"So are you girls just not going to talk about college with me then?" Sara asked, her eyes shifting to the back mirror where she saw her twin daughters hunched over each others phones, purposefully making no eye contact with their mother.
"We still have a year, mom. There's no need to stress us over it all now," Scarlet said quickly, keeping her eyes glued to her phone. Clary nodded silently before increasing the volume of her music.
Sara shock her head but said nothing for the rest of the ride until she stopped in front of the community center. Both Scar and Clary positioned themselves to get out of the car but stopped when they found the doors childproofed and locked. Scar was once again first to glare at her mother who looked at the two of them patiently.
"We are going to be late, mom. Can't we talk about college later?" Sara eyed Scar and then Clary before asking what was the silent question throughout the afternoon.
"Why did your usual friends from Derby not drive you today?" Clary and Scar exchanged exasperated looks before rounding on their mother.
"Alicia isn't a car service mom! She has her off days too."
"Off days that qualify not answering any of your messages?" Sara asked, watching her daughters cautiously. Clary looked toward the window pensively while Scarlet looked her mother head on and stubbornly told her mother to drop it and let them out. Sara ended it there and unlocked the doors, and together Scar and Clary rushed to practice.
You'd think she wouldn't want us to come to practice today or something," Scar muttered under her breath as they barged into the locker room and hastily started placing their gear on their arms, legs and shoulders. The room was already filled with the bags from their other teammates, only further worrying the two girls of how late they were. Clary stayed quiet as she hooked her skates on before talking softly.
"How did mom find out about Alicia not texting us back?" Scar shrugged.
"She probably still monitors our phones. Either way it doesn't matter. You ready?" Scar was ready to go and was just tightening her helmet when Clary joined her and together the two exited the locker rooms.
Out on the rink they found their team warming up; everyone rushing from one side of the circle to the other, some going on the ramps and others staying at the bottom ring. No one seemed to notice the twins entrance until Scarlet started onto the rink.
The head of their team, Abby stopped right in front Scarlet, blocking her from going further. The rest of the team stopped what they were doing and a few skated over to hear what was going on. Scarlet looked at Abby with confusion mixed with irritation while Abby showed little, emotion wise.
"Where were you two yesterday?" Abby questioned, eyeing the twins coldly.
"Ballet rehearsal. Why? Did we miss a game?" Abby scoffed at Scarlet's lack of understanding while one of the other players, Jenny, muttered "ballet" in a overly girly tone under her breath. Scarlet frowned toward Jenny and then glanced back at Abby defiantly.
"What's going on?"
"What's going on is that you two keep missing practices and don't seem to care about it," Abby stated plainly as she looked between the two girls.
"And of all things, you miss it for ballet. Don't we allow you enough time to go to your daily classes as it is?"
"We need to be at rehearsal in order to keep our spots in the Alice in wonderland performance," Clary cut in, moving to side with her sister. Scarlet internally groaned at her sister for naming the ballet. Cool girls who do roller derby wouldn't find Alice in Wonderland to be a particularly good substitute for any roller derby activity. Scarlet was right for a few of the other players coming forward to listen in, suddenly halted and turned to each other with bewailed expressions.
"Alice in Wonderland? Abby, why are we letting them compete if they would rather spend their time dancing in tutus for a child's story?" a player named Vivi asked, stopping short beside Abby. Abby looked at her thoughtfully and then back to the twins who were now looking at one another frantically. The whole team was now watching in a pack around Abby and the twins, waiting for drama.
"As if what your father pulled at our last rally was bad.." Jenny muttered snarky. Scarlet glared Jenny's way.
"Don't get my father involved in this. He's just thought he was being funny. He never meant to degrade our team!" Jenny scoffed.
"He might as well have! Acting like an adoring parent.."
"That's what he is! Why, are you not used to adoring parents, Jenny? Never felt loved have you? That explains a lot!" Scarlet shot back causing Jenny to go right at Scar's neck. A commotion of girls in blue yanking at each other followed until Abby yelled "Enough!" making the pack back off with Jenny still shaking and Scarlet breathing heavily with her fists clenched. Clary was looking at her team wide eyed, unsure how to look at these women the same way.
"Vi is right. You two shouldn't compete if can't make the time to practice," Abby said shortly. Scar made a noise in her throat but for once had no words so Clary took over.
"We are here for every game and we play our hardest Abby. Please just give us this chance to play we.."
Abby shook her head and stopped Clary flat.
"Either you girls dance for your fairytale performance or you join us here. It's not possible to dance and go into roller derby at the same time. It's just not. Especially when we already gave you the time off for dance classes daily and school time."
"You can't blame us for going to school! We are the only high schoolers on this team! Of course we're not going to be available to you all throughout the day, we still have other commitments," Scar protested angrily. Clary watched a flash of red start to creep up her sister's neck; a sign of Scar's real uncontrolable anger making an appearance.
Abby shook her head again and Jenny chuckled and looked at the twins curiously.
"Either choose dance or us. There are no other options that I will allow girls. And until you choose, you will not be allowed to practice with us," Abby said in a final tone. Scar looked close to tears but her stubborn side was keeping them at bay as she asked her last question.
"Are you really throwing us off the rink, Abby?" Abby gave the girls a final look before nodding. She then turned to the rest of the players and called them back to warm up, leaving the twins to be rushed off the rink with little regard.
"Shit, I got in," Sam muttered under his breath. A deep sigh followed; somehow he had not realized that he was holding his breath as he read the acceptance letter. But the relief of it all was short lived as he looked to the bottom of the letter showing the financial support.
Sam muttered a curse under his breath and threw the letter back on the bare countertop and returned to the task at hand, fixing this BMW's engine. He brought the hood up again and stared their just looking at the work he needed to do. Nothing computed though, for all that was on his mind was that letter.
"You all righ' there sunny?" Sam looked up to see Eve's dad, Jim, walking out of the office with a beer in his hand, the other holding a stack of paper of what looked like car settlements.
"Fine. Just preoccupied." Jim gave a stark nod before walking into the backroom where the sound of electric guitar clashed with drums and bass were heard. Ben was back there in another rehearsal, completely unaware of his brother's acceptance to Carnegie Mellon. Sam shook his head as if wishing the thoughts out of his mind and returned to work.
Thankfully for Sam, working automobiles usually took all his focus to the point where people walking in would scarcely get his attention until they called out his name. This time when Sam heard his name called, he was covered in engine grease with his face dripping in sweat from being under the hood. When he reappeared and saw Cici starring at him shocked, he had no idea why until he rubbed his face with a towel and saw the mess he made.
"Looking for Ben?" Sam asked with a chuckle as he threw the towel at the sink and sat down in his roll chair. Cici stood out in the garage like a rose growing in a dump. The girl was dressed in red with her blonde hair curled in long ringlets that only elongated her face more, something Sam's mother had told Jade was supposedly important in the beauty industry but like all things his mother said, it was another thing Jade did not take seriously. But seeing Cici now, Sam could see what his mother was meaning.
"Yeah, he and I were going to go out after practice but-" a clash of what sounded like a drum was heard from the other room.
"They're still practicing," Sam said with a small smile.
"But he should be done any minute. Why don't you take a seat and I'll go get him." Sam stood and offered her his chair which she gladly accepted before Sam disappeared into the back where he saw the band in full swing.
Eve was singing in her low alto voice with a hint of her southern tang reappearing in certain vowels while Axel did a bar on his electric guitar. Zac hit alternate low notes on his bass and Ben went all out with alternating beats on his drum. For the first time in a while Sam watched with some amusement as he watched his brother embracing the music with the rest of the band. It was nice, even if the music wasn't Sam's taste. And then it ended when Eve saw Sam smirking at them and cut the boys off before turning back to the outsider in an aggressive manner.
"We're practicing for thirty more minutes. You can't take Ben yet." Sam eyed Ben before looking at the rest of the group calmly.
"That's fine with me. I still have work to do but I thought I should let Ben know that his date is here waiting for him. Ben must have forgotten all about Cici because he muttered a line of curses and immediately stood up away from his drum set, causing Eve to throw her hands up in surrender.
"Great, now we have no drummer."
"You'll be fine E. You have us!" Axel said smoothly that only caused Eve to through her water bottle at him. Sam followed Ben out of the room and back to his work while half watching Cici and Ben chat.
"You look great, Ci."
"Am I too dressed up though? I wasn't sure where we were going."
"No! You look perfect. Let me just grab my jacket and we can get out of here. Sam keep Cici entertained while she waits." Sam sat up quick enough to give his brother a WTF look before smiling pleasantly at Cici.
"So my idiot brother hasn't told you where the date is?" Cici laughed before nodding. Sam dropped a wrench back into the tool box by his feet and turned to face Cici head on.
"Don't be worried. Ben will still act like an idiot tonight so don't take that much seriously." Once again Cici laughed.
"You don't happen to know where he will be taking me, do you?" Sam shrugged.
"In all honesty my brother hasn't gone out with many girls so this will be new information for me too." This news seemed to hit Cici strangely because she suddenly became a little flustered with the clip of her bag. Moments later Ben reappeared with his jacket on and his hair freshly ruffled (Sam told him to do that yesterday) and turned to Cici, asking if she was ready to go. She nodded and with a final wave from Sam the couple left the garage, leaving Sam to his work.
He could always tell Ben about the acceptance letter later tonight when Ben comes back from the date. Sam just had to remember to do it before telling anyone else.
And with that silent agreement, Sam bent back under the hood and continued with the BMW.