Academy Shorts

Toes

Toes

A/N: This story came into existence from random bouts of silliness taking place in the FB group created for the birds that got displaced from the forums overhaul. Thank you, fellow birds, for inspiring the humor out of my fingers and into type.

For a Saturday, things were actually pretty quiet. Ever since my life had been turned upside down since meeting the gaggle of guys, I managed to keep pretty busy between getting wrapped up in their business (whether I was trying to or not was beside the point) or drama and mischief managing to find me.

Gabriel, Luke, and I were at Nathan’s house, waiting for a family meeting. I had the privilege of sitting in on more and more meetings, and I discovered more and more of said meetings were happening at this particular house. It made sense, really. Two of us already lived here, myself included, and the chances of people not belonging to this particular Academy team walking in on us during a meeting was quite low since Nathan’s father started working in East Asia. Everyone else’s houses had family members also living there, taking away total privacy. However, Mr. Blackbourne made a point recently. As strategically favorable using Nathan’s (and I supposed mine to a small degree since I also lived here) house to discuss business was, it was wise to not make too much of a habit out of it. Once it became habit, complacency settled in, and with complacency, people would get careless. Carelessness led to mistakes and compromises.

I wasn’t sure if I would ever get use to the mentality of always checking over my shoulder that was so ingrained into the Academy guys. It seemed paranoid to me. But then again, if I managed to learn such habits to always guard my back the way they did, I just might not wind up in as many troubling situations as I found myself in of late.

My attention wandered back to the movie playing on the television in the living room. We were lucky to find a movie in Nathan’s collection that was not horror; it was a kung fu martial arts movie instead. That fact did not surprise me.

I sat in the middle of the leather couch, the boys on either side of me. Luke laid on his side, his legs tucked up behind my back. He wore a simple button up shirt with most of the buttons undone to reveal a lot of his chest. Gabriel sat close to the edge giving live commentary to the costuming and whether the use of wires to lift the actors into graceful, flying acrobatics was appropriate for particular choreography scenes. I leaned against his shoulder, bare from the neon green tank he wore, and I inserted my own thoughts every now and again.

Movement and some light tugging of my hair at the back of my head made me think of how Luke played with my hair when he sat behind me in school. After class, I had to pass my hand down my dirty blonde locks to see if I had to untwist my hair from dozens of loops or not. The sensations on my scalp felt familiar, and I assumed Luke was doing similarly as we watched the movie. His hands must have been bored and needed to fidget.

Gabriel turned his head to ask a question of Luke, something about whether running across a rooftop as quickly as they were in the movie could possibly be as silent as they were portraying it. The question was half out of his mouth before he erupted, shooting off the couch with his arms shooting into the air to wave around in a rage. “What the flying fuck are you doing to her hair?!” he screeched.

I flinched and jerked, startled at his sudden change in demeanor, but my hair was wrapped around Luke’s fingers tight enough to pull painfully. I reached back to press my hand against my scalp to find Luke’s fingers hopelessly tangled in my strands…

…only they weren’t his fingers.

Toes. Big, hairy, monkey toes were caught up in my hair. Luke was petting my hair with his feet?