Looking Beyond

Chapter 21: It's Time to Play Some Basketball

     The yelling soon died down, replaced with various bedroom doors slamming. Brea and Savannah stayed holed up in their room, unwilling to place even a toe outside the door. Brea lost herself in her journal, scribbling away as fast as her hands would let her. Savannah had finished her coffee and was content sitting on her bed, her head leaned back and her eyes closed.

     "Standing here, using your writing hand..." Brea stopped as she heard Jacob's voice.

     "Ohhh!" a chorus of male voices rang out.

     "What in the world..." Brea asked out loud.

     "Are they playing basketball?" Savannah opened her eyes, her headache feeling much less intense as it had earlier.

     Brea put her pen in her journal and tucked it aside. Rising to her knees, she looked out the window, noticing that everyone's cars had been moved onto the side of the street. "Nice to see they asked us to move our cars."

     Savannah joined Brea on her bed. "They're all playing basketball?" She stared at the men seemingly enjoying themselves. "I don't understand. Weren't they all yelling at each other an hour ago?"

     "Yep." Brea stared as well. "It looks like Jacob's sharing his good stuff." She pointed at the bottles the guys were holding. "Well, three of them are enjoying it. Dan's got a Sprite."

     The two women watched the guys play for a while, hypnotized by how well they got along while playing. When it looked as if the game was over, they puzzled over the back-slapping and high-fiving that went around before they all entered the house. "Guys never stop amazing me." Savannah muttered as she returned to her bed.

     "You're telling me." Brea sat back on her bed, opening her journal to finish writing. Her concentration was soon broken by a light knock at the door. "Ugh." She slammed her journal shut again. "I'll get it." She unlocked the door, pulling it open slowly. "Yes?"

     "Can we talk Brea?" Trevor stood in the doorway.

     Brea looked over to Savannah, who mouthed, "Go for it."

     "Okay. Come in." She opened the door wider and let Trevor into the room. "What would you like to talk to me about?" She bit her lip to avoid saying any rude comments – Trevor was being polite at the moment.

     Trevor rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry for earlier. I shouldn't have said it."

     "You're right."

     "Despite the arguing earlier, Jacob's my boy. When it comes down to it, I've always had his back, and he's had mine." Brea waved her hand to encourage him to continue. "I told him about Janie. I was the one that helped him catch her in the act. It killed a part of him."

     "I know what she did, Trevor. Despite what you think we've done, or are doing, he and I do talk a lot."

     "Then you know that I said what I said, because I didn't want him to do that to you, right?"

     "Why are you worried about me?" Brea looked at him suspiciously. "And if he's your 'bro,' why don't you know that he's changed?"

     "I know he's changed. It's just after I messed up and heard that you spent the night with him..."

     "I was locked out of my room."

     Trevor studied her body language. "For whatever reason, you stayed with him that night. When my, er..."

     "Guest?" Savannah offered.

     "Yeah, when my 'guest' went to leave later that night, I heard Jacob singing and playing around with instruments. Then I heard a female's laugh. It had been a while since I heard noises like that from his room, so I assumed that he had fallen back into old habits."