Lost

Chapter 11 - Warmth

A few weeks later, Steven, Axel, Reece, Caleb, and Ace sat together on the fields of their highschool, watching the football players practice. All five of them were on the football team and normally played a good amount of minutes, however, none of them attended practice that often.

Ace had his little sister, Jodee, to worry about and football was more of a pastime for him, not one of his priorities. Caleb didn't go anywhere his best friend didn't — if Ace wasn't at practice, neither was he. Axel was suspended from football for unnecessary roughness in the last game. Reece was caught while doing inappropriate sexual relations in the girls locker room — they were hoping he isn't going to be expelled at this rate. And Steven was just always an odd kid, he's pretty flaky and won't do anything that he wants to do. Plainly, he just didn't want to attend today.

So the boys settled to just watch practice and smoke a couple cigarettes together before they were all hauled back into reality.

Ace was glad to spend some time with his friends — he often spent time around five years old or adults who shouldn't even be considered so. He liked every once in a while laying back and spending some time with his peers — peers that he actually liked as there weren't many of them. So, he asked his neighbor, Ms. Gardner, to keep Jodee a little extra longer and he would pick her up closer to dinner.

The big brother felt a little guilty that he was choosing to spend time with his friends instead of his little sister, but he continued to assure himself that he was doing the right thing and this was a good choice too. Ace loved spending time with his baby sister and Jodee loved spending time with her big brother. But Ace also knew that Jo was already a little too attached to him — he didn't want that to become a bigger problem in the future. So, he always seeks to push the little girl outside her comfort zone just a little bit and in very safe ways. One of those ways was getting to trust new people — like their neighbor. This was also one of the reasons's Ace allowed Caleb to finally meet Jodee — so she could work on speaking to other people without just hiding with her brother.

Ace secretly loved it, but the parent in him said that he had to help her to be independent.

Caleb continued to check his phone, not for any text messages or emails or grades to come in or any of the normal things kids his age checked for. No, he was checking the time. Just half an hour longer, he thought, just half an hour.

In the past couple weeks since Caleb had met his new little best friend — Jodee Chambers — he has been obsessed with hanging out with her and spending time together and getting to know her better. He wanted the little girl to trust him and become a little addition to Ace and Jodee's small family, like he was already an addition to Ace's. Caleb thought it would be considerably hard to convince his best friend to allow Caleb to come over and see Jodee or pick her up from school, or do any of these things — but he was pleasantly surprised by Ace's course of action. Caleb thought that his friend would still gatekeep Jodee, even after they met. But Ace had actually been pretty open about the entire thing. He told Caleb wherever he was at that given time and accepted if Caleb asked to join, he always prompted Jodee to hang out with Caleb, and had no problem talking about her with him — when before Ace would immediately shut down the conversation.

Tonight was no different to the past couple of weeks. Ace and Caleb were going to hang out with their friends for a little and then head over to Ace's house, pick Jodee up from the neighbors, and then have some dinner. Caleb had even been looking up how to make lasagne as Ace said it's one of Jodee's favorites — he was going to try to cook it tonight.

Prior to meeting Jodee, Caleb was always the party animal. He was never home, always hanging out with his friends or having some fling with a random girl he picked up. He went to countless parties and never held back at those — drinking, playing games, and even occasionally experimenting with other substances. But now his need for thrill had died down. The thrill was now getting Jodee to become more and more comfortable with him. It was like an addiction, he always wanted more and more.