Her big brothers

Chapter 14: bad ideas

Another few days had passed, it was a Friday night, just before dinner and Emma and Cole were playing a VR game in the game room.

Emma's POV
Me and Cole were playing in the game room when after an intense battle he finally lost!
"Yay, I won!" I declared, jumping up and down.

"Damn it!" He yelled, collapsing on the red bean bag we had in there.
"Rematch?" I asked hopefully, wanting to play again.

He checked the time on his phone. "Maybe later, we have to eat soon"
I was surprised, I didn't realise we had played that long.

I sat on the bean bag chair next to his, and then straight after, Liam called us for dinner.
We went and sat down at the table when I noticed that Aiden wasn't there.

"Where's Aiden?" I asked Alex.

"Probably at his girlfriend's place" Cole snickered, and then Alex shot him a look.

"What? Aiden has a girlfriend?" I asked, pretty shocked.

"He does. But he's not there now, he's at his friend's place finishing their project." Alex said.

"And how come you didn't notice he was Gone? He left three hours ago" Noah added, puzzled.

"We were in the game room, so.." I said, not wanting to clearly say me and Cole had been in there for three hours.

"So you've been playing for 3 hours?" Alex asked, glaring at us.

I gulped. "Yeah, we lost track of time."
"It's fine, but that's enough playing for today," Alex said to us.

"What! That's not fair, we wanted to play again after dinner!" Cole protested.

Alex stared at him fiercely. "Don't raise your voice Cole, and unless you want to lose game room privileges for a week, don't play after dinner." He said.

Cole rolled his eyes and muttered something angrily.

Noah put his fork down. "You better watch the attitude young man, or you're going to bed with a sore butt." Noah threatened him.

"Fine, I'm sorry, I won't do it again" Cole apologised immediately.

There was an awkward silence for a second, and then Liam spoke up. "So Emma, have you completed your homework?" He asked, trying to change the topic, but it just created a knot in my stomach.

"No, not yet," I say, poking at my salad.
"How much do you have left then?" Noah asked me.

"A lot" I answered, vaguely so as not to have them scold me, because, in reality, I hadn't started.

Alex was going to reply, but just then Aiden came through the front door, saving me.

"I'm sorry I'm late, I lost track of time" he apologised, hanging his coat up and heading to the sink to wash his hands.

"It's alright, did you finish it at least?" Alex asked him.

Aiden sighed. "Almost, there was an issue with the 3D printer today, so we still need to get that sorted." He said, sitting down. Alex said something to him, but I wasn't paying attention.

"So, what were we talking about?" He asked us, looking at me as if he knew that's what we were talking about.

"About Emma not finishing her homework," Alex said, glaring at me.

"You didn't answer Noah's question, how much do you have left? Please tell me you've started." Alex asked hopefully.

I gritted my teeth. "No I haven't started, but I'll finish it, I still have two days," I said truthfully.
"Well, you better get started after dinner Em! You have 20 worksheets to do" Noah said.

"Yeah yeah, I will" I muttered.

He raised an eyebrow at me, clearly not happy with my response.
"I'm serious Emma, get started." He said.

We finished dinner and cleared up, and I head to my room. I stare at the stack of worksheets and grimace. "I'll just do them tomorrow," I said to myself and flopped on my bed, taking my phone off my bedside table to talk to Maya before Alex came in.

Before I could text her, one of my other old friends, named Stephanie, called me. I immediately picked up because we hadn't talked since I moved here.

We had so much fun talking, I lost track of time. At exactly 10:30, I noticed the time and panicked. "Shit, sorry Steph I gotta go bye!" I quickly hung up, knowing she'd understand as I'd told her about the ridiculous 10:30 rule.

The reason I was panicking was because Alex told me to get started with my worksheets, and I had planned to sit by my table at exactly 10:30 so when he came it'd look like I'd been working all this time. Luckily I had enough time, and I threw my phone on my bed, ran to my table and plonked on the chair.

I grabbed a pen and pulled a random sheet towards me and just that second, Alex came to take my phone.

He smiled seeing me do my homework, and I gave him a cheesy grin. He went to my bed and took my phone. "Don't stay up too late em, sleep by 11" he told me and left.

I drop my head on my study table, as I'd been just in time. A few minutes later, I heard all the lights go off, and my brothers went to their rooms. I was bored as hell and I certainly wasn't gonna do some stupid worksheets, so I got up and went to Cole's room.

I knocked on his door, three quick knocks. It was our secret knock, cringe, I know but it was necessary sometimes.

He told me to come in so I did. He was on the floor, trying to look for something under his bed
"Whatcha looking for?" I ask him, sitting down next to him.

"I lost my phone charger somewhere, I can't find I- oh, wait it's here!" He said gleefully, pulling it out from under the bed. He put it on his table, before turning to me. "You need anything?" He asked.

I fell on his bed. "I'm so bored! How do you go to bed so early?" I groaned, not knowing if he slept, or passed the time like I did.

He shrugged. "I don't. Honestly, I'm not used to it either, Alex only implemented it a couple of weeks before a left for camp, because I was staying up all night" he said, sitting next to me.

I sat up and glared at him, "Wait you're the reason this stupid rule exists?" I asked angrily.

"I guess, but If you stayed up late like me, he would have set it anyway." He replied, throwing the blame off of himself.

"Asshole" I muttered, angry that I could have been talking to Steph right now if it wasn't for him.

He grinned at me and nudged my shoulder. "I do have a secret though, but I'll only tell you if you stop pouting" he said smirking.

"Okay okay, tell me!" I say excitedly.

"Well," he started, turning to face me. "Alex doesn't lock his door at night, so a few nights I snuck into his room and stole my phone back, used it for a few hours, then put it back when I was done." He finished, grinning evilly

My jaw dropped. "And you've never been caught?" I asked him, curious how he got by our oldest brother.

He shook his head "I've come close to being caught though, his door is really loud so you need to be quiet" he explained.

Now it was my turn to grin. "Let's do it then" I whispered.