow got it out of the yard without waking me and without it attacking you. Then locked yourself into my shed, even though the lock is on the outside.”
“I don't know about any dog. I never saw a dog. But it's obvious that someone locked me in there. Probably you did it wail you were drunk and thought I was a dog or something because of all the beer you had.”
“I had half a bottle of beer. And how did you know that I even had beer.”
“Dah. I could smell it off your breath this morning, idiot.”
“You smelled that I drank a small amount of beer half a day later?” It was true that he had forgotten to brush his teeth do to the dog distraction and the exam stress, but still.
“I don't know. I just smelled beer on your breath.” Jack shook his head.
“Never mind.”
“Now help me with my math.” Oliver demanded. “I don't get any of this. X times six divided by two is 75 divided by X. What does that even mean? There are X's on both sides.” Jack looked at the problem.
“Um...” he said. It had been ages since he had done algebra. After high school it was never touched again. It took him a moment to set his mind back in the game.
“Why should I help you anyway?” Jack said, defaulting back to the earlier argument. Oliver looked at him with big green puppy eyes and the cutest expression and said shyly,
“Please...” Damn this kid. Jack gridded his teeth in defeat and tried to work out the problem.
“The light is bad in here. Come.” He lead Oliver to his room and sat down at his desk and turned on the light. Oliver put the books down and looked around for a place to sit. “Just go get a chair from the...” Oliver sat down on Jacks lap instead. Now how was he supposed to concentrate?
They solved the problem eventually by trying out the equitation with one then two then three till it finally resolved itself with five. Jack wondered if it was alright to have Oliver here after he had excepted the hundred dollars and even spent half of it, but the deal was just that he didn't tell anyone else about the incident, right? Jack shrugged. It wasn't as if it had been a contract or anything.