Red Flag

Chapter 2

Ryan's jogging transformed into a walk eventually, her breathing easying with every step as she paced waiting for Matt to catch up.

"When...hang on" the green eyed boy stopped suddenly, hands on his knees as he tried to catch a breath. "Hoo!..." he let out placing a hand on his chest.

"Are you alright?" She leaned down to look him in the eye.

"Yeah..." he stood up straight "I just...when you said we'd go running ...in the morning I didn't expect for it to be this early...or for you to run like a fucking athlete" he took a big swig of water.

"You wanted to train with a fire fighter, this is what you get." She said stretching her arms and legs.

They were currently standing in the middle of a crunchy leaf coated forest, the sun had come up around 30 minutes ago, right around when they started running.

"Y'all run half an hour?!" He asked wide eyed.

"We have to be able to do the Ironman, you know, if we wanted to" she said mimicking his face and attitude from the show the other day, when he was talking about gays.

"Whaaaat?!" He leaned back onto his knees looking down, making the girl worry slightly.

"Seriously Matt, are you gonna throw up?" She placed a hand on his shoulder.

"No, I'm fine!" He said in a high pitched voice. "Why do you think I'm gonna puke?"

"Cause your face says so dude" she told him as the boy kept drinking water with wide eyes.

"I'm just trynna swallow my longues back into place" he sighed placing his hands on his hips.
>>>>>>>>>
When Ryan got home it was only 5:00 a.m., very early but she was used to being up before noon. By the time she was done showering it was 5:20, having very short hair has its perks.

She squished the ends of her hair with a towel while jogging downstairs to get something to eat. She opened the fridge and ended up wanting a drink, seeing the Pepsi bottle so full made her thirty.

She poured herself a glass and closed the fridge having put everything in place again, as she turned around to grab her cup she was met with her older brother's smily face.

"Aaah! Shit, Joe don't do that!" She yelped in surprise.

"Enjoy yourself last night?" The brown haired boy asked with his arms crossed over his chest and an arched eyebrow.

"I don't know what you're talking about " Ryan shrugged and chugged down the coke.

"Pops closes the dinner at 6 p.m, you can say whatever you want but I know you didn't have dinner with him. Grandpa is in on your lie but you forgot to tell the biggest snitch in this family..." Joe told his sister as she was about to go back up stairs.

"Nick..." she muttered scrunching her face at her mistake.

"That's right, Nick. He saw you check in at like 1:00 a.m so, start squawking girl" the boy pulled out one of the stools for her, also sitting down himself.

"Okay..." she whined and stomped over to the seat next to her brother. "I went out with Matt, nothing crazy!" She clarified at her brother's scared expression. "We just went for ice-cream and ended up at the park, talking about life on the swings" a smile crept onto her face as she remembered their conversation.

"Is he nice?" The boy asked seeing his sister's face, he didn't want to tell her off if she was this happy.

"Very, a literal kid as well. He was so interested in knowing about me and you guys and everything I had to say" she told him, her eyes sparkling with joy