nobody | brad s.

six

I sigh, glancing at the cashier one more time to be sure he's not watching. I push open the door and walk over to Brad, who's sitting on the curb and marking something onto the sidewalk with a rock. He hears my footsteps and glances up.

"Well would you look at that," He stands and wipes off his jeans. "She actually did it."

I teasingly roll my eyes and toss him his pint of ice cream, whereas I just got a bag of M&M's for myself. I still don't like how we've been stealing things, but I wanted to do something with Bradley so I wouldn't have to worry about him while I'm with Tris tonight.

"You didn't get me a spoon." He frowns.

I shrug and rip open my pack of candy. Brad cocks his head before flipping the lid off the container and straight up starts licking it. I giggle and roll my eyes at his childish behavior.

"Don't laugh at me." He pouts and playfully kicks my leg.

When he looks over at me, there's some ice cream on his nose. There's so much so I'm not sure how he doesn't notice. I shake my head and use the collar of his shirt to rub it off for him. "You're such a handful."

Brad's eyes wander off to the side, his attention moving elsewhere. He grasps my hand and starts tugging on it, spinning me around and nodding his head towards a rusted, beat up park. "There. Let's go."

"I've gotta be home soon, Bradley." I sigh and swing our hands a bit.

"5 minutes?" He asks, opening his puppy eyes wider. I shut my eyes and put my head back, giving in with a small nod.

I take a seat on the rubber matting in front of the slide while Brad decides he wants to climb to the top of the little fort-thing and sit on the roof. We end up staying like this, making small talk about nothing, for about 20 minutes before James' car comes speeding into view.

He rolls down the window and yells across, "What the hell are you doing? Let's go!"

"Why do you all of a sudden care what I'm up to?" I retort.

"There's someone waiting for you at the house. And there's no way I'm getting in shit because you ran off!"

I glance from the car to Brad, and shrug. "It's probably my grandparents."

"I didn't know they lived around here." He frowns.

I shrug, waving goodbye and getting into my brothers car before I have to lie to Brad again.

"So...how's your foot?" I try to make conversation since there's always a thick wall of tension between James and I.

"Shut up." He snaps, leaning against one of his arms that's pushed up against the window.

And that was that.

----

"Tris!" I beam, hearing James groan and stumble through the doorway without my help.

"Hey." He stands from where he was seated in the living room, adjusting his bag on his shoulder before looking up to give me a smile.

"Let's go up to my room." I nod towards the staircase and we start to go up.

I sit down on my bed and Tristan copies my actions, pulling out his textbooks as he speaks genuinely, "So, how've you been?"

"Good, I guess." I shrug.

"You guess?"

I glance up at him, adding a weak laugh. "I'm fine, Tris."

He frowns, nodding. "So, biology."