He's My Brother's Best Friend and My Enemy, This Can't Be Good!

Bottles lined the floor of Jason’s garage converted hang out spot. Laughter filled the room as we rapidly smashed the buttons of the controller that was in our hands. Split up into two teams, three boys focused on the one television while the other the other two and I on the other. Each team trying desperately to defeat the other in the zombie filled scene that was occurring on the scene. Profanities fell into the air as team one came in contact with mine. A bottle fell from the chair on to the floor, shattering as Jason focused his attention on the game instead of the bottle he was so carefully holding.

We hadn’t done this in a while, far too long. With only a couple months left of high school together we were desperately trying to see each other every minute of the day. Usually we met at the diner with our girlfriends. It had been decided later on that night that we needed a guy’s day. Not that we didn’t love spending time with our respective girls but we needed to be boys without getting judged by our better halves.

The game ended and we settled back down. Some picking up another bottle of beer and raising it to their lips to take a sip, others choosing to relax themselves against the couches they had find themselves on. No one restarted the game, we were over violently killing each other, at least for the moment.

“I refuse you guys to leave next year,” Max said.

“Is Max going to miss us?” Jared teased. He brought the beer bottle to his lips, throwing his head back to get the final drops before setting it aside and grabbing another.

“If only little Max was a senior like his friends,” Jason slurred. His fifth bottle of beer clearly hindering his speech skills.

“Fuck off,” Max said dropping the subject.

I was sitting on the couch next to Max. I felt bad for him, it really wasn’t his fault he was born a year later than all of us. All he ever wanted was to be in the same grade as us, never having many friends in his own grade until he met Josylne. The guys always gave him shit for it too, like he was that much younger than us. If only Max knew that if we could be him, with one more year of high school, we’d gladly switch lives with him.

“Parker!” Jared yelled.

“What?” I said focusing less on my inner monologue and more on the present world.

“When you leave for California?”

“I go down for a week in June and then come back for two weeks before going back. I’ll probably come back again after that but nothing is set yet. I haven’t even booked the first flight,” I said.

“At least you get to come home. I head down to Florida mid July and I’m not coming back. Ashley isn’t too happy about it,” Jared said.

“At least your girlfriend isn’t leaving you,” Aaron added. He was attending UMASS Amherst on a full scholarship to play football there. He was a good player but not many schools need kickers. Amherst did so he took the offer. His girlfriend, Sam, was headed of to Alabama.

“This is why I didn’t date in high school,” Jason commented.

“You didn’t date in high school because you only wanted to hook up with girls,” Jayden reminded him.

“True. I’m the smart one though. I got the most experience and I got nothing tying me down to old Mass High. I’m off to Texas as soon as they tell me my flight info.”

“Whatever makes you sleep at night,” I added. Jason was wrong. He wasn’t the smart one, he was the idiot. Sure he had gotten several girls and would continue to do so in college, there was no question about that. But Jason didn’t know the first thing about how to keep a girl. His longest relationship was two days. He just didn’t know how to commit.

“I can’t believe you all got scouted to top universities. What happen to saving room for me assholes?” Max questioned.

“You got to work for that spot Max,” Jayden said.

Throughout the duration of the conversation my mind wandered to how different next year was going to be. I wouldn’t be close enough to the guys to drive my ass over and crash on their couches. There would be no Max to call me at three in the morning to talk me down from my crazy rants. Jason wasn’t going to be there to smuggle alcohol to me when I desperately needed some, which wasn’t too often anymore. Jayden wasn’t going to be there to throw the ball around at four in the morning when we were too nervous for the big game.

Next year it was going to be me in a dorm in California. Miles away from my best friends. I was going to be with a new team, a team I knew nothing about. The reason Mass High was such a family was because we grew up together, we played football at the peewee level together. We knew how each other worked. I didn’t know anyone going to USC. No one else from Mass had been recruited out there.

The boys continued gulping down beer after beer. I was never one for excessive drinking, I was on my second drink of the night. The room was filled with laughter and rough housing as they teased and tackled each other. Sometimes it was a wonder how we all managed to have girlfriends. Speaking of girlfriends, I wonder what Josylne was doing right about now. We were supposed to go out tonight but she convinced me to come hang out with the guys.

“Fuck!” Jared shouted reaching for his phone that was in his pocket. “This is the fifth time she’s fucking called me. I have twelve texts from her.”

Ashley. She always was the one that demanded the most attention out of the girls in the group. Not that I blame her, Jared had screwed up a few times with her. If I was a girl I’d keep my eye on him too.

“Prom is going to be a fucking nightmare,” Jared murmured, aggressively taping at the letters on his phone.

“You got that right,” Jayden groaned.

I chuckled. Miranda had been on his case for a week now. She had been on all our cases for that matter. Leave it to my sister to be one who wants to plan things weeks in advance. Luckily for me Josylne hadn’t been freaking out over it, at least not yet.

“What are we doing for prom?” Jason asked. His speech may have been impaired but his mind was not. That was the thing with Jason, alcohol had a weird affect on him. He always sounded like he was wasted but his actions were always controlled.

“Sam wants me to rent a limo for her and one of her friends,” Aaron said.

“Ash wants the same thing but she wants it to be just us. The girl is crazy. Like its my prom too,” Jared added.

“Man up and tell them. We should all pitch in and get a bus and all go together,” Jason said.

“That might be the best idea you’ve ever had,” I added.

Jason was right. Why should the girls all dictate prom, it was our night too. Not that I didn’t want to spend it alone with Josylne but spending it with my best friends since the second grade would be amazing.

“If you think it’s such a great idea Daniels, you tell your sister,” Jayden said.

“While you’re at it, you better tell Ash too,” Jared added.

Getting the girls to agree to go in one bus was going to be hard. Although all we really needed was one girl to agree to it before they all agreed. I knew Josylne would agree, she loved the boys just as much as I did.

“Jos can get them to agree,” I said.

“Using your girlfriend as girl bate. I like it!” Jason said. I pushed him causing him to lose his balance and fall on the floor. Maybe he was a little passed buzzed. “Fuck!”

“Ava hasn’t even mentioned prom but she’ll be fine with it if Jos goes. Parker’s right the rest will follow.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Jason reach for his phone. I watched as he scrolled through his contacts adding names to the messages. He then began typing out the message before hitting send. Minutes later our phones all chirped their familiar ring tone. I froze knowing exactly what Jason had just done. Everyone scanned the message and the recipients before turning to glare at Jason.

“Tell me you didn’t just send that to everyone?” Jayden muttered.

“I did you all a favor. Now you don’t have to tell your girls anything,” he said smiling.

“You’re a fucking idiot!” Aaron exclaimed.

“Do you know how much shit I’m gonna have to listen to now?” Jared hissed.

Our phones all chirped again as a message was received. Clearly none of us had responded so it had to be one of the girls. The boys each held their breathe before relaxing realizing it was Josylne who had responded first. She was the only one to respond to the entire group message, Max received a text from Ava saying that’s fine while the other received a more detailed texts from the girls. Max and I couldn’t help but chuckle to ourselves. We lucked out getting the easiest girls.

The conversation soon turned from how we were getting to prom to how everyone was asking their girlfriends to prom. I had no idea how our boys night turned out to be a prom themed edition. They were worse than the girls sometimes.

“I don’t understand why I have to do something big for Ashley every time. For fucks sake we’ve been going out since freshman year.”

“Correction you’ve liked her since freshman year. You’ve been going out since sophomore year minus the minor incident at that party this year,” Jayden reminded him.

Jared and Jayden were always close, kinda like how I was close to Max. They knew things about each others relationships that not everyone knew. Which is why when Jared “cheated” on Ashley, she chose to hang around Jayden to get back at him. Girls are quite smart when it comes to their head games. Miranda and Ashley were good friends too, so they double dated a lot.

“She’s got you so whipped,” Jason commented.

“Since when is that a bad thing though?” Jared retorted.

Being whipped was always Jason’s go to dig when someone was talking about their girlfriend. He didn’t believe that someone should be controlled by one person. It’s not like the girls controlled us, it was more like it was easier keeping them happy, at least that’s how I looked at it.

“He’s got a point,” Aaron said.

“About it not being a bad thing?” Max questioned.

“Yeah,” Aaron said before continuing, “so what if we do what the girls want. It’s better than having them mad at us. I’d rather be whipped for Sam and have her love me then not have her.”

“You guys are so pathetic,” Jason groaned.

“Just you wait Jas. One day a girl will come around and you will fall head over heels for her and you’ll be the worst one,” Jayden said.

“Fuck you Emmerce. That’s never gonna happen. I’ve only actually crushed on a girl once and that was your damn sister sophomore year.”

“Oh please you just wanted to sleep with her,” Aaron retorted.

“The whole team did!” Jason chimed.

The attention of the room quickly focused in on me. It was no secret that most of the guys found Josylne attractive. It was one of the reasons Jayden made everyone promise to leave her alone. Hearing Jason say it out loud though made my stomach churn. Just thinking about everyone on the team lusting over her for so many years made me want to vomit. Josylne was more than just a pretty girl.

“Watch yourself,” I warned.

“Oh please like you don’t!” Jason smirked.

Jayden’s face instantly grew red. He didn’t want to hear about everyone wanting to fuck his sister, let alone hearing about if I wanted to or not. I didn’t know who was more mortified Jayden for his sister’s sake or me for her sake.

“Not all guys just want girls for sex Jas,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but are you saying you haven’t thought about it, if you haven’t slept with her already?” Jared asked. Leave it to Jared to chose now to defend Jason. Jared was no stranger to the topic of sex. He’d been with Ashley since sophomore year so it was no surprise what went on behind his closed doors. He was always very vocal about it anyway.

“Fuck off, you guys know I don’t talk about this shit with you guys. Especially when its about Jayden’s little sister,” I snapped.

With the few relationship I have had I’ve never discussed them in detail with the guys. Let’s face it even if they did have girlfriends they were still boys who only wanted one thing from girls. Talking about a girl, while she’s not present, in an explicit way just seemed so wrong to me.

“Okay I’d appreciate if we don’t talk about my best friend like this. Change the subject now!” Max shouted.

“How are you asking Ava to prom?” Jayden asked, jumping at the opportunity to discuss something other than his sister’s sex life.

“I’m probably just going to ask her. She doesn’t like over the top things.”

“Lucky you,” Jayden mumbled. “I think I’m going to put sticky notes all over her car to spell it out.”

“Didn’t someone do that last year?” Aaron asked. Jayden shrugged his shoulders taking another swig of the beer.

“I kind of want to do something like that for Josylne,” I shocked myself by saying. Everyone’s head snapped towards me.

“Dude this is Jos you’re talking about,” Jason said.

“She doesn’t like attention Parker,” Jared reminded.

“I don’t think that’s a smart idea,” Max added.

“I know she says she doesn’t like it but hear me out. It’s our last high school dance as a high school couple and she’s never had something over the top and she might hate it but at least she’ll know for sure.”

“You’re brave. You know she hates surprises and attention. She might kill you,” Jayden said running his free hand through his hair.

“She can’t kill me if people are present, which is why I need your guys help,” I confessed.

They exchanged a wary glance before turning to look at me. They were on board. This was going to be the perfect prom-posal for the perfect girl. I was finally starting to feel excited thinking about prom.