Los Angeles | 2009
Bradley's POV
It was worth it. That was the only thought in my head as I put my bag down and slinked into the sofa in the living room. I had been tough with them, and they may hate me for it, but that was the price I had to pay to lead them. Winning has a price, and basketball demands that all the members on the team pay it. It is a tithe for greatness, and I would make damn sure that we were great by the end of the school term next year.
Some might say I was being harsh for a junior high student, but I saw it differently. In order to reach great heights, you need two things: persistence and consistency. If we didn't establish that now, it would mean nothing when it really counted. Leo and David understood that, which is why they always followed my lead, and today I made it clear that the rest of the team needed to as well.
My mind drifted to the newest addition, Patrick. He had seemed to struggle against us, but I noticed how he used his rugby skills to enhance his performance. He was a diamond in the rough, and more than anything, he had the scent of a beast. That feral smile on his face towards the end of practice, even when he was getting dominated, was a sign to me that he liked competing. Maybe even more than Leo did.
Even though he was shorter than David and less muscular, he did not budge from fighting him in the air, a place even I would hesitate to directly contest David. He wasn't afraid of the physical challenge.
Patrick would do fine. More than fine. I couldn't wait for the practice session on Saturday.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table. I picked it up and saw her name. A quiet, easy smile spread across my face.
Lexi:Hey. I'll be there at your place in an hour. Is that okay?
I typed back immediately.
Me:Yeah, that's perfect. I'll be waiting.
An hour. That gave me plenty of time. I headed to my room to take a shower, the cool water a relief after a long day. When I came back out, wrapped in a towel, my hair still dripping, I noticed a small figure in the living room.
It was Erin. She had crept out of her room and was now on her tiptoes, slowly and silently opening the laptop I'd left on the coffee table. She glanced over her shoulder toward the hallway, a look of intense, sneaky concentration on her face, before turning back to the screen, her fingers hovering over the power button.
I leaned against the doorframe, a wave of older-brotherly amusement washing over me. I had created a little anime addict. The peacefulness of the house was about to be replaced by the sound of shinobi and shouted jutsus.
A nefarious thought invaded my mind, and I couldn't help but smile at executing it.
I snuck up behind Erin on silent feet. Just as her finger hovered over the mouse, poised to press play, I clicked my tongue loudly. She jumped, startled, and in that split second, I snapped a picture of her on my phone, the flash glinting off her wide, guilty eyes.
"Oh, Erin, you'll be in so much trouble when Mom sees this," I said, my voice a sing-song taunt. "Watching anime just after your nap and before you even touched your notebook for studies."
Erin panicked. "No! Delete it!" she shrieked, launching herself off the chair. She started running after me to take the phone from me and delete the image. I laughed, easily dodging her, holding the phone high above my head.
"Give it back, Brad!" she yelled, making a desperate grab for it.
The chase was on. We tore around the living room, a stream of laughter and frustrated shrieks. At one point, as I sidestepped the sofa, she made a desperate lunge, her small hands grabbing the only thing she could reach: the edge of the towel wrapped around my hips.
"Whoa!" I yelped as the towel was nearly yanked off. I quickly tightened my grip on it. "Hey! That's playing dirty!" I shrieked at her.
"I don't care! I just want the photo deleted!" she yelled back, her determination absolute. I yanked my end of the towel hard, her feeble grip couldn't hold on any longer and so I ran again chuckling at her failed attempts.
"You give me something worthwhile and I might just give you the photo" I declared while running.
"Fine what do you want?" she said exasperated.
"Your entire Halloween Candy collection next month" I said my smile growing cheekier by the minute.
"NEVER" she screamed as she charged at me again.
She chased me around and finally caught me in a compromising position by the front door. She had a firm grip on her end of the towel, and I was holding the other, the terry cloth stretched precariously between us. I was barely covering myself.
It was in that exact moment of a tense, ridiculous standoff that we heard it. The soft click of the front door lock turning.
We both froze, our eyes wide with horror. The door swung open, and Alex walked in.
For a split second, the scene was a perfect, silent tableau of impending doom. Then, Erin, in a moment of pure, panicked instinct, dropped the towel from her end and took a step back.
The towel fell to the floor.
I was compromised.
"Aaaah!" Alex shrieked, her hands flying up to cover her eyes, the box of brownies she was holding crashing to the floor.
My own brain simply ceased to function. I floundered, grabbing the fallen towel in a desperate attempt to cover myself. My entire body, from the soles of my feet to the tips of my ears, was on fire. I was sure I was blushing a shade of red that scientists had yet to discover.
"Oops," Erin said quietly into the stunned silence. It was then that I realised, she hadn't panicked she did it on purpose. That evil wench.
"I—it's—she was—" I tried to explain the situation while stammering, but the words wouldn't form.
Alex, peeking through a tiny gap in her fingers, just stared at my naked body, her own face as red as a tomato.
"Bradley," Erin interjected, her voice suddenly full of nine-year-old wisdom. "Maybe go change before you start explaining yourself."
Click
Erin was holding the emergency phone in her hand, it was essentially hers, but it was always kept at home for use.
I looked at her she was smiling at me with all the maliciousness she could muster. We were now even. Oh, I would get her for this one day.
"Ju—just give me a moment, I'll be back," I stammered to Alex. "Why don't you sit down until then?"
"O—okay," she replied nervously, not moving her hands from her face.
I took the stairs two at a time, the mortification from earlier still burning on my cheeks, changed into some casual clothes—shorts and a t-shirt—in record time, and took a deep, steadying breath before facing them again. When I walked back down, I found them on the sofa. Erin was sitting with Alex, happily eating one of the brownies that had survived the fall, while enthusiastically explaining the show she was watching.
"...and so Naruto uses the Shadow Clone Jutsu, but they're not real, they're just copies, and they all go 'poof' when you hit them, but he can make a thousand of them!"
Alex was tense, listening with a polite, slightly dazed expression, a hint of a blush still high on her cheeks. As soon as I entered the room, that blush deepened, a wave of red that spread from her neck all over her face.
"Okay, Erin," I said, trying to sound like an adult in charge. "Leave. I need to talk to Alex alone."
Erin didn't even look at me. She just took another bite of brownie and, with perfect timing, stuck out her tongue at me.
I sighed, my authority completely gone. It was time to negotiate. "I won't tell Mom about you watching the show if you just leave us alone."
She finally turned to me, a shrewd, calculating look in her eyes that was far too old for a nine-year-old. "You will let me watch Naruto on your laptop for a whole month," Erin said, her voice firm. "Only then will I go."
I was outmaneuvered, outplayed by a kid who still believed in the Tooth Fairy. I accepted my defeat. "Fine," I relented with a sigh. "You have a deal."
She gave me a triumphant grin, finished her brownie, and skipped out of the room, leaving a heavy, awkward silence in her wake. I turned to Alex, who was studiously examining the pattern on the sofa cushions.
"So," I started, my own voice feeling clumsy. "We should probably continue our conversation. In my room? It's quieter."
Alex blushed a deeper shade of red but gave a small, hesitant nod. She stood up and followed me upstairs.
We walked into my room, and I immediately plopped onto my bed, the exhaustion from the day finally catching up to me. Alex took a seat on the chair in front of my desk, which she promptly turned to face me. The silence was thick with lingering embarrassment. I could see she was still blushing a little, and I decidedly wanted to take advantage of that.
"You liked it that much, huh?" I asked, a playful grin spreading across my face.
"Sh-shut up!" she sputtered immediately. "I was just caught off guard! I mean, you don't expect things like that when you open the door to your boyfriend's house!"
She saw me smiling and chuckling at her response.
"Be—besides, you're the perv who was naked in front of me!" she added, crossing her arms defensively. "How is it my fault that it keeps replaying in my head?"
My smile faltered for a second, a fresh wave of embarrassment hitting me, but then I zeroed in on her last words. "Oh, so you're replaying it in your head?" I said, my grin returning, wider this time.
She grabbed a pillow from my bed and threw it at me. "Ugh, you're so infuriating! How did this become my fault when you were the person prancing around naked in the living room?!"
I caught the pillow easily. "Ever since you leered at my compromised physique," I replied cheekily. "Admit it. You liked it."
"I'm not a perv like you," she defended.
"That's not an answer to my question," I fired back.
"It is the one you get," she stated, her chin held high.
"Come now, Lexi, don't be like that," I said, pushing the new nickname. "There is no shame in admitting you liked seeing your boyfriend naked." I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Maybe I should do it again and see how you feel." I slowly began pulling at the hem of my t-shirt in a gesture to remove it.
"Wha—what are you doing?!" she shrieked, her eyes wide with panic.
"Giving you what you wanted… a rewatch," I replied with a conniving smile.
"Ugh! Fine! I liked it, okay?! Now stop undressing, you perv!" she finally said, accepting defeat.
"Who said anything about undressing?" I said, sporting a grin as I let go of my shirt. "I was just adjusting the hem to let some air in." Checkmate.
She had nothing to say after that, just staring at me, slack-jawed and embarrassed.
"You're impossible, you know that," she finally said, though the corner of her mouth was twitching.
"But you like it," I supplied with a grin.
A real, beautiful smile finally broke through on her face. "Yes," she admitted softly. "I do."
I clasped her hand, and she returned the gesture by squeezing it. The awkward, blushing energy had settled, replaced by a comfortable quiet. "So, a movie? Or something else? We can do whatever you want today," I offered.
"Hmm, let me think," she said, placing a thoughtful finger on her chin. "Have you watched WALL-E?"
"I have, but why did you pick that one?" I asked, curious.
"I don't know, when I watched it last year, I kind of resonated with EVE," she explained, her gaze becoming distant and analytical. "She was so objective-oriented, a creature of pure logic and programming. But then when she meets WALL-E, she discovers a new side to herself. And it's not just her; WALL-E also discovers himself and climbs out of his loneliness. When I think about it now, I feel that both of them reflect parts of the two of us. So I thought maybe watching it together will be fun."
I was in awe of her analysis. She saw it. She didn't know the why or the how—the past life, the secret knowledge—but she saw the core of who I was. The lonely robot, cataloging a deserted planet, wanting to meet my EVE. And now, I had.
"Alright," I said, my voice a little thick. "WALL-E it is. Let's put it on."
"Great," she replied with a genuine smile.
We settled onto my bed, leaning against the headboard with my laptop balanced between us. We started watching the movie and eating brownies. The room was quiet, the only sounds the movie's gentle score and the soft crinkle of the brownie container. As the story unfolded, a comfortable, easy silence grew between us. During the iconic "Define Dancing" scene, as the two robots soared through space, her hand found mine in the space between us, our fingers lacing together naturally.
The afternoon bled into evening, the light outside my window shifting from bright gold to a soft, dusky purple. We were completely lost in the simple, beautiful story on the screen.
A soft knock on my door brought us back to reality. It was Mom. "Bradley, honey, it's almost time for dinner," she said, poking her head in.
Alex immediately started to gather her things. "I should go. My mom will be expecting me."
I walked her to the front door. "Thanks for coming over," I said. "And for the brownies. And the movie choice."
"Anytime," she said, her smile warm and easy. She gave me a quick, soft hug. "Bye, Brad."
"Bye, Lexi."
I watched her walk down the path and boarding the car as Harris drove her home, the warmth of the afternoon still lingering in my chest.
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Those who get the chapter title reference. Put that gif in the paragraph comments. I hope you enjoy the humour of this one.
AN: THERE SEEMS TO BE AN ISSUE WITH WEBONVEL ITS NOT SHOWING THE BOOK AND MARKING ERRORS PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF ITS THE SAME FOR YOU GUYS.