WHERE WE ARE ; COLE WALTER

009

THE SUN WAS SHINING DOWN ON THEM      as Veronica sat on the fence, watching Parker practice some football moves for her upcoming match.

It was refreshing, seeing Cole with a football in his hands and a smile on his face as he did his best to be a good brother. Before going outside to practice he had even taken the time to braid Parker's hair, Veronica refusing to do so seeing as Cole had stopped practicing his skills.

Well, now they were outside playing and enjoying themselves with Lee's poor comments spicing everything up a bit.

As time went on, Veronica's ass began to hurt, so she stood up and walked around a bit, not wanting to stop the siblings from playing since she knew how important all of this was to Parker. Finally, George came over, telling the kids to go inside.

Veronica was about to go inside too, though to go and find something to drink and talk a bit with Cole but as she was making her way over to him, he smiled and ran to catch up with Parker, his bad foot slowing him down.

Being too far away from the pair, Veronica couldn't hear what they were saying, but she knew, by the way Parker's face lit up and how she had a slight jump in her steps, that whatever he had said, it was working to calm the young girl's nerves.

As Cole stood up, Veronica walked over to him, smiling up to him as he wrapped a sweaty arm around her. Though, she noticed Jackie walk up to them with a smile on her face and quickly shoved him a bit to the side, smiling over to the girl.

"What did you tell Parker?" Veronica asked, "Her expression went from the end of the world to all cheery and smiley. It was almost creepy how fast you did that."

Cole shrugged, lifting his hand to take a braid that had fallen out of place and putting it where it belonged. "I just told her that if she's nervous during the game she has to look up to the stands where I'll be throwing popcorn at you."

Veronica smiled, "Oh, no I will be the one to throw popcorn at you. And you'll be finding it in your clothes until you go shower in the evening."

The boy smiled and picked her up, spinning her around in the air, a shriek escaping the girl as she was flung around and at last, they both fell to the ground, a smile on Veronica's face, though it soon disappeared as she looked over to Cole. He wore a pained expression, a hand reaching down to his knee.

The girl in her sundress quickly sat up and went on to apologize, she hadn't thought of the affect her weight would have on his knee. Cole put a hand up to silence her, not wanting to hear any of her apologies, after all, this was his fault, he had started it all.

Veronica helped him stand up and together they went inside, a silence settling over them, though it was not one of their usual comfortable ones. No, this silence held something in it, that neither of the two could truly name, so they decided not to mention it.

"I think I should head home. Skylar's probably at home alone once again and the boy doesn't know how to cook," Veronica told the Walters after having sat in the living room with them to watch a movie Danny had picked out.

Isaac looked up to her in confusion from his spot on the sofa, "I thought I saw Skylar walk upstairs with Jackie? They said something about a project."

"Oh, he didn't tell me, well, I'll go upstairs to see how long he'll be here," Veronica said as she walked away from them, not glancing at Cole who had just returned from the shower.

Walking upstairs, Veronica could already hear her brother's annoying voice and as she reached the top of the stairs . . . well, she wasn't expecting to see her brother shirtless in Nathan's room.

Veronica took this as her chance to speak to her annoying little brother and embarrass him a bit, after all what were big sisters there for? "A piece of sisterly advice: you should shut the door when you're planning to do that in here. You never know when Benny might come in."

Both boys' heads snapped over to her, a smirk on her face as she noticed Nathan's cheeks turning red. Skylar just scoffed at her comment and put a shirt on, "What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to get home early today," he asked her, turning around to face her completely.

"Well, I heard my beloved brother was here, so I wanted to offer you a ride home, but it seems like you're busy here," Veronica replied, the smirk on her face getting all the bigger as now even her brother grew embarrassed.

Skylar tried to overplay his embarrassment and told his sister, "I'm helping Jackie with the project for the student council tomorrow, so we'll still be here for a while. Grace's taking me home though, so no worries."

Veronica nodded and went off bidding them both a good night.

The black boy exhaled loudly, turning back to Nathan and immediately apologizing for Veronica. Nathan quickly shrugged it off, he loved her and her jokes, he truly did and it was interesting to see Skylar get embarrassed for once.

"By the way, you look really cute when you're blushing," Skylar told Nathan with a smile on his face and then finally returned to Jackie and Grace to continue working.

HOPE speaks!

okay guys, today there will be hella lot of updates so that I can compensate their lack in the past few months and well, I had a lot of time so I wrote the next two or so episodes, it just needs a bit of editing :)

love you lots! and please tell me what you think!