Brawnly and the Bet

Unfortunately for Brawnly Cain was true to his word about the bucket of ice water he’d promised as a wakeup call. Which Brawnly wasn’t sure was a blessing or a curse at the current moment.

He’d just been roused out of a particularly intense and rather invasive dream involving a certain blonde haired, green eyed spitfire of a woman and swimming pool filled with soda.

With the way that Cain was suppressing his girlish giggles and reddened cheeks Brawnly was starting to wish two thing; first of all that he’d locked his bedroom door, secondly that he hadn’t fallen asleep right after his shower last night without bothering to put on some article of clothing.

“Get the fuck out!” Brawnly barked while at the same time attempting to rearrange the mass of sodden bed clothes strewn about his mattress.

“Sorry Brawn, but I warned you last night now don’t get so worked up, get up, get dressed and get your ass down stairs ready to work out. Mom’s making us lunch to go so hurry your ass up.” Cain retorted; tossing a pair of blue boxers at Brawnly from his drawer.

“You’ve got five minutes” Cain paused for a moment looking down at Brawnly once more before shaking his head with a light hearted chuckle.

“On second thought, I’ll give you ten, take care of that. You’re gunna want to go into this with all your muscles well relaxed.”

Brawnly blushed profusely

“Cain get out. I’ll be down in a second so long as you get the fuck out now” he could feel the heat creeping up his neck and flooding his cheeks. With excess mirth in his eyes Cain exited the reclusive bedroom of Brawnly Jacob Stewart.

Once he heard the resounding ‘click’ of his attic bedroom door closing Brawnly threw himself back onto his pillows releasing a heavily weighted sigh. Last night Brawnly had sworn to himself that today would be a day of change in his life however he wished that his change didn’t involve hitting the gym all day with Cain.

With great effort and reluctance Brawnly heaved himself up and out of bed and over to the small bathroom his dad had built when Brawnly insisted on living in the attic and took the fastest coldest shower to date.

Fifteen minutes later Brawnly was bounding the down the spiral staircase dressed in a black Superman t-shirt and grey sweat pants; a gym bag over his shoulder. Cain was sitting atop the kitchen island eating an apple. For some reason unknown to Brawnly seeing Cain in the kitchen in his grey muscle shirt and black running shorts caused jealousy to surge through him. Why couldn’t he have the strong and defined muscles his step brother had, his bulging biceps and rippling calf muscles as they swung languidly over the edge. No wonder woman flocked to him.

That brought his mind to Verna; Brawnly had seen the way she had interacted with Cain the night before, her body language spoke volumes. He didn’t blame her in the slightest. His brother was what every woman was looking for attractive, smart, and athletic he was an all around nice guy with the bad boy attitude, that was like fucking catnip to the opposite sex.

What did Brawnly have that attracted women? Once while nursing a bloody nose for him Mina had told Brawnly that he had potential to be a ‘real hottie’ but for now he was just cute. He had no definition he wasn’t scrawny but he wasn’t in anyway built. He was smart but had a short fuse when it came to ignorance, unfortunately that was often taken out in private due to his lack of spine as Cain liked to call it.

But none of that seemed to do anything to deter him from the rather unique girl he’d met by chance last night. He couldn’t get Verna out of his head. When she first came up to him he’d frozen in place by her proximity then slowly he could feel he body heat seeping into his side, she grabbed his arm and put it around her waist and the hairs on his arms stood erect, when she looped his finger through her belt hole his heart beat sped so fast and hard against his rib cage he thought it was going to break through the confines of his chest.

Brawnly had had crushes on girls before, that much was inevitable, he was after all a red blooded male adolescent, but to him it didn’t feel right to classify this attraction as a meager crush, it was more like an intense infatuation.

He suddenly realized that the physical new Brawnly would come with a new attitude and a new confidence and with those he would go after Verna.

“Cain!” He shouted nearly causing said boy to choke on the apple in his mouth. Brawnly laughed a little at his brothers expense chalking it up to Karma for the ice water.

“Dude! What the fuck are you trying to kill me?” Cain sputtered

“Dude” Brawnly mocked before responding very seriously

“If I was trying to kill you, you’d be dead.”

Cain glared at him with narrowed eyes before rolling them and dismissing Brawly’s empty threat.

“Screw you, you ready to go? Mom made sandwiches. “

“Yeah sure lets go you drivin’?”

“Yeah, so hey Brawn I was gunna ask you what did you think of Verna last night.” Cain asked casually as the two piled into his S.U.V.

“Cain I gotta tell you I can’t get her out of my head, what do you know about her?” Brawnly told him with a blissful look in his eyes and a light blush on his cheeks.

“Well I know you can’t get her outta your head; that much was clear this morning” Cain snickered

“Shut up, you know what I mean, what’s her story?”

Cain leaned back further into his chair as he switched lanes, this was perfect, Brawnly was already interested in Verna so it was gunna make his job a whole lot easier.

“Oh man you’ve got it bad huh? You know that’s actually interesting she said she was kinda into you last night.” Brawnlys’ interest was piqued tenfold so he sat quietly and waited for Cain to continue.

“Well Laverna Mitchels aka Verna is known around campus as kind of a party girl, not the
whole sex , drugs and rock ’n’ roll kinda party girl, well actually the sex part is true but still, she knows everyone and is always invited places. If there’s a party going on anywhere she knows when and where and is there in a heartbeat. She’s a psychology major and I think she lives with her brother. She’s really cool but she can get pretty crazy sometimes” he explained as he pulled into a parking space outside the gym.

“Did you two ever hook up?” Brawnly asked with apprehension that was the last thing he wanted to hear.

“Yeah once at a party we fooled around in the upstairs bathroom but we got interrupted when some ass barged down the door and threw up on my shoes. Kinda ruined the moment.” Cain replied wistfully in such a light and joking tone that Brawly was having a hard time being upset with the new information.

“So you think I’ve got a chance with her?” Brawnly brought up cautiously, he was embarrassed and could feel the heat crawling up his neck.

Cain smirked, “Brawn, I’d bet money on it.

Four hours later and Brawnly and Cain were winding down their work out with a sweat out in the Sauna to relax the sore muscles. Brawnly felt as though his body was on fire, Cain worked him like a dog. First they went for a half hour run around the track followed by an hour and a half of reps on the weight machines; bench press, chin curls, rowing machines, lat pulls, and free weights. Cain made him work on his deltoids, lats, glutes, endurance, abs, triceps and calf muscles over the next hour or so, and then they cooled down with a light walk and then a swim for the rest of their time before hitting the sauna then the showers. Cain went through and told Brawnly exactly how things were going to be working the next few months.

Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays they’d hit the gym four hours every day starting at 1pm after Brawnly was finished with his classes; Cain’s classes had ended last month in April. Tuesdays and Thursdays they’d work on Brawnly’s attitude and confidence so that when the time came Brawnly would be ready to ask out Verna. On the weekends Brawnly was to go with Cain to any and all party’s to make sure that he got to know Verna and that she didn’t forget about him. After all, out of sight out of mind and Cain couldn’t afford that, literally.

When the boys got home Megan had dinner ready and waiting for them. Steven Stewart was seated in the living room with his wife curled up into his lap while the fire place enveloped the room in a soft orange glow. Cain and Brawnly walked into the intimate moment and regretted it, it was rare that the two parents were able to share such a serene moment these days. They both excused themselves after giving excuses of studying and needing to return some calls before taking their dinners to their respective residences and calling it a night.

Climbing those spiral stairs towards his bedroom was agony and Brawnly was glad it was only Saturday and that he could recharge by Monday. Brawnly sat at his desk and opened his word document to his screen-play to get some work done before he passed out from exhaustion. The screen was blindingly bright on his weary eyes and once he finished eating he had to save and shut down before the dull ache in his temples escalated to a full on migraine.

His body was sore and even the slightest movement made his muscles ache but as Brawnly stripped down to his boxers and crawled into bed the image of Verna Mitchels invaded his mind and he couldn’t help but think aloud,

“She’s worth it.” Then he promptly proceeded to pass out.