Breaking the Rules

“Kill him!” I instruct. After we the recording studio, we came back to the media room to play C.O.D. We still have an hour until my mom promised to tell us the secret. So, in the meantime, I’m teaching the boys how to play Modern Warfare Three.

“Which one?” Tom screams back.

I huff a sigh as he dies. “Too late now. Here gimmie, I’ll show y’all.”

“But-“ He is cut short as I glare at him. He pouts and hands me the controller.

“You use this here to move,” I say like they didn’t know. “This little guy back here is aim. B is crouch or lay down. Grenade, switch gun, knife, and scores. You’ll wanna hide then wait until the leader says to move out, because they will kill everyone for you. Typical video game.”

“Wow,” Tom and Max say mesmerized.

“What? It’s really pretty easy,” I say.

“Oh I get it! Can I try?” Nathan asks moving to sit next to me on my couch.

“Sure? If you understand. Tom was hoggin it forever.”

"Yep,” Nathan assures, Tom ignoring me.

“Aww. You know I love ya Tommy,” I joke.

“Nah,” he says smiling.

“Yeah bud,” I say moving toward him to give him a hug. Max, who is sitting next to him, frowns and gives me the puppy dog look.

“I love you too,” I tell him with a hug. Then I turn my attention back to Nath and the game. He got farther than Tom, but Tom got nowhere at all.

“You have to follow the guy who keeps calling you,” I say when I realize that he is too far back.

“Really? I thought it was a trap,” he says.

“Nope that’s your team,” I laugh.

“Not funny,” he grumbles.

“Actually, it is. Imma beast, and you all suck,” I say.

“Not true! You just didn’t go over all the controls!” Tom says.

“Yeah!” Nathan agrees.

“Whatever,” I sigh.

“No whateverrrrs!” Tom says.

“Why not?” I ask turning back towards him.

“No reason really. I just really want a reason to…” Tom trails off, turning his face into a devilish smirk.

“Really want to want?” I ask nervous.

“Tickle you!” he cheers pouncing on me.

“NOOO! Get off! Sto…! Ple… what did I ev… to… you!” I try to get out but instead I start laughing to a painful, forced way.

“Nah. This is fun,” he says from on top of me.

“For… you! Get… off… you… dumbass!” I scream one word at a time.

“Ohhh. What did you just call me?”

“I said: Get. Off. You. Dumbass!”

“Oh, no you didn’t!” Max says from somewhere to my left in a valley girl voice.

“Ah, huh I did!” I assure. Just then Tom starts the round of tickling again. He doesn’t stop until Nathan tells him he can play the game again. Tom is such a weirdo.

“I was trying to help,” Nath tells me.

“Aww. Thanks Nath. But a little earlier would’ve been nice,” I say.

“But I was doing good!”

“Good for you!” I say patting his hat-covered head. I must’ve hit his bump because he winces and pulls away. “Nathan, what are we going to do with this?”

“Nothing. It’ll heal and I’ll be back in ship-shape.”

“No it won’t. Not soon enough anyway.”

“What do ya mean?”

“I mean, if you have an American album coming out for people in America, you need America fans. And I know you may have some, but they’ll know through Facebook and Twitter. So what we here do at Atlantis, is we set up interviews and small concerts to get the word out.”

“So basically, you’re going to do the job of a manager.”

“Well kinda. I like to go by ‘Personal assistant’.”

“Erm, alrightly?”

“Yep. And now that you finished your first song, I need to set up a few radio interviews, and off we are. Tada.”

“When might this be?”

“Soon. Really soon.”

“Shit.”

“What?”

“Well I was kinda hoping to chill for a while.”

“Yeah that’s not happening.”

“Hello children!” my mom says entering the room. We all mumble some his and turn to listen to her. We know she is about to tell us the oh-so-special secret.

“Now I know that you are expecting me to tell you the secret, but instead I’m going to show you something related to it. Well I was, but this isn’t everyone. Where might they be?” she asks.

“Jay and Seev are in their room, editing a video for Wanted Wednesday,” Tom explains.

“What’s Wanted Wednesday?” I ask. I know my mom’s wondering the same thing.

“Wanted Wednesday? Oh the weekly video that we put out. Sometimes if we don’t have any footage, we do old clips. So that’s probably what they are doing now,” Max says.

“Which may take a while based on the fact that they have to find all the old videos,” Nathan adds.

“Cool,” I say anxiously. I just want to know what the secret surprise is.

“Charlie, why don’t you go get them, and we’ll meet you is 4a living area,” mom suggests.

“M’kay,” I say leaving.

Siva and Jay are huddling over the computer – Jay’s? Siva’s? Doesn’t matter really - whispering about some intro. Either way, I want them to hurry the fuck up.

“Boys?” I say knocking on the already-open door.

“Yeah?” they ask simultaneously.

“Do you wanna know the surprise?” I say in an almost-question form.

“Yeah!” they say at the same time, again.

"Well, come on!” I cheer waving them over.

“Can I bring the Flip?” Jay asks.

“Sure, don’t see why not,” I say.

“Yes!” he exclaims.

Sure enough, my mom and the other three are in the room, waiting.

“Could Jay bring the Flip? I said he could but wasn’t sure…” I say.

“Sure. You’ll probably want this on the flip too,” my mom answers.

“Ready,” Siva says sitting with the other boys on the couch.

“Charlotte, why don’t you take the camera?” mom suggests.

“Okay,” I say skeptical. I turn it on to record all of what my mom is about to say.

“So boys, because Glad You Came is someday going to be the National Anthem or someting... A few people and myself thought…”