Big Date

Ch. 2 Tough Love

1 week later.

Dan rolled over in bed, hearing the familiar creeks that came with each shift his body made, as a series of loud knocks sounded at his front door. Dan groaned, already knowing there was only one person it could be. Knowing that this uninvited visitor already had their own key, Dan remained in his bed, pulling his custom made extra long comforter over his head, savoring his last moments of invisibility.

"What. The. Hell!" an all too familiar and unreasonably loud voice yelled.

"Whaaaat?" Dan groaned into his pillow.

"What!!! What do you mean 'what'? I'm here to ask you why the hell you fell off the face of the earth?"

Finally Dan pushed his covers back to face his visitor. It was his older brother Dino. Dino was 4 years older than Dan, and was not only Dan's best friend, but he was basically Dan's only friend. Sure, when Dan was in elementary school and was only a head and some change taller than the other kids, he had friends of his own, but once Dan's big growth spurts kicked in he lost the few friends he had, and Dan basically became a total hermit. Dan was homeschooled from 8th grade up, and even completed college online. Luckily Dino was a great best friend to have.

Dino was fortunate enough to not suffer from the same condition Dan had, meaning that while Dino might be seen as a big guy by normal standards, his 6 foot 8 height had nothing on Dan's 12 foot 9 inch stature. Despite the huge size difference between Dino and Dan, Dino had no problem asserting himself as Dan's older brother, and when situations like this current one called for some tough love, Dino was ready to dish it out.

"Get up Dan. You look like shit, and the kitchen has like 40 empty pizza boxes that aren't gonna clean themselves up."

"I'll do it later. I just need to rest now,"

"Nope. Apparently you've been resting all week. Not picking up any of my calls or even responding to my text. What the hell man?"

"I'm sorry," Dan replied, actually feeling bad for icing his brother out.

"Yeah yeah yeah, cry me a river. Dude, what brought this on?"

"I broke my phone," Dan mumbled as he gave his brother, who stood in front of him with a disapproving gaze, a sheepish look.

"And by phone you mean you broke the custom $3000 jumbo ipad I literally went out of my way to get you?"

Dan felt bad. His brother had gotten him a special made ipad that was large enough for Dan to use as a phone for his birthday a few months ago. In fact, thanks to Dino, Dan was able to use his "phone" to download things like dating apps...

"HELLO? Are you listening to me?" Dino asked as he threw his black backpack at Dan in frustration. Already sticking out of the backpack was a brand new ipad for Dan to use as a phone.

After thanking Dino, Dan got up, showered, cleaned up his messy kitchen, and finally joined Dino who was sitting on the large couch made especially for a person Dan's size, like most things in this house. When Dan finally sat down next to Dino, a heavy silence hung between the two.

"So what made you break your phone?" Dino asked, breaking the silence.

"Um... I just dropped it," Dan lied.

"Oh so you dropped it and it broke? Yeah no... Not with the case I had on that thing."

"Okay... So I was kind of having a bad night, and it just broke," Dan elaborated while looking down with a guilty expression.

"Okay... so first of all it didn't just break. I know you dude. You got mad or better yet, you probably got sad about some stupid shit and you crushed it, right?"