Boyfriends and Brothers Don't Mix

There was a party, more sophisticated and such for the adults and my elder brothers were allowed attend, too. Henry did, easily, and Duane had a few words with Greg and Ash before following. The rest of us - Greg, Ash, Ben, Joe, and I headed to where the party for the kids would be. Well, the kids in eighth grade and high school. The rest of them had to deal with a chaperoned party.

And just as I suspected, the person I liked was there.

He was sitting in a back corner, reading a book as if the other teenagers weren’t dancing together - often grinding unless the eighth grader watching warned them that a parent was coming - and ignoring everything around him. A bit reclusive, maybe, but I liked him.

His name is Axel Jones. Common last name, but such an exotic first name. I loved that name.

Axel has black hair - midnight black hair. And it looks so soft I just wanted to reach out and touch it, you know? His eyes, hidden sometimes behind the glasses he chose to wear rather than buying contacts, were kind of a blue-grey, and just so easy to look at. He was tan, a lot of his color coming from his Chinese mother’s side of the family. The reason the local Joneses were rich was because his father had married a Chinese heiress, but I could care less. I would have liked Axel even if his parents had been paupers. He was just that likeable. Aside from having an appearance that was very aesthetically pleasing to me, he had that quiet personality that screamed both mysterious, but I also knew he was a genuinely nice guy.

My brothers, I knew, didn’t like him because he wasn’t a social butterfly like they were. I didn’t care about that, really. Not everyone can be as gregarious as the very extroverted twins. I wasn’t even nearly as outgoing as those two. Which might explain why I hardly ever dared to talk to Axel around them, because I didn’t want them to be their overprotective selves.

Tonight was going to be different.

I declined the offer of the guy I most disliked in the room to dance, leaving Greg and Ash behind to scold him and most likely threaten him, and I made my way over to the back table.

“How do you concentrate with all of this going on?” I asked easily, leaning against the table slightly. Axel looked up, adjusted his glasses, and grinned sheepishly.

“I’ve just learned to tune them out a bit.”

“I wish I could do that. Do you mind if I join you?” I gestured to the seat beside him, and he shook his head, so I flopped down in an unladylike manner and sighed.

“Something wrong?” he asked, placing his page marker in his book and leaning back in his chair, looking at me.

“No. Nah. Well, not much. Okay, maybe I’m a little pissed,” I said, shrugging as I tried to decide what to tell him. He chuckled softly.

“At what?”

“My brothers,” I rolled my eyes. “I mean, can you see the death stares they’re giving you because I’m sitting here? By a guy? It’s like I’m not sixteen and can’t take care of myself.”

“They’re just worried about you,” Axel said calmly, pushing his glasses up his nose again.

I laughed a little, smiling at him, and said, “Yeah, but sometimes it gets out of hand.”

He smiled a little bit and shook his head.

“So, how have you been?” I asked, changing topics.

“Fine,” he shrugged. He was back to his rather reclusive self again. “And you?”

“Fine, I guess. Other than Greg and Ash stealing my bras earlier today and running around with them, trying to hang them on the electric lines again like they did with my training bras years ago and--” I paused suddenly, my face coloring, “--and forget I said anything!” I squeaked, mortified.

He started laughing. I was briefly mesmerized - after all, this was the first full-out laugh I’d ever really heard from him, and it was great. I liked the sound. Then I recovered.

“Hey! Don’t laugh at me!” I said, turning away with my cheeks a bright, vibrant red.

“That…that was…those were yours?” he coughed, trying to compose himself, before saying, “I’m sorry. That was tactless…I shouldn’t have laughed…”

I groaned then, remembering that he lived on my street. At the far end of the street, but the street nonetheless.

“You saw that?” I murmured, hiding my face. “Oh my God. I’m going to kill those two!”

“Here’s your chance,” Axel told me. “They’re heading this way.”

My head jerked up, and I saw that Double Trouble was, indeed, heading this way. The red on my cheeks was probably the reason why.

And sure enough…

“What are you doing to our sister?” Ash demanded of Axel.

“Why are you even sitting with him?” Greg asked me.

“He’s not doing anything and I’m sitting here because I feel like it,” I retorted, “now go away and bug someone else for a change, or I’ll hang your SpongeBob boxers on the power lines as revenge.”

“You don’t scare us, Sis,” Greg laughed. “Remember, we hung your--”

Ash nudged him, gesturing at Axel to shut Greg up.

“You don’t have to hide it, he knows,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “He lives on our street - duh.”

“He wouldn’t know they were yours,” Greg retorted like a brat.

“Yes he would,” I rolled my eyes. “I just let it slip on accident when I was complaining about you two.”

“Gee, sis, I can feel the love,” Ash stated sarcastically.

“You’re my younger brothers,” I rolled my eyes again. “I’m supposed to be annoyed by you and your meddlesome ways. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not going to even think about dancing with anyone for the next thirty minutes, so you can go find your girlfriends, or whatever you two do at these parties when you’re not stalking me.”

“We’ll hold you up on that,” Greg said.

“Yeah. Melanie’s here,” Ash pointed to his new girlfriend.

“Her friend Stacy seems like my type,” Greg added with a shrug.

“We’ll be watching you, though!” they said in unison.

When they left, a chuckle resounded behind me. I had almost forgotten that I was sitting right beside Axel when all of that had happened.

“See, they care,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes.

“Sometimes they care a little too much,” I sighed, leaning back.

For the rest of the night, I made a little bit of small talk with Axel Jones, getting to know the slightly reclusive yet nice boy a bit more. I always found it encouraging when he would talk to me, since he didn’t really talk to many other people. Even if they cornered him and interrogated him, which happened a lot because he was in the grade above me - the Junior class secretary in Student Council.

I was brave enough to wave a little as we left when the party was ending around midnight. We were all outside, my family heading towards our car as Axel and his parents talked to another family.

“See you Monday,” I said as I passed, smiling a little. He grinned a little, and nodded.

Maybe that was a start…?