Road Tripping

09

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I GRUMBLE INCOHERENTLY. I'm unsure of the time, but I already know it's too early. The blaring chime of the doorbell causes me to roll over; subsequently falling off my bed and onto the floor with a painful thump. I can hear Jacks snoring from the room adjacent to mine, and I figured I now had to answer the door.

Peeling myself off the ground exasperatedly, I scurry towards the foyer, slamming into the wall in my sleepy haste. When I pull back the front door with a probably broken nose, Nate stands blandly with a slightly aggravated expression on his comely face. "What the hell was that?" He grumbles, his majorly pissed-off expression morphing into something of concern.

"My face..." I start with a sigh. "The wall." I turn and point at the same wall in a manner of blame. Nate's cheeks dip with the stifle of a smile, but that diminishes completely when a voice sounds from behind him. "Is that her? Aw, Natey!" Suddenly, I see a girl with hair a bit darker than Nate's and similar brown eyes. My mind hums when I realise she is Nate's sister—Cassidy, I remember.

"Oh my goodness!" She continues, embarrassing Nate relentlessly. "Has he kissed you?" She pushes Nate behind her, who nearly slips down the porch, and looks at me with wide eyes. I open my mouth, but before I could speak Cassidy had turned back around. "Did you kiss her?" She demands.

I turned at the sound of a grumble emitting from the hallway. Cassidy immediately looks past me and shouts at Jacks. "Have they kissed?" She screams, probably waking the entire neighbourhood. Jacks's eyes light up, a smile spreading slowly and slyly across his face. "Oh," he starts, mischievously. "They've done more than just kiss," my face dropped, and Cassidy's broad smile lowered into a blank expression.

And then she was smothering me. For some reason, she'd become happy with the idea and decided to hug me. Unfortunately, Nate's tall build must be a family trait which Cassidy had also inherited, and now my face was mashed against what I hoped to be her shoulder. "Cass," Nate groans and tries to pry her off me. When I am free, I glare at Jacks to giggles annoyingly at the entire affair.

"Sorry," Cassidy starts again, grinning heartily. "It's just... You're so adorable. And my little brother, Natey baby..." I try to stifle a laugh but fail miserably when Nate smacks Cass upside her head; it sounds like it hurt and the expression on her face proves the same theory. "You've got to get ready for school," Nate informs me, a deadpanned expression on his comely face. Only when I look do I realise Nate is also in uniform; I run off into my room to get dressed.

I decide I have no one to impress, so I slip on a normal looking pair of track pants that are secretly soft and homely. Pulling my baggy sleep shirt over my head, I stand momentarily dumbfounded in my room, without a school shirt in sight. In an unabashed manner, I walk into Jacks's isolated room in nothing but my trusty sports bra. I smile when I see a clean looking school shirt folded on the end of Jacks bed, and I slip it over my head cheerfully, before turning around and screaming at the top of my lungs.

"Jesus Christ!" I curse, stringing other profanities under my breath. I crumple to the ground, swearing and grabbing my foot. Nate stood at the door, startling me so much that I had hit my toe against the end of Jacks's bed. The single worst pain in the entire world. I groan and roll into a little ball, cradling my foot as if it were my stillborn child. Morbid, but true. As the pain slowly—ever so slowly—subsides, I realise Nate had watched the entire time.

...He saw my lazy sports bra. "I keep hurting myself," I trail off in a moaned manner, rolling from side to side in my fragile state. "Why are you wearing a sports bra?" Nate asks curiously, and I couldn't be bothered to look at him. "Because I don't have the effort to wear normal bras," I lament, and Nate's reply is speedy. "I don't understand." He says simply, and I sit up stiffly and look straight at him, narrowing my eyes. "You try wearing bras," I contest, flopping back down hardly into the floor in a mess of hair.