Crossroads

Birth

                 

Friday, June 17th, 5:45pm

"Hey guys, we're the Devildares!"

"That sounds worse than the Prankheads!"

"Much better than the guys who do pranks and stuff."

"This is hopeless!"

The five boys sat in the backyard of Beau, Luke, James and Daniel's house. For nearly a week now their main focus hadn't been on figuring out what to film for their new YouTube channel, but to figure out a name for the channel instead.

As of then, things were not going so well.

"It's not hopeless," Jai spoke up. For the most part, he hadn't come up with anything during the weeklong brainstorm session. "We just need to take a break, clear out our heads."

Right as he said that, a short girl with dark brown hair poked her head out from the sliding glass door leading into the house.

"Beau," Chelsey, Beau's girlfriend, peered out on to the patio.

"Yeah babe?" Beau nodded at her, motioning for her to continue.

"Should I tell the girls to come over later?" she asked as she walked out further on to the patio. She was holding her phone tight against her chest, clearly trying to muffle the speaker end of the phone so that whoever was on the other end wouldn't hear the discussion on this end.

Beau looked around at the rest of the table.

"Is that alright with you guys?" he asked for his friends and brothers' permission.

"Fine with me," James held both his hands up in lack of protest.

"Sure," Skip sighed with a shrug.

"Yes, there will be other guys here," Chelsey muttered into her phone with a roll of her eyes. "It won't just be me and Beau this time, I promise." She looked around the table at the rest of the guys. "Just another group of silly Australians."

Jai noticed Skip's head snapped up at what she'd just said. Everyone else remained detached from the situation, off in another world.

"Just another...silly Australians..." Skip was muttering to himself. Something seemed to be clicking in Skip's head all of a sudden.

"Australia?" Chelsey threw a hand up in frustration. "It's not below Mississippi dummy. It's another fucking country—a whole different nation."

"Nation," Jai listened as Skip continued to mumble, looking like a certified crackhead. "Just another group of silly kids in another nation..."

"Skip, what're you going on about mate?" Luke asked with an eyebrow cocked.

"I've got it!" Skip pointed at himself with a grin, feeling accomplished. "Chelsey gave us our name."

"Go on then," Beau waved, obviously excited to hear what Skip had in mind.

"Just another group of silly kids in another nation," Skip looked at the rest of them with a smile, wiggling his eyebrows as he did so.

Jai watched in amusement but kept to himself as the other boys slapped their palms to their faces and groaned at Skip's suggestion.

"Think about it," Skip shrugged. "Not everyone has a one-worded name. Plus Chelsey described it perfectly—we're just a bunch of fuckers from another nation. Every single one of us."

"But no group has a name with more than two words in it," James argued. "Too much to remember."

"He has a point," Jai finally added, pondering over what Skip had thrown out to the group. It wasn't an easy nor was it a smooth name on the tongue, but it could work.

"See?" James motioned towards Jai as he scolded Skip. "Jai understands."

"No," Jai shook his head. He felt Luke's eyes trained on him, curious as to what Jai was thinking. He swore at times that they could read each other's minds—some sort of twin telepathy went on at some points. "Skip, that's good. We just have to shorten it a tad bit."

"Could we at least make it..." Luke spoke, stopping to think something over. "Just another name of silly kids in another nation?"

Skip nodded. "Sure, still works."

"So now we just have to shorten that somehow—" Beau spoke.

"The Janoskians."

The group went silent as the abbreviated word rolled off Jai's tongue, smooth as caramel.

"The Janoskians," the rest of the boys repeated, nodding slowly in agreement one by one.

"Hey guys, we're the Janoskians," Luke smiled a smile bigger than anything Jai had ever seen as he said what their opening line would be in all of their future videos.

"I love it," James clapped his hands together. Chelsey had wandered off to the edge of the pool. She was still on the phone with her friend and completely oblivious to what she had just helped create.

"Same," the rest of the boys agreed. Jai smiled, pleased with himself as well as relieved that the name-block that had been plaguing the boys was finally over.

"Right then," Beau announced.

"We're the Janoskians."

A/N: Okay okay I know I suck. This was so short but I really just couldn't figure out how I wanted this chapter to go so... It's not so bueno which is annoying because I LOVE the rest of the book so far. Oh well. On to the next one, only way to go is up. :)

xx Sarah