Brothers

When I woke up the next morning I was even hotter than usual, and I smiled to myself, remembering the reason why. I squeezed Aiden closer to me for a moment, relishing his smell and warmth and basic closeness and he murmured in his sleep at the movement.

It was Sunday, so he was off school, and by some fluke I didn’t have work today either. We could stay in bed all day if we wanted to, doing whatever we wanted to. And right now, I just wanted to lay here with him in my arms and forget about everything that happened yesterday.

Well. Everything before going to bed anyway.

Just I was settling in to try and get back to sleep, I heard my phone vibrate gently on my bedside table, and I reached out to grab it before it woke Aiden. I saw I had a message and flipped the phone open, then immediately wished I hadn’t.

Meet me in town at the cafe in twenty minutes. We’re spending the day together and tonight I AM staying over at yours.

Vienna 10:02

I groaned quietly and put my phone back down on the table, curling myself back around my brother for a minute before easing myself gently out of the bed so as not to wake him. He whimpered slightly as I moved, but settled into my warm space in the bed and snuggled into the covers. I watched him sleep for a few moments, he looked so adorable. I wanted to wake him and play with him and kiss him and hold him.

Instead I got dressed quickly and quietly, and slipped from the room, closing the door carefully behind me.

‘Where are you going?’ a muffled voice demanded from somewhere around my elbow and I looked around to see Alana leaning against the bathroom doorjamb with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.

‘Town,’ I said flatly, walking towards the top of the stairs.

‘Why?’

‘Work,’ I lied.

‘Can I get a lift?’

I looked up at her suspiciously. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I need to pick up some CDs from Virgin. Then I think I’ll go have some lunch in the Briar Rose.’

I scowled.

‘Where are you really going?’ she asked, still brushing her teeth but walking further out of the bathroom now and leaning against the dodgy banister.

‘I have an appointment,’ I deadpanned.

‘Doctor? Dentist? Lawyer?’

‘Employer,’ I said, which wasn’t even a lie.

‘Promotion, eh? Somebody’s been a good boy.’

I eyed her carefully. There was something about the way she said that... ‘Is there something you actually wanted Alana or can I get going?’

She shrugged. ‘Just making conversation,’ she said easily, pushing herself off the banister and moving back into the bathroom.

I shook off her weird questions and went downstairs, grabbing a handful stale dry cereal for breakfast and the car keys before shrugging on my coat and leaving the house.

Aiden

‘Wake up, lazybones!’

I pulled the covers over my head and groaned. ‘Go away,’ I shouted, my voice sounding muffled even to me.

‘No, get up,’ Alana snapped, pulling the covers away from over my head. ‘We have a mission to carry out.’

‘A what?’

‘A mission. A quest. A journey of grave peril. You know, like in a movie.’

‘Have you actually lost your senses?’ I asked, reaching a hand up to her forehead, genuinely concerned. She slapped me away.

‘Do you notice anybody missing from this picture?’ she asked, motioning towards the bed I was in. I sat up and looked around.

‘Where’s Caleb?’ I demanded. ‘What have you done with him?’

‘Freaked him out a little maybe, but nothing more than that,’ she said, sounding offended. ‘He’s gone into town. We’re going to follow him!’

‘Why?’

‘To see where he’s going,’ she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, to be fair, why else would you follow anyone anywhere?

‘But why?’

‘Because I wanna see what’s up with this Vienna chick, and the quickest way to her, is through him.’

‘I’m not getting out of this, am I?’

‘No. Now hurry up, we have to catch the next bus, Caleb’s already gone in the car.’

Ten minutes later we were sitting side by side on the bus in silence, rocking over sideways into each other regularly and trying not to stare at the old woman sitting across from us. She was falling asleep with her head lolling back on the seat, her false teeth dislodging, and, most upsetting of all, her legs wide open.

‘She’s still more attractive than Vienna,’ Alana whispered to me after twenty minutes of blatant staring, and I snorted loudly, causing the woman to bolt up in her seat, stare at us rudely, and go right back to sleep.

‘And she’s more polite,’ Alana added. ‘Perhaps we should set her up with Caleb.’

‘Ewwwwww,’ I whispered lengthily, trying not to imagine it.

‘Do you think she’s dusty down there?’

I stood up abruptly and pressed the red “Stop” button on the hand rail; the bell chimed and the bus driver pulled over at the nearest bus stop, which was two away from the one at the centre of town but I disembarked anyway, followed by a hysterical Alana who could barely breathe for being bent over double in laughter.

‘You’re disgusting,’ I whispered. ‘First you wanna watch incest porn and now wrinkly porn.’

‘I’m not the one screwing my own brother,’ Alana said in her normal voice which, as I’ve mentioned before, is kind of loud.

‘Yeah, weird movie!’ I practically shouted, pinching her hard on the arm.

‘Ow!’ she whined, rubbing herself. ‘I don’t know why you’re so ashamed of it,’ she added more quietly. ‘If I was boinking someone as hot as Caleb I’d want the world to know.’

‘Shut up,’ I hissed, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her up the street, in the direction of the town centre. ‘Where are we going on this stupid “mission” anyway?’

Alana shrugged. ‘I dunno. Where does Caleb usually take girls on dates?’

I shrugged as well. ‘How should I know?’

Alana looked shocked. ‘You mean he hasn’t taken you on a date?’ she demanded, pretending to be outraged.

‘I will do something Rain-related to you,’ I threatened, and her mouth snapped closed.

‘He said he had a meeting with his employer,’ she said after a minute. ‘So maybe we should start there?’

‘Virgin or Briar Rose?’ I asked, letting go of her arm at last.

Alana shrugged. ‘Virgin’s closer.’

We were nearing the centre of town now and turned right down an alleyway that brought up onto the main street in a handy shortcut. Not bothering to wait for the lights, we ran across the road, dodging cars and earning ourselves some verbal abuse, towards the record store.

I was about to walk inside when Alana caught my arm and tugged me towards the ground. ‘Look!’ she hissed, pointing. I followed her finger but couldn’t see anything. We were on the ground, and she was pointing at a billowing sign hanging from a plastic railing that read “Costa”. It was the name of the coffee shop next door to Virgin Megastores, and similar railings were positioned all around the outdoor seating area.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ I whispered, feeling like an idiot.

Alana shook her head impatiently and started crawling across the pavement in front of Virgin towards Costa. People were giving us strange looks now and I knew we were probably gonna get in trouble with Virgin management if they found us carrying on outside their store.

Alana crawled right up to the sign and peered around the edge of it slowly, making sure she was completely hidden behind the big red sheet. Rolling my eyes and wishing my friends were normal, I followed her and did the same at the other side of the sign. I found myself looking a pair of toned, bronzed, decidedly female legs, crossed at the ankle under a stainless steel coffee table. Feeling like a pervert, I whipped my head back and glared at Alana; what was she playing at?

Alana motioned me to look again and, scowling, I cautiously peeled back the edge of the sign to get a better look. This time I noticed a few more details, like a handbag I recognised vaguely sitting on the ground by the girl’s feet, as well as a pair of worn Vans I definitely had seen before planted on the ground across from her.

Alarmed, I pulled back again and stared at Alana, wide-eyed. Caleb and Vienna were sitting outside Costa Coffee, apparently on a date, the night after he had just made out with me passionately in his bed. Again.

Alana put a finger to her lips and we sat on the ground, our backs to the sign, listening to their conversation.

Caleb

I pulled up in the staff parking lot underneath Virgin Megastores, hoping I wouldn’t run into Larry at any point. If he caught me using staff parking on my day off I’d get a lecture, and I really wasn’t in the mood to repeat calming slogans to myself in my head so I wouldn’t punch him. I was gonna be doing enough of that trying not to call Vienna out on her bullshit.

Rubbing my hands across my face tiredly and wishing I could be back in bed with Aiden, I climbed the stairs out onto the sidewalk and went to sit outside the coffee shop, waiting for Vienna. She appeared ten minutes later, already with a takeaway coffee in her hands, sunglasses firmly in place. It was brighter today than it was yesterday, the rain having stopped at some point during the night so that even the ground was dry, but it hardly warranted sunglasses. Who did she think she was, exactly, Paris Hilton?

‘Darling,’ she said indulgently, leaning forwards to kiss me on the mouth before dropping her bag in the ground and sitting down opposite me. I glanced around surreptitiously and sure enough, the black car that had been parked across the street from us yesterday was pulling up a little further down and switching off its engine.

‘Did daddy have the necessary reactions then?’ I asked, only mildly curious. I was hoping her dad had totally flipped out and she’s be satisfied enough with that and let me out of this stupid contract, but philanthropically I couldn’t care less about her relationship with her parents.

‘I haven’t seen him,’ she said offhandedly. ‘But Big Brother back there stayed parked outside my apartment all night so I’m assuming he wasn’t too pleased.’ She smirked satisfactorily.

I refrained from rolling my eyes as I heard a car horn beep and some shouting from behind Vienna’s head, but as I moved around in my seat to try and see what was going on she shifted, purposefully blocking my view. I focussed back on her, confused, but quickly became annoyed when I saw her expression read merely “Hello? Look at me!” I scowled.

‘What would you like to do today, sweetheart?’ she asked pleasantly, taking a sip from her coffee.

‘Kill myself?’ I muttered under my breath.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Up to you. Darling.’

‘In that case,’ she said, and I could sense my punishment was coming, ‘we’re going to go get matching tattoos, then you’re gonna drive me to a public open-air parking lot and we’re gonna have sex in the back seat. After that we’ll go back to yours and you can find somewhere for your brother to sleep because as I said in my message, I’ll be needing his place in the bed for tonight.’

‘Matching tattoos?’ I demanded, not even wanting to think about the rest yet. ‘Like what?’

Vienna shrugged. ‘I’ve been planning on getting a second butterfly on my hip. You’ll just have to hope you’re secure enough in yourself to handle getting one too.’

Well that wasn’t going to happen. ‘Yeah right,’ I snorted. ‘I’d sooner get your name tattooed on my face.’

‘That could work too,’ Vienna smirked. ‘Have you got condoms?’

Jesus, she was abrupt. ‘They’re at home,’ I replied, shrugging one shoulder. Anything to get out of fucking her in the back seat of the car... The others would kill me if they ever found out, not to mention, Aiden...

‘We’ll have to pick some up then. Even better, The All-Seeing Eye in the black sedan can tell my father what we were doing in the pharmacy.’

Suddenly we frowned at each other as we heard a choking sound coming from the other side of the red banner we were sitting by. Curiously, we both leaned over the side slowly and I started when I saw who was there.

Aiden

Tattoos? Sex in public? Spending the rest of the day in bed? I cringed. Vienna was turning out to be exactly my brother’s type of girl. In fact, she sounded kind of ideal for him. She was rebellious, controlling, a little bit crazy.

So why had his voice hardened when he was talking about her last night? Why had he had to lie when he told me he liked her? And what the hell had she just said about her dad?

Alana started choking beside me, her eyes wide. We stared at each other as what she had said registered, then blinked as we realised they had stopped talking. Slowly, and in unison, we turned our heads to look straight up. I caught myself staring into Vienna’s icy blue eyes, and I knew Alana was looking in Caleb’s dark brown ones.

‘What the fuck are your brat and his girlfriend doing here?’ Vienna demanded calmly, without taking her eyes off me. I felt like those male spiders must feel when the female is about to rape, kill, and eat him. I swallowed, nervously.

‘Good question,’ Caleb said mildly.

‘I told you I wanted to go pick up some CDs,’ Alana retorted, standing up. Tearing my gaze away from Vienna’s scary one, I scrambled to my feet as well. ‘And then I dropped something.’

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ Vienna asked coolly.

‘Yeah,’ Alana responded, just as coolly. ‘I found it alright. And then some. Come on, Aiden.’ She grabbed me by the wrist and started tugging me forcefully down the street, only stopping once we’d rounded the corner.

‘Oh my god,’ she whispered.

‘I am gonna be in so much trouble when they get home,’ I agreed nervously.

‘Not that!’ Alana snapped, clicking her fingers in front of my face annoyingly. ‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’

‘Yeah,’ I said glumly. ‘They’re gonna have sex later, and I’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight.’

‘Not that either,’ she said, growing really impatient now.

‘Well, what then?’ I asked, also getting annoyed. I was pretty sure my heart was cracking little by little in my chest, and she didn’t seem to care.

‘Didn’t you hear what she said about her dad?’

‘Something about an all-seeing eye?’ I asked wearily.

‘I don’t know what’s going on with them,’ Alana said ominously, ‘but that is not a real relationship.’

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