After Dark

Fifteen

They both walk into the living room. Izzy walks in and sits down right on Ember's lap. Ember is overjoyed by that, she quickly wraps her arms around Izzy's waist and rests her head on the girl's shoulder. Javi walks over to the couch. Lucas lifts his head up and Javi sits down. As soon as he sits down, Lucas rests his head on Javi's thigh.

"Is your mom not home? I didn't see her car." Javi says, his hand going down to play with Lucas's hair.

"No, she's going out with her 'girlfriends' today." Chris shrugs.

"Damn. Good for her." Izzy mumbles. "I would love a girls night out."

"Dude." Ember gawks up at her. "We can have one. You should've said you wanted one."

Izzy just waves her off. "Next weekend maybe."

"Wow. Glad to see we're still under appreciated." Ian shakes his head like he's disappointed. His hand wraps around to grip Liam's shoulder and he lightly massages the area. "Oh well. We'll just have a boys night in. It'll be cool to finally get some peace and quiet."

"Okay, rude." Ember flips him off.

Liam smiles warmly. He envies the relationship between the two.

While his older sister and he never had any big fights or arguments, they still weren't very close in childhood. They would play games together when they were younger but she was always going around with their dad or attending school events.

When she comes back from college for visits they talk. They only get to have a couple short conversations here and there though. She usually gets dragged to business things with their dad or tea with their mom. Since Liam can't stand either of those things he usually gets left out.

"Is it too early to head down to the lake?" Izzy asks. "Javi's car doesn't have a working AC."

Javi glares at her. "Hey, don't shit on my car like that. It's a great car."

"It's a hand-me-down car from your older brother." Izzy says and gives him a judgemental look.

"Watch your mouth. I love that car."

"Okay, moving away from the argument now please." Lucas speaks. Liam looks over at him to see Javi is still playing with his hair. His eyes are closed and he looks really relaxed.

"I mean, I guess we can head down there if no one objects." Chris shrugs and looks around. No one says anything.

Liam looks over when he feels Ian's gaze. He shrugs at the boy and Ian slowly smiles. "Let's go ahead then."

After Ian stands everyone else follows his lead. Liam tags along. They all get their shoes on and leave the house.

Liam follows the group as they cross the road and go to the woods. They walk down a path they had taken the other day on fourwheelers. Javi is leading the way and about halfway through he breaks off the path and goes left.

They go one or two at a time, navigating through the trees since there isn't a path. Liam follows Ian closely. They reach an old barb wire fence that's coming apart. Ian ducks under one part where the wire stretches up so he won't get scratched. Liam follows his lead.

When he gets on the other side of the fence and starts to stand up he steps on a big rock. It goes sliding and takes him with it, knocking him off balance. Just as he thinks he's about to go tumbling down the rocky hill they're walking down, Ian grips his arm.

"Thanks." Liam mumbles, looking down where all their friends are walking down the hill.

"Yeah. We're almost there so just be careful coming down here." Ian warns, slowly retracting his arm.