Lights Down Low ≫ tom holland

01

THE LIGHTS CAME ON causing chase to awake from his slumber. he sat up straight in his chair and looked to the front of the class. the teacher stood with a stack of blank lined paper in her hands and started distributing one to each student, explaining the task for the remainder of the period.

"i want you to write down all the differences from the movie to the book." she stated. "it can just be bullet points, no paragraphs needed."

a silent groan left chase's lips as his blank sheet was placed in front of him. he hadn't paid any attention the last two days that they had been watching the movie; he slept instead. he peeked over at his desk neighbor's paper and copied down his notes, wording them differently and placing them in a different order without getting caught.

once the bell rung he brought the paper to the front and placed it in a pile along with everyone else in the class. he made his way to his locker and threw his whole bag in it, not caring that he had a large amount of homework that needed to be done. he always did if the following morning in study hall and usually half-assed it since he really didn't care. his gpa was so low and he wasn't going to bother trying to bring it up.

he spotted matteo at his locker a few down and made his way over to him with a smile. "what's up, bro?"

matteo lazily tossed unneeded books in his locker before shrugging his bag over his shoulder. he lightly closed his locker before giving his full attention to the boy. "i barely passed cuzzo's test. mom's gonna kill me."

chase laughed, "it's not like she looks anyway." matteo simply shrugged his shoulders and made his way out of the school. "hey, how about you drive? you like driving. it'll cheer you up." he handed the keys over to the brunet.

he gave his brother a small nod. "fine." 

the two teens climbed in their shared car and matteo started the engine, letting it roar to life. matteo plugged his phone into the aux since chase's wasn't able to do so and blasted his playlist. chase was happy they had similar music tastes, otherwise he probably would've punched himself repeatedly, listening to the same playlist everyday on the way to and from school.

the ride home took about twenty minutes since they lived near the edge of town. chase normally felt like the cullen's since their house was located near the woods also. the two sung along to the music blasting from the stereo, letting school drift far from their minds. as they pulled in the driveway they saw penelope, brinley, and camila climbing out of another car. they must've left school only a few minutes prior to them.

"beat'cha!" penelope laughed and a smile formed on chase's face as he draped an arm around her shoulders and led the way inside. the five of them entered the house, hearing chatter from the kitchen. "dad!" penelope practically screeched and rushed over to give him a hug.

he had been away on business, like he was every other week for a few days. he was stood in the kitchen with alec and a boy chase had never seen before. "how was school, guys? how're your grades?"

"pretty good." matteo answered first. he was always the star child.

penelope sighed, "freshman year is hard."

camila patted penelope's shoulder. "it only gets harder until your senior year." she turned to look at her dad. "mine are good so far."

brinley shrugged her shoulders. "i mean, school only started two months ago, so grades can't be a big deal yet, right? i'm maintaining b's right now, but i'm trying to get a's."

anthony looked at the blond son lingering in the back. "what about you, chase?"

chase glanced from his dad to alec who rose an eyebrow, already knowing how poorly he was doing. "below average." he shrugged his shoulders. "but hey, i had a math test yesterday and i didn't fail it."

alec smirked, leaning against the island. "and what grade did you get, chase?"

the blond rolled his eyes and made eye contact with the stranger standing in the kitchen before looking back to his dad. "i got a d."

"it's better than an f!" penelope said cheerfully before turning her attention to the stranger still standing quietly. "hi, i'm penelope. i'm guessing you're a friend of alec's because he never introduces his friends to us."

"hi," the guy laughed, taking a sip from his glass of water.

alec cleared his throat. "right, this is penelope, camila, brinley, matteo, and chase. the rest of the clan should be home soon. guys, this is tom."

"how many more of them are there?" tom asked playfully.

"four." anthony answered. "my wife and i finally realized we had to stop adopting or else we'd need to buy a bigger house." he added on jokingly.

tom laughed again. "i mean, its huge as it is."

chase clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and pointed a finger towards the direction of his room. "yeah, i'll be in my room."

his dad stopped him. "no homework this weekend?"

the brunet lightly spun back around to face his dad and shook his head, lying straight through his teeth. "nope, finished it all at school."

matteo rolled his eyes at his brother and excused himself also while anthony announced that their mother would be home soon and dinner would be in a few hours. chase flopped down on his bed and pulled his phone from his pocket, laughing loudly at something that was said in his group chat.