"Liam." Paige swims over calmly. "Let me get on your shoulders."
"What?" Liam raises his eyebrows.
"To play chicken." She says like it's obvious. After another second where he doesn't say anything she must realize he doesn't understand what that is. "It's a game. You have someone on your shoulders and someone else has someone on their shoulders too. The people under have to hold the people on top up while they wrestle. Whoever falls off the shoulders first loses."
"Uh, okay." Liam nods like he fully understand but he doesn't. He knows he'll get it once they start. At least he hopes so. He helps Paige up on his shoulders and stands up holding her shins.
With his lack of muscles it's difficult but he's able to hold her. It probably helps that Paige is a little on the smaller side. Ember sees them and encourages Izzy to get on her shoulders.
"This doesn't seem completely fair." Izzy says as she glances at her opponents. The she looks down at Ember who's already looking back at her. "Paige has a boy and I only have you."
She doesn't say it like an insult. More like she's just pointing out the obvious. Which, if Paige were on Ian or Javi's shoulders than it would be obvious. They both look like they work out. However, she's not. She's on Liam's shoulders.
"Ember could beat Liam in a wrestling match." Paige points out. She also doesn't say it to be mean but rather just as a fact. She's probably right.
Ember laughs at this and Liam smiles to show that he's not offended. Izzy takes a look at his and Paige's expressions to decide if they're serious. She seems to realize they are because she lets out a little laugh as well.
"Fine, okay. Let's start."
Liam doesn't do much. All he does is steady Paige when she seems like she's going to fall and take a step towards Izzy and Ember on occasion. Paige ends up shoving Izzy into the water and winning.
She raises both her arms up in triumph and cheers. "Yeah!" She looks around the pool with a smirk. "Who's next?"
Liam scans the pool. There's only Ian and Javi. They both exchange glances before Javi shakes his head.
"I'm not lifting him on my shoulders and I'm sure as hell not about to trust him to keep me from falling and busting my head open."
Paige sighs. "Fine, alright Li let me down. These guys are ruining the fun."
Liam takes a large step forward just to make sure they're in the middle of the pool and then tips Paige backwards. Since she wasn't expecting it, it's easy to get her to fall. She lands into the water and comes up laughing.
"Son of a bitch Liam, that's not what I meant!" But she's smiling wide and so is he. Everyone else is laughing and the air is light.
He's having fun. Liam realizes that and smiles more to himself. He's actually having fun.
"Hey, I got an idea." Ian grins suddenly. He pushes Paige gently towards Javi and then goes over to Liam. "Hop up."
It takes Liam a moment to realize what he means. When his brain finally processes it after one quiet second he chuckles quietly. Ignoring the fact that this could be a very stupid idea and he could very easily embarrass himself, Liam starts to hop up onto Ian's shoulders.
Ian drops a little lower in the pool to make it easier on Liam. Once his legs are on the other boy's shoulders Ian grabs them and holds him in place. It takes him a second to get himself balanced but once he does he smiles and looks up.
Paige gets herself on Javi's shoulders and is grinning at Liam. The competition is in her eyes and Liam knows his eyes don't have that same fire. He doesn't know what to do but he's having fun so that's all he's focused on.
Ian and Javi stand towards the center of the pool and Liam tries to knock Paige off balance by pushing on her shoulders. He make ls sure his hands were only on her shoulders while she is pushing a bit on his torso on occasion.
He almost lost his balance once and was terrified he was going to fall backwards. Ian stepped back though and his hands gripped Liam's thighs in an effort to steady them. It worked.
In the end Liam did fall though. It didn't matter to him. He never cared about winning and Paige clearly did. As he pops out of the water he and Ian exchange a look before laughing. Javi is doing a victory lap around the pool with Paige on his shoulders with her arms up in the air.
Liam laughs, relaxing where he stands. He's laughing so openly, so naturally. It is easy he noticed.
Here, even with the addition of the three teens he doesn't know well, he finds himself laughing without a care. He's comfortable and he's having fun. Both of which are feelings he wishes he felt more often.
Ian bumps their shoulders together. He looks over but the boy doesn't say anything. Instead he just smiles wide. Liam returns it easily.
"You're lighter than Lucas, I think you might be my new chicken partner full time." Ian says with a teasing tone. Liam chuckles quietly, feeling his face heat up a little.
Unsure of how to respond Liam just smiles a little more. That seems to work for Ian. He smiles wide.
"GAH!" Ember yells loudly and suddenly there's a force on Liam's back. The girl tackles into him and wraps her arms around his neck and her legs around his torso.
"Oomph-" Liam stumbles forward and almost falls face first into the water. Ember is cackling atop him. "What are you doing?"
"You're my new horse." She states easily. "You get to carry me around. Congrats."
She pats him on the head and he groans. "You have so many issues. You know that, Em?"
"I am fully aware." She sounds like she's grinning too widely for someone inflicting physical and emotional pain on their friend. "Now, c'mon horse, off you go."
Liam rolls his eyes but swims around with Ember attached to his back. After a couple barnacle jokes and Liam purposely falling backwards she detaches. Liam thought he was free but was dragged back into another splashing war, this one involving everyone in the pool.
Amongst the water spraying everywhere Liam's laughing loudly. His chest is vibrating and he swims backwards to escape Paige's merciless attacks. He ducks a little to the left when he sees Ian and it could've just been his imagination but he thought that the boy stepped in front of him as well.
During the chaos Liam feels more outgoing. He knows he will regret it later but he doesn't now, and that's what counts. He jumps up behind the boy, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and using the other to aid him in splashing Paige. Paige shrieks and giggles in response, trying her best to splash them back.
"No teaming!" She yells loudly but is laughing so hard Liam couldn't hear it all that well. "No teaming!"
"What was that?" Ian asks with an easy grin. "I didn't hear you!"
He keeps splashing Paige who swims over and attaches herself to Javi. He laughs and joins in, splashing at Ian and Liam. Liam laughs, ducking more behind Ian so he'd take most of the blow. Ian uses one arm to cover his mouth since he's still laughing and continues splashing them. He didn't seem to mind Liam latching onto him and using him as a human shield much.
Which is good because Liam really wanted a human shield and Ian makes a very good one.
Paige at some point caught on to his idea and got it for herself. She rotated around until she was more behind Javi than in front of him. She made it much more obvious she was using him as a shield though because she grips his shoulders and shrinks behind him so her head wasn't even peaking out. Ian starts dying of laughter at this.
"Just surrender!" He calls over to her. Javi chuckles and pauses his movements of splashing them back. They all stop splashing waiting for her response.
Her reply is cackling and peaking out quickly to splash Ian and Liam again before ducking back into cover. "Never!"
It's like that for several minutes. It doesn't stop until a woman walks out of the house. It's safe to say she's Javi's mother as many of their features are the same. She's speaking with another girl. The girl is older than them but much younger than Javi's mother.
"Javier! ¡Es hora de ir!" (Javier! It's time to go!) She speaks in Spanish and for once Liam is glad that he was forced to take all those foreign language classes. Even if he isn't fluent in any of the languages at least he can understand some things.
"Okay." Javi nods, going to get out of the pool.
"C'mon guys, you too." The other girl says. She looks a lot like Ian is the first thing Liam notices.
"Alright." Ian nods and that's when Liam remembers that he's clutching on to him. He lets go quickly, suddenly embarrassed. Although as Ian flashes him an easy smile it doesn't seem so embarrassing anymore.
All of them climb out of the pool and the older girl gives them all a once over each. She smiles brightly at Liam and he's struck because suddenly she looks like Ember to him. She sticks out her hand for him. Even though pool water is dripping off him he wouldn't dare be rude so he shakes her hand.
She's got Ian's skin tone and his eyes but Ember's dark wavy hair and face shape. When she smiles she looks just like Ember but in a different color palette and adding a few years of age. Yet, with her neutral expression her and Ian are obvious look a likes as well.
It confuses him because Ember and Ian are step siblings. They don't look anything alike either. If she was one of their's biological sister that would make sense but she looks like she could be both of their's. That didn't add up though because she was older than them but their parents couldn't have been together before Ian and Ember were conceived.
"You're new." She says simply. "I'm Iris, Ian and Ember's older sister."
Liam nods a little. "Nice to meet you."
She watches him for a moment. He shifts uncomfortably under her gaze and wonders why she's looking at him like that. She's watching him with expectant eyes. His eyes widen when he realizes he's an idiot and he opens his mouth to speak but doesn't get the chance.
"This is Liam." Ian bumps their shoulders together. "He's shy."
She hums with a kind smile. Liam looks down in embarrassment. He knows he's an idiot but this is just downright embarrassing. There doesn't seem to be anything negative in her expression but Liam doesn't trust it.
"I see." Her eyes go over to Paige. "You two must be friends. Don't tell me this knucklehead brought him into the group."
She gestures to Ian who looks offended. Paige smiles, laughing quietly. She nods. "He goes to school with us."
She doesn't have to look at Ember to imply who the us is. Everyone else goes to the public school on this side of town from what Liam understands. Ember and Paige are the only ones attending the stuck up high school on the other side.
"Well you guys air dry and then come in for dinner. Don't you even think about tracking water footprints through the house because after Mom scolds your asses I'll behead you myself."
They all nod, even Liam. As she walks away she talks to Javi's mother. The Mexican boy had went ahead and slipped inside after she yelled at him that he had to go. She however had waited for Iris. The two walk inside together, the woman talking in English but her accent is clear.
"I'm confused." Liam turns towards Embdr. "You guys are step siblings, that's what you told me, right?"
His eyes flick between the two he's referring to. They all look confused. Ember slowly nods. "Yes. Why?"
"Why does Iris look like both of you then?" He asks.
Ian's eyes widen. "People don't usually pick up on that."
Liam looks over directly at him now. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, she looks the most like me so they just assume we're bio siblings and Ember's our step sister. They don't usually catch on to the fact that she looks like Ember too."
"Oh." Liam didn't know how to react. "Well, she does and I guess I picked up on it. So... care to share?"
Ember sighs. "Our parents have like this weird, straight out of the movies type of romance."
"That tells me nothing Em. I don't watch movies."
Ember chuckles quietly. Paige, Ian, and Izzy all crack grins as well. Ember shakes her head lightly.
"Okay, so basically my mom and Ian's dad got together in high school when they were young. My mom got pregnant a little bit before they graduated. They got married, Iris was born, and they were a big happy family. Well, being young parents and fresh out of high school was stressful. That stress caused the downfall of their relationship when Iris was like three and they split up. They did keep in touch and coparented though so they still kept up with each other kind of."
Her eyes went over to Ian and he sighs, taking over the story. "Well my dad got in another long term relationship and three years later he was remarried with baby me on the way. They started having problems before I was born but tried to endure them. That didn't work well though and just made the break up even worse while I was a baby. They kept in touch and tried to coparent like he had for Iris since he didn't want his kids to have terribly dysfunctional parents and be all screwed up."
"About that time I was born." Ember says. "A complete accident with a guy that was just a fuck buddy with my mom. He did not want to be a dad but promised to be financial support. Well about a year later my mom and his dad decided to give it another try. He asked her out and she decided not to say no. It worked out and after a year of dating they decided to try marriage again as well. It obviously worked out this time and they're still sickeningly in love."
Ian nods as she says the last bit. Liam takes in all the information. "That makes more sense."
"Yep." Ember nods. "So there you go."
"With story time out of the way. Can I just say I'm getting really cold out here?" Izzy says, drawing the attention to her.
Ember's eyes widen at her words. "I'll go harass Mom or Iris into getting us towels so we can go inside."
"Thank you." Izzy gives her a smile and she runs off towards her house. Liam and Paige exchange knowing smiles.
•○•○•○•○•○•○•○•○•
Ember is a simp.
Love you ♡
- Z