3's A Crowd

Sinning Simpson

Cody glared at his sister as she continued to type away on her laptop, ignoring his existence. Or trying to at least. Every now and then she would squirm, fidgeting with the collar of her shirt. It was minute and seconds later she was back to her cool calm and collected facade but it was enough. She knew he was there and he knew she knew.

He shifted in her doorway; leaning into the frame feeling like the weight of the world would crush him. Shifting his gaze to the open French doors revealing Alli's balcony, he zoned in on the ocean and the brilliant light of the sun creeping across the grey walls. Pursing his lips he formed his mouth to ask her again, for the 17th time in the last 10 minutes.

"Why?" Groaning Alli looked up at him, annoyance ticking at the corner of her lips. Her 'ignore him long enough and he'll go away' plan wasn't working.

"You're going to have to be more specific" She hummed, Cody's left eye twitched. He rubbed his forehead and sat down on the edge of her blue bed. Ask him any other day if he loved his sister, and he'd laugh at you for even bothering to ask. It was evident. Ask him now...well he had a few choice words for you and her.

In the back ground, Rock Me by One Direction played, and a rock settled in his stomach as he swallowed down the lump forming in his throat. You're so wrong for this, he thought to himself.

"Why did you post the picture?" He pushed off the wall to stand straight, looking his 14 year old sister dead eye. He scoffed when she glanced back waiting for him to specify, "The one of me and Airy," 

 If Alli felt bad you couldn't tell. She smiled at him reaching out to pat his arm, to hush him. She looked happy if anything, like she was proud of what she did. Like she deserved a damn cookie or something.

"It was cute, so why not?" She shrugged her tan shoulders and looked back at the screen. She was proud. Proud of her camera skill, it was a beautiful shot and the public response was still coming in, gushing and as appreciative as she was when first saw it

Except for the Beliebers... but who listened to them anyway.

"Alli..." He groaned as he fell back on her bed, diving into the mountain of neon colored pillows and stuffed animals. She giggled at his distress, picking up her pink bowtie bear.

"I didn't say anything bad when I posted it, just the caption. Besides in the other ones I-"She was cut off by her brothers alarmed face as he jerked up. Oops.

"There's more!"

"Maybe..." She bit her lip, cursing herself.

"Show them to me" He reached for her laptop but she lifted it away, hopping off the bed with a swish of her white skirt. She had been posting pictures of them the entire week Airy had visited, how they hadn't noticed truly offended her. Don't they follow me? 

Airy was one thing, she was never big on social media, such a busy bee but her brother well that was just shameful. It was surprise that it was just now blowing up this big.  In her opinion she had done them and the world behavior. It was crime to keep such tender romance under wraps and if it wrecked Airy's relationship with Justin 'scoundrel' Bieber, so be it.

"If you want to see them, you'll have to like them on Instagram, just like everyone else superstar" Alli smirked causing Cody to fall out exasperated. He could just snatch it from her but what was the use. The damage was done. She already posted them, and deleting them would only cause more fuss. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Besides did he even want to see them? Did he even want to know what had been buzzing while he was off smiling like an idiot with the girl he had no business being around anyway.

"It really is a cute picture." She murmured softly, patting his blonde head feeling a slight twinge of guilt for his anxiety. Alli was shamelessly ruthless when it came to others that she could admit, but her brother,  that was her weakness. Sitting back down she slid the laptop over to him and he faced the topic of their conversation. 

It was a just picture, worth a million tweets.

 In the picture, he sat on the swing set of their beach house overlooking the ocean and a girl sat beside him. She had messy black curls piled into a bun, her brown skin was glowing in the morning light and she had this cute crooked smirk on her bow shaped lips as she looked up at him. He smiled back, blue eyes twinkling with his hand on her legs as they draped over his swim trunks. Cody resisted the urge to smile; it was a good picture, with the sun cracking the night sky as it began to rise, gleaming off their still wet surfboards. They looked content, happy. a 

"Surfs up, so are we" was the caption with a winking emoji . It was the most eloquent thing his sister had written, but it could've been worse. 

Alli hadn't said anything too awful, except for the emoji. And that combined with the look shared between him and Airy, the closeness of their bodies...It gave off waves of intimacy that had nothing to do with the ocean. 

They were just friends, really good friends. Yet the line between friendship and something more was shrinking and Cody found himself rubbing his forehead.

"Good friends."  Yeah, whatever that meant...

That's why they were in this predicament anyway; the picture perfectly captured that this moment was intensely personal. That everything they did was intensely personal. They surfed all night, splashing around in the warm ocean until they were both sore and tired. He carried her up the steps and collapsed with her in his lap. She saw with her elbows on her knees looking up at him. Then she gently moved his wild hair from his face. He remembered his heart stuttering in his chest as those pretty brown eyes looked up at him. He wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss her.

 But of course Alli had been there, and the flash of the camera effectively killed the moment.

Now he had to deal with questioning fans, the media and eventually the girl in the picture as well. Airy was not returning his calls. Was she angry? Did she regret getting involved with him? She'd told him when they first met she wasn't big on being in the spotlight. She was young, she wanted to have fun, make mistakes and be herself. She didn't need the world judging her for being who she was. She didn't need a paper trail of every wrong decision she made.

Even when she said it, Cody had known that they could never be friends without the media. Anyone he met always wound up in a relationship with not just him but the media as well, a trio.  and everyone knows, 3's a crowd. 

 It was even worse now because she was involved with Justin and the other two as well.

There was no way she could ever back out of this, her life was about to change forever and he felt responsible for it. Moments like this he wished he had never got famous. He ached for normality. Then he wouldn't feel so bad about pointing fingers at Harry. Chastising him and threatening like he was some harlot. 

Who was he to judge? They were both guilty now.