My second attempt at a nap, well I can only say it went better. I wake up in an odd fourteen hours, an hour later than I should have.
I spring out of bed, horrorstruck, scrambling through my clean clothes and throwing them on sloppily. I can hear some of the guys making a ruckus downstairs, not sure who and not sure why. It sounds safe enough to run past; sometimes it may not be. Especially when Lucas and his temper are involved, he gets the others riled up even more than necessary.
I tip-toe down the hall, not sure who's sleeping or working or banging around downstairs. Then I nearly fly down the staircase, missing every other step.
Blazing past the cousins in front of the living room entryway, I stop short to see Ash standing, staring distantly in the kitchen, a glass of orange juice clutched in his hand.
"I'm late..." I state, looking down. I don't hear the slightest reply, and when I look up again, he hasn't moved an inch. He just stands, blinking sluggishly. "Ash? Hello? I was um... Wondering, could you drive me this morning? Hello?!"
He does turn his head, but his lips stay perfectly still. I glare at them half-heartedly, knowing that even when he's like this I can't hate him. He just has to act like he doesn't care. About anything.
He gets like this occasionally... When he just refuses to interact with me, he doesn't talk much, and he's just too damn cool for school.
Perfect expression for someone that's going to get about four detentions before lunch...
I growl angrily, storming past and grabbing a bagel from the counter. "Its already past eight!"
Jesse walks in and throws me my bookbag, immediately searching the fridge after. I mumble a confused and rushed thanks as he walks away empty handed. By the time I have my slow ass set to go, I see Ash ready by the door, brown leather jacket pulled on and keys held limply in his hand. His expression holds nothing more than exhaustion, he looks almost dead.
I hate it.
I push through the door, past him. I can still hear him when he calls to the house, "Kay guys, I'm taking the kid to school!"
A couple half-hearted groans that turn to chuckles follow, and I honestly don't know what to make of them. They hurt a bit.
He laughs along, then we're driving. It's a crummy old car but big enough to fit almost all of us; eight, semi-comfortably. If it ever broke down and there were eight guys huddled inside, I have no idea what would happen. A whole lot of seperate hitch hiking, that's for sure.
"Ash?" He starts fiddling with the radio, soon it's blaring some song that I have never heard, pretty much drowning out conversation. He starts mouthing the words, and I just watch him. I watch his lips move and his eyebrows pull together when he mixes up the lyrics at one point. There's nothing to do, so I decide to practice my photographer eye.
I never had lessons for this, I taught myself most of what I knew. I know my way around a camera, and I'm good at positioning and timing and the lingo you have to be able to speak. But you can never have enough practice.
As I look at my brother, I try to time my blinks to the louder beats of the music. There's a line that is stronger, and I closed my eyes at that part. When I do that, I am left with the image of his face being smooth, his mouth only slightly open, eyes alert but calm, anticipating the rise of tempo.
As soon as I have that covered, I tap my middle to pinky finger on my right hand to the beat, then a split second before the strong note, I hit my index finger against my leg. Click.
My 'picture' stays in my vision for a good ten seconds, finally fading away before I reopen my eyes. But I took it at the exact moment, and I am pleased with my short-term memory photography.
He finally glances sideways, giving me a look that tells me to stop my camera-free picture taking.
We pull up to the school, a few kids loitering outside, smoking and talking secretively. I move to leave, but feel his hand on my shoulder. "Hey."
I turn back, "Yeah?"
"See you soon, midget." He pulls me closer and hugs me with one arm, his badass facade crumbling pitifully. I smile and throw a quick goodbye at him, speeding out of the car and into the school.
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This is Ben's POV, thanks!
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I look at my cousin, smacking the back of his head to get his attention. Tyler turns and glares playfully.
"What?" he asks, a little anger dripping into his voice. "Problem?"
"Nah, I'm just bored as shit and hungery."
"We could go 'play'!" He laughs a little too loudly, but only because everyone else in the house is upstairs. He steps closer to me, getting in my face. "It could help with the second thing, if I try hard enough."
"No, come on. Let's go for a walk, Ash took the kid to school." He agrees, then, as I go to get our coats, grumbles complaints as to why we're even up this early.
We race each other out the door and down the first street, our matching unzipped coats flapping behind us. That ends when, laughing, I nearly launch myself into a pole. That brings on more hysterics from Tyler, to which I swing a light punch.
He leads us to a fast food place and we dine like champions, each a burger, sharing fries and a rootbeer. It's weird how when circumstances come, you get closer to people faster than you would think possible. I hadn't met Tyler until a short while before we moved in with the guys. We were cousins by his father, my mother. But had just never met. Things kept us apart. It was almost funny, because now we are joined at the hip.
I choke on a fry when I finish that thought, an all too literal picture in my head. He chuckles cautiously, "You okay?"
Nodding and coughing, I smile back at him, "Oh yeah, very okay..."
Getting some sort of hint, he nods knowingly back, a smirk forming on his lips.
"Too funny!" I say back, in response to a story he was telling me. Apparently when he was in grade school, a girl named Emily Ellis was attacked by her classmates, a dozen pieces of gum stuck in her bushy red hair, papers thrown at her (Spit ball-made and not), milk was poured down her clothes (horrible dresses and baggy tights, clunky shoes and socks that bunched), her glasses were stolen and her braces taunted. This wasn't the only thing I found funny, what had me holding my sides was the speech the teacher gave afterwards, Miss What's-Her-Face holding Emily to her side and listing everything that was done to her, acting completely aghast... And subtly yanking at a spit ball/chunk of gum, causing the girl to tear up and yelp with each tug.
"Dude... That... That's horrible..." I wheeze.
"Why are you laughing then?"
"... Smart ass..."
Our clucking dies out when we both notice someone ahead of us, a girl in shiny heeled boots that go past her calfs, a black skirt about three inches under her ass, and a thin red tanktop barely keeping her breasts covered.
What a wonderful city, prostitutes and McDonalds- all on the same block!
"Heeeeeey, boys!" She squakes, walking closer to us. "How you doing, doing good?"
She smiles a little too big, getting a little too close. She has Tyler leaning backwards to avoid her lips, his hands up to try and hold her at bay. "Um..."
"Now, names ain't importan' in my biss, but you can call me Jill. 'Kay baby?" She brings her smirk to me, backing up luckily to get a better view. "You guys want a good, good time?"
"We- uh. What?" I stammer. She laughs, pushing her chest out even farther.
"You two brothers? You could be damn twins, are ya?" She chews her gum noisely, squinting. "I mean, that's not your real hair colour is it?"
I self-consciously look at the glass in the store window next to us. Then Tyler asks for me, "What, never seen someone with white blonde hair before?"
I almost want to laugh again, just the sound of it. He has told before that he admires it.
"Whatever. Come on boys, we can have a good time." She says, getting way too close for comfort. She whispers in my ear, "Unless, you're with... Them... Not you two, eh babe?"
"Look!" Tyler says, pulling my arm and getting me away from the woman. He smiles, a huge, innocent smirk plastered on his face. "We're gay! Bye!"
We leave Jill completely perplexed, her mouth hanging open, probably trying to figure out how she lost a sale so suddenly. The low sound of the woman cursing heavily (surprisingly) in Italian reachs our ears.
We get a good two streets away when I crack up. "What the hell was that!?"
"I don't know... How to get away from whores 101?" he chuckles at himself.
"You, my loyal companion, should be a professor." I say jokingly, shoving my hands in my pockets and continuing on the way home.
"Yeah... How much do you think they make?"