CRAZY AND A DASH OF MISCHIEF

When Kristen woke up, it was still dark. She stretched her hand to her where lamp usually stayed, but it wasn’t there. Groaning, she searched for her phone instead and found it without much stress. As light flooded the room, she was even more confused. She was not staring at the blue and green decor of her room and she was certainly not looking at a nice painting of the sea. Everything was wrong.

It took her a while, but she finally realized that she was very far from home. She was on an island, with Adrian of all people; she was on vacation.

She had gone to bed the previous night with a plan on her mind. It occurred to her that Adrian hated when she didn’t do what he said. In simple terms, when she told him no, he threw a tantrum, it kind of reminded Kristen of a child that was denied candy. With that realization she knew what she had to do. She knew that she could not resist making the next two weeks a living hell for him—he sure as hell deserved it.

Not wanting to waste more time, she called her best friend—Bea—on the phone, they had to get to work.

“What’s up Babe?” Bea asked in a high and cheerful voice, picking up the call almost immediately.

“Oh it’s nothing, except the wonderful plan I have. I could not wait to share,” Kristen began and she could hear Bea clap her and hands and shriek in glee. She could not help but laugh and how excited Bea was being.

“Go on. Don’t keep me on suspense.”

“Okay, I just got how to piss Adrian off. He absolutely hates when I say no to him. He hated it when I disagree with what he says. So I plan to going out of my way to frustrate him these two weeks. When I am done, there is absolutely no way in hell we are getting married. He will run for the hills.” Kristen giggled a bit as she pictured Adrian running from the hills when she was done.

“So, how do you plan on annoying him?” Bea asked. Kristen could tell that her friend was very much interested.

“Well for one. I am going to be parading in these over sized shirts because I can tell he hates them. I have no idea hey though, they are very comfortable.”

“Are you sure about that Kristen? You are stuck with him for two weeks and you want to walk around half naked? I am not sure how he would take that.” Kristen could hear the concern in her friend’s voice and she could not say she blamed her. It was not very safe. But then, she could tell that he did not like her. In fact, he hated her. He said as much the first time they met. He certainly did not want to have sex with her.

“I will be fine. It’s not like he is going to rape me or anything. He hates me,” she said, trying to quell her friend’s fears.

“It’s not just that Kristen. I can hear the way you talk about him, you think he is hot,” Bea said and Kristen winced. She did think he was hot. Going by her thoughts, there was no way she would be able to survive two weeks with him. However, she was sure that she could handle herself. She was not some hormonal teenager.

“I will be fine,” she assured her friend. “I also plan on going against everything he says. This morning, I may or may not make a very noisy breakfast,” Kristen said and chuckled to herself.

“You can’t cook,” Bea pointed out.

“That’s the point. He can be woken up by the sound of fire alarms,” she said as sweetly as she could and Bea let out a loud laugh.

“You are terrible,” Bea said in between laughter.

“Of course I am,” she agreed, flipping her hair dramatically. Kristen had met Bea in high school. From the very first moment, they had clicked. Kristen was being bullied, simply because she was younger and smarter than anyone else in her class. Bea—who was also quite a genius—had come to her aid. Bea had no extraordinary strength to beat off two mean seniors, but she knew quite a few tricks. After then, they both stuck by each other like glue. Creating mischief everywhere they went. Together, they were unstoppable. No one ever tried to bully Kristen and Bea again until they both graduated high school at the age of sixteen.

They had both went on to college together, backing up each other against frats boys and alcohol. In the real world, they still had each other’s backs. Bea was working with a huge company and climbing up the corporate ladder, Kristen was working with her father, negotiating and making him millions of dollars, but they were still very much twenty-one. They still had to be kids at times.

“Alright Bea, I have to get ready to piss off the crazy asshole,” Kristen said and Bea laughed.

“Alright, I will leave you to it. I am so jealous you are actually getting a vacation right now.”

“Bea, you and I know that if you wanted a vacation you can get one,” Kristen said to her friend. Bea was too much of a workaholic to leave work for a few days.

“You might be right about that. Alright babe, have fun, making the infuriating bastard hate you,” Bea said in a cherry voice and Kristen let out a loud laugh.

“Thank you very much, I will.” After the call, Kristen feel very energized and was ready to begin her mischief.

She dragged herself to the shower and took a long bath. It was just four in the morning—she had woken up so early because of the nap she had on the flight. The bath was very fulfilling and she hummed to herself as she combed her hair and wore another t-shirt and boy shorts underneath. Only, this one was smaller—definitely not oversized—and she did not wear a bra underneath.

She absolutely loved the way he stared at her before she entered the plane, his eyes burning her thighs. She loved how pissed he looked. She would not admit it to anyone but Bea, but Adrian looked even more fuckable when he was mad.

Kristen made her way to the kitchen, taking note of how beautiful the cabin was—she did not have the time to admire the decor the previous night. The cabin was painted with different shades of cream and brown, giving it a more earthy touch.

The chairs, which were cream, were arranged in a typical living room manner and a wooden table was in the middle. Kristen wandered more into the kitchen, which was surprisingly very modern, very different from the other parts of the house. She opened the cabinets and brought out flour, sugar and some other things she saw.

It did not occur to her when she was planning that she would need ingredients to cook. If the cabinets had been empty, there would have been no way to carry out her plans. She could not totally blame herself though, she had cooked only twice in her entire life, and both times were disasters.

She had not given much thought to cooking, but she did believe that if she put in some effort, she could actually pull it off.

However, she wanted her cooking to be a disaster that morning; she certainly did not want the food to magically turn out wonderful.

She opened the fridge and saw some eggs and a gallon of milk. Everything was complete. She was ready to make pancakes.

Kristen had eaten enough pancakes to know what they consisted of. She was pretty sure that there was flour, sugar, eggs and milk. She was not so sure about butter though. She took out a bowl and turned in a little flour—no need to waste it when she knew it was going to end up a disaster—added a quite a lot sugar—it was meant to be sweet—broke a few eggs, turned in some milk, added a dollop of butter, turned in a bit of honey and started mixing. The butter refused to melt, and she figured it would melt when she began to make the pancakes.

She was done mixing it; her only problem was to how she was meant to cook it. She figured she had to bake it, but she no idea how she would put in the oven or even how it would become flat. Kristen took a deep breath and she realized she was over worrying herself; it wasn’t as though she was going to eat it. She bent down and looked at what seemed like the oven, wondering how she would turn it one.

It took her a lot of time, and she somehow covered herself in batter in the process, but she finally put on the oven. She poured small amount of pancake batter—which was quite seedy because of the un-melted butter—into the pans she found in the kitchen. She then placed them into the oven and closed it.

Kristen smiled at herself for a work well done. The day was already getting bright; the kitchen was already a mess and was pretty tired. She only had to close her eyes for two minutes and then the pancakes would be ready. She moved to the living room and proceeded to lie down on the cream couch.

“Fucking hell!” Kristen heard Adrian’s unmistakable voice shout, waking her up from slumber. Smoke was all she saw the moment she opened her eyes. The smell of smoke immediately trickled her nasal senses and she started coughing, sneezing even.

“So now you are coughing?” Adrian asked. Kristen stood up from the couch as she heard the ice in his voice.

He looked angry, very angry. That was bad, so bad.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” He asked her. “I am sorry,” she muttered underneath her breath. There was nothing she could say. This was what she wanted, for her food to burn. But she certainly did not expect it almost burn down the house.

Adrian walked pass her and marched into the kitchen. It was obvious that he had used a fire extinguisher before he shouted and woke her up. Spot graced the walls of the kitchen that was beautiful when she first saw it in the morning.

Through the haze of the smoke, she could see how damaged the oven was and it was her fault. Guilt began to creep up her chest, choking her even more than he smoke. She suddenly felt like she could not breathe. Because of her stupid prank, the house had almost burnt down.

Adrian seemed to see her discomfort as she shouted at her. “Get the hell out of the house before you choke to death!”

She hurried out of the house and sat on the porch, that when she felt the tears drop.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 It was all to make Adrian hate her, and it had worked. It worked a little too well. Adrian clearly hated her and saw her as a child, a spoilt brat.

In a few minutes, some men began to trickle into the cabin, barely acknowledging her. She knew that they were there to see the damage done to the cabin, damage that she had caused.

“I am so sorry,” she said to Adrian the moment he came out of the house.

“Sorry is not going to fix the damage Kristen. The oven caught on fire. What if I had not woken up? There is possibility that the fire might have spread. What the hell were you thinking?” His chest was heaving and his face was red, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He was very much angry at her.

“I wanted to make pancakes,” she managed to say. All the anger seemed to simply seep out of Adrian’s body and loud laugh escaped his throat.

“You were baking pancakes?” He asked her. She was happy that he was not angry anymore but she absolutely hated the way he looked at her as though she was stupid.

“Well yes,” she replied, folding her hands across her chest in an attempt at looking serious. At her reply, he burst out into another doze of anger. Annoyance ticked at her, not just because he was mocking her, but because he looked so handsome when he laughed and she liked it. She did not want to drool at his handsome face; she did not want to like his smile, but unfortunately, she did.

“You don’t bake pancakes Kristen,” he said through his laughter.

“Why not? They are cakes,” she said and Adrian laughed even harder.

“Can you even cook at all Kristen?” Adrian asked her. She was not about to tell him that she almost burnt down the house every time she tried, so she said, “Of course. I am nothing short of a chef.”

It seemed like the worst thing that she could say as Adrian started laughing at her again.  

“Would you stop laughing at me?” Kristen demanded. No matter how handsome he looked laughing, it was getting old and annoying.

“You are making it so easy,” he said and continued laughing at her.

“Adrian.”

“Okay, okay. I will stop,” he said, raising his hands up in mock surrender.

“Kristen,” he started, taking a deep breath, “You don’t bake pancakes. The batter is poured on a non-stick pan. That’s why they are called, pancakes.”

Mortification washed over Kristen, she had succeeded in making a complete full of herself. No wonder Adrian was laughing so hard. She was not even meant to put it in the oven.

She walked passed Adrian—who was still laughing—into the house. She wanted to cover bury herself under the beach sand. She wondered how the hell she would stay with Adrian for a whole two weeks after she had made such a fool of herself. It was just nine o’clock on the first day.