My Best Friend's Brother

Forwards Backwards

“That laptop is so sweet. I can’t believe you’re already upgrading.” Malcolm said to Stevie as he walked out of his closet. “Are you sure your dad will sell it to me for 300 bucks?”

“Minus my. . . ten percent.”

Malcolm’s birthday was coming up and he had made it clear that all he wanted was cash so that he could buy the laptop from Stevie. Aria sat on his bed where a book lay forgotten on her lap as she watched him pull down a book from a high up shelf above the desk closest to the door.

“Six months of tutoring kids who won’t even take off their football helmets. Once I get my birthday money, I’ll have it.” Malcolm told the other boy as he counted what he had.

“You keep. . . your money. . . in a book?”

“Yeah. It’s the one place no one in my family will ever look.” 

“Have you seen your brother? He was supposed to –” Lois began to ask as she popped her head in the room before being cut off by Reese running in screaming as he tackled Malcolm to the ground.

Reese had brown packing tape wrapped around his head with barely space to see. The teen raised his fist and began punching his younger brother but was pulled back by their mother. He shouted in pain as the tape pulled at his hair before Lois dragged both of her sons out to the kitchen. She sat them down at the kitchen table and began to remove the tape from Reese’s head, Aria grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and handed it to Malcolm who now had a black eye.

“You gave me a black, you jerk! You’re going to pay for this.”

“No one is paying for anything.” Lois cut in, “You are going to drop this.”

“Ow!” Reese exclaimed as Lois pulled off the final strip of tape that was stuck to his hair.

“I’m sick of you two fighting, and you at least should know better. Your birthday is coming up.” Lois turned to her middle son.

“I only want money.” Malcolm quickly said.

“If you want anything, you will not retaliate. I don’t care who started it. It ends with you.”

“But he –”

“With you!”

“You’re just going to let him have last licks?” The boy looked up at his mom in disbelief while Reese wore a smug grin.

“Yes, I am. Now get out of my sight, both of you.” Lois dismissed her sons and turned to Aria and Stevie. 

“Well handled.” complimented Stevie.

“Fighting like that right in front of me. What could have possibly possessed those two boys?” Lois shook her head.

Aria went to speak when her phone went off. She flipped open the phone to find a text from Thomas telling her that if she didn’t hurry home, he and Scott would eat all of the pizza. Her dad had gotten her a cell phone before she left for New York so that she could call someone in an emergency.

“I should get going. Scott and Thomas are gonna eat the pizza without me.” Aria announced giving her mother figure a side hug and a fist bump to Stevie. “Bye, guys!”

She heard faint byes from them before she left. Her walk home was quiet as she sped walk home to keep the two from eating all the pizza without her, once again without Reese. Aria had noticed that Reese wasn’t walking her home anymore and admittedly she missed their routine of walking home together, she wondered if it would be weird to continue that now that they were both in relationships.

She had spent a lot of time sorting out her feelings for the older boy in New York and welcomed Jade as a pleasant distraction. Both girls knew that it was never going to be anything super serious seeing as neither wanted to do a long distance relationship. Aria acknowledged that she had felt something for the boy before she left but she also knew that it wasn’t something she was going to act on.