Venice (bxb)

3. Menlo

The Menlo School was a beacon for Atherton's rich and reticent. Set in the backdrop of high woodlands, architecture that was resembled the Kensington Palace and uniforms that made them look like choir boys waiting to get molested. Jason and Venice wondered what exactly Via had been thinking while applying for this school.

Well, Ven, Valentina and Jace went to a public school in Long Island and when the Conigraves made enough money to jump into the higher income bracket (yes, they paid taxes), the boys and Val had gotten irrevocably attached to their school.

"Venice, Valentina and Jason?" It was a girl with a clipboard, waiting at the entrance. The day was as uncharacteristically windy as it was bright so she kept pawing at strands of hair that stuck to her lips.

"Reporting for duty, Ma'am." Jason even did a little salute. Venice tried hard to not show it but he was thinking oh my God, he makes me want to die. It didn't help that Jason played his role to a twiddle.

Valentina gave Venice a look. The girl in front of them seemed unamused. The sharp slope of her neatly groomed eyebrows had caused Jason to falter, unobviously. The only reason Venice had noticed was because he knew his cousin better than he knew himself.

"Alright, are you all related? It says here that you have the same last names?" She seemed convinced that it was a clerical error. "Ven and I are siblings," Valentina pointed between Venice and her. "Jace is our cousin."

She nodded, "I'm Beckett, Student Body Secretary. Link was supposed to assist you both today but we can't find him so I'll run you through the entire thing."

"Link?"

"Yes, our Vice President."

For some reason, this tingled the inside of Ven's palms. "Your first class starts in forty minutes." She handed them their class schedules.  A later statement that Beckett made might've pricked Jason. "We'll be seeing each other a lot." Venice assumed she'd meant that they were in many of the same classes. He'd just hoped that Jason also assumed the same thing.

"To your right is the main gym. There's one upstairs too. There are try-outs going on for many sports teams right now." They couldn't really see the inside of one but they imagined that they soon would.

"You'll do a spring Bootcamp with your coaches to get ready for competition season."

"So we're not allowed to go away for the Spring?"

Beckett looked at them, "not if you wanna make the line-up."

Jason was dead set on Haiti for the spring.

"Hey, we'll just go in the summer. I mean, by then, we wouldn't even need to go with the adults. It'll be just me and you," Valentina cleared her throat from beside him, "And Val."

"It's supposed to be a family vacation, Venice."

Venice nodded—not because he was immune to the emotions triggered by patronization—but because ever since Uncle Tim died, Jason had been holding on by a very delicate thread. Not that he hadn't been holding on by the very same thread his entire life but Venice just didn't think that his cousin's thread was equipped for death.

Especially a father's.

It also didn't help that he didn't know, what exactly, this thread was or consisted of. Beckett was turning to the right and if Venice hadn't been constantly searching the crowd for a distraction, he wouldn't have noticed.

The blondeness of Link's messy cut curved the hall, deeply engrossed in the square screen in his hand. Venice (not Jason) stopped him, "hey." Link's gaze met theirs in a manner that deliberated annoyance.

"Hey," a look and he turned right back to the dial screen on his phone. He didn't look like he'd wanted to deal with his neighbours right then.

"You alright, Link?"

"Yep, yep, yep."

Beckett reappeared in front of them, "I thought I lost you guys," and then she noticed the supposedly missing Vice-President, "Jesus Christ, Link! Mary saddled me with the new kids because she couldn't get ahold of you."

The new kids hadn't asked for a grand welcome or anything. They could've found their way to the counsellor's office. To be fair, Link didn't seem like he had the brain capacity to deal with her or them right then.

"Yeah, sorry, give me a minute."

"Will you take them then? I have practice first two periods."

Link shook his head, distractedly, "yeah, no, I can't. Sorry."

She demaned his attention. Ginevra seemed to them like that sort of a person. "Link!"

"Yes, Ginevra?"

"Ginevra? I thought your name was Beckett." Jason was obviously looking to get punched and she seemed like a girl who wasn't too opposed to violence.

"Ginevra Beckett," she enunciated every letter in those two words. For the first time, Venice realized that it wasn't only Jason that carried some sort of weird complex about their surname name.

"Hey, Venice, did you drive here?"

His red convertible is parked outside. "Yeah."

"Can you take me to Fair Oaks?"

Venice looked around for help, "I don't know where that is?"

Link almost smiled at that, "I know the directions, dumbass. Will you take me?"

Everything Venice was thinking, he didn't voice, and it wasn't for the lack of thoughts or opinions (which he had almost too much of) but because he couldn't figure out how to co-exist in a world with Link. "Yeah, sure," he looked at Beckett, "I have forty minutes before class, right?"

"Thirty-eight." He wondered whether he should've asked Jason if he wanted to tag along. Or Valentina for that matter.

"Can you not judge my driving?"

"Who's judging?"

Venice looked at him, quite dangerously. Link was in the passenger seat of his car, gaze unrelenting and focussed on the steering wheel.

"Right, left or straight?" Menlo School was on the outskirts of the city. To give it the whole rich boarding school look, Venice presumed.

You had to go through a forest-type of area before you entered the city or Oaks field.

"Straight, please." Not that Venice didn't understand that Link was just replying to his question but he would overthink this, as soon as his schedule (not as half as busy as he makes it out to be) allowed.

"On the contrary, I may be judging your driving."

Venice stayed silent.

"You drive really well."

"Thanks, I guess." What else was Venice supposed to say?

"Do you enjoy it?" Venice stole a glance at him. He was caught immediately. Link hadn't been looking anywhere else.

"Driving? Not as much as Jason." Venice turned his body to see him lounging against the door. A hazard, nonetheless.

"Jason doesn't drive anymore?"

"Nope."

"Why?"

Venice didn't feel the need to divulge sensitive information, "dumb shit, man. You know how he is." Link probably didn't.

He, naturally inquisitive like his mother, would eventually find the answer to this question. A detailed, more elaborate one.