Prince Charmings (BOOK ONE)

16

Thomas offered to drive me Saturday morning to meet with Tommo.

I held the hand-rail as we drove, watching him out of the corner of my eye as he aimlessly chatted with Willow on the phone. When he hit the brakes a little too sharply at a red light I leaned over, slapping the phone out of his hand. We both watched it clutter into the footwell, Thomas letting out an annoyed huff.

"That was unnecessary,"

"I don't like driving with you, you're always fucking distracted," I pointed out as he made a shaky turn.

"Whatever," he said before apologizing, gripping the wheel with both hands.

"Mom's doing a big family dinner thing tonight, so don't gorge yourself beforehand, alright," Thomas said after a few minutes of radio silence.

"Why am I always the last to know about these things?" I sighed, relaxing my head against the window. The sun was streaming hot and heavy through the windscreen, near blinding the pair of us.

"You're barely ever home, and when you are all you do is hide in your room and study. You still have time before exams, kid. Spending an hour in the living room won't kill you."

"Being in the living room means being around Flemming while he watches his crappy tv shows, I can't handle that Thomas. Not all of us can pick and choose when to come home."

"You're angry, but I can't tell if it's at me or generally, so I'm not going to push." Thomas huffed, sending me an annoyed glance before focusing on the road.

"Sorry," I mumbled, rubbing the back of my nose with my sleeve. An action that made Thomas' nose curl.

"Willow does the same thing. You're both disgusting,"

"You're dating a girl who acts like your brother, that's kind of disgusting,"

"Fuck you," Thomas barked out, reaching out to blindly slap me before placing his hands on the steering wheel.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure thing, Brother Beau," Thomas quipped, slowly pulling to a stop at the pedestrian crossing. Across the road from us stood the deli and I squinted my eyes to see if I could make out Spencer's figure from the thick of people inside. The instant I made out a mop of black hair I let my eyes flitter back to my brother, picking at the cuff of my sleeve.

"How did you know you liked Willow?"

"This a 'Birds and the Bees' kind of talk?" Thomas said, skin draining of color. "Because we tried that when your night terrors turned to... the other kind of night terrors. As in terrors for Mom when she did the laundry. Because, you know–"

"Jesus, stop Thomas!" I said, punching his shoulder in a bid to shut him up as my cheeks grew redder. "Now I know where my rambling comes from."

"Then what're you asking me about?" Thomas said, smirking to himself at my embarrassment.

"I meant, how did you know you liked Willow specifically. Like out of everyone you were like 'yeah, they're attractive', 'yeah, we get along alright and make each other laugh', how did you know she was the one you actually wanted?"

"She was the only person who held a conversation with me longer than ten minutes without bringing up my high school glory days. Granted she's from Poland and had no idea why people found me cool. She has called me lame on more than one occasion now that I think about it," Thomas chuckled and I tried not to yell at him as he changed lanes without indicating.

"And yet you're with her?"

"I don't know man, we just clicked. It happens sometimes. You met people you click with on all the emotional levels and then some. I think April is the better person to talk to about this, she's good with the sappy shit," Thomas shrugged. "I wanted Willow because I felt she got me, and she's kind of a bitch, which I appreciate, and she makes me do stuff I think I will hate but end up liking."