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It's All About Timing

The first week of August. Heat to the extreme. Summer school over. Me and Dylan talking about gearing up at Sloppy Soldiers. I hadn't talked to Adam in over seven days. It was weird, but then again, it wasn't. Dylan and I had a lot more to joke around about than we thought. By the time school was out for the last month of the tortuous summer, we were acting like we'd been friends all along. We even laughed about the mean stuff he'd done to me over the past few years. I didn't even care about it. None of it bothered me anymore.

Dylan had never been paintballing before, so I was real excited to show it to him. It's always fun to play with someone who doesn't even know how to work their gun; you always win. I hadn't been to Sloppy Soldiers in a long time, since the beginning of the summer when Adam and I had gone to let off some bad-day attitude. Adam was probably overdue for some Sloppy Soldiers action. He acted like every day was a bad day, and he was definitely full of negative attitude. But I didn't even ask him to come. I knew he'd be rude about it and say no anyway.

My mom was so happy to see me get out and do something active that she offered to drive me and Dylan. She'd never driven me and Adam when we wanted to go. Of course, we hardly ever asked her. Troy McDermott had a cooler car than my mom even though it was junky (a minivan just didn't cut it for coolness), so we always went with him. I couldn't go to Troy on my own, though. That would've been weird. Adam knew him better than I did, so I would've felt stupid going up to him and asking if he'd give me and Dylan a ride.

At first, I thought Dylan might not want a ride. Like, it would bother him because it wasn't cool or something. He was a lot more willing for my mom to drive us than I'd thought he'd be, though. I mean, he was totally excited. He liked my family, he told me more than once. I supposed that was only because he didn't really have one of his own besides his old nutty grandma. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. We got a ride to Sloppy Soldiers. However, I realized that there was one drawback to the free ride when Corey jumped out of the car behind us and my mom called, "All right, I'll pick you three up around four!"

Then I saw what they'd been trying to do. My mom and Corey had tricked me. Before I could complain, my brother swung the car door shut and mom was driving off. Dylan and I were stuck with my obnoxious brother for an entire afternoon. I didn't know if I could take it.

"Yes!" Corey cried. "This is my first time here! You've got to show me how to do it all, Cole."

"I'm not showing you anything," I muttered, leading the way toward the supply shack.

"Yeah, Corky," added Dylan. "Corky" was what he called Corey, for some reason. "He's got to be showing me everything."

Corey didn't talk back to Dylan. He didn't care if the leprechaun teased him. But he did get mad if I did. "That's not fair, Cole," he whined. "I'll tell mom if you don't help me."

"Nothing's fair," I called back to him. "So get over it." Something rattled in my brain. I'd heard those words before. I hadn't just come up with them on my own. It struck me that Adam had been the one to say that to me when I'd gotten mad about his sneak-attack. Whatever. I wasn't going to sit around and feel bad for not talking to him in practically a week. It was his fault for being so gloomy.

Dylan and I started talking as Corey continued to complain. It was weird how Dylan was. Even Adam, who I'd known forever, didn't feel comfortable teasing my little brother. Maybe that was because Adam never cared enough to bother with Corey. And Dylan—well, he was used to teasing (mainly me) so he was already pretty good at it. He wasn't mean to Corey, not really, and I have to admit I didn't mind hearing someone else come down on my brother. Still, when I thought about it, I was surprised at how casual Dylan was, acting like he was the one related to Corey.