fair/unfair

05.

       "Get out," Reid said tiredly when he walked into his bedroom. 

       Grace was sitting crisscross applesauce on his bed and Jax at his desk chair, filthy tennis shoes kicked up on Reid's computer desk, dirt crumbling from his soles. As Reid passed by, trampling the dirty clothes that laid forgotten on the floor, he knocked Jax's legs off the surface.

       "Hey!" he cried, looking as indignant as Reid felt. "Is that any way to treat your lord and savior, Jackson Christ?"

       Reid ignored him, walking over to his bed to pull his pillow out from underneath Grace's butt, who toppled over with a shriek.

       "Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?" she grumbled, pulling her legs out from under her and climbing off Reid's bed.

       "The justice system," Reid said. "Or did you forget that I went down for a crime we all committed together? Why isn't Jax sitting in a jail cell right now?"

       "White privilege," Grace offered.

       Jax opened his mouth to protest, but at the twin glares Grace and Reid shot at him, he intelligently decided against it and held his hands up in surrender.

       Instead he said, "Coach is pissed at you."

       Reid sighed and tugged his shirt off, throwing it on the floor. He felt disgusting, covered in paint and sweat. His knees were stained with the fake blood mixture from where he kneeled in it as he scrubbed the floors. He wanted nothing more than a shower and a nap, but he couldn't do anything with his two friends lounging around his room.

       "Coach is always pissed at me," he replied dismissively, "What else is new?"

       "No, this is different." Jax picked at the threads of his jeans. "You've been distant since you and Mason broke up—"

       "Jax," Reid warned.

       "I'm just saying! You know it's true. Your head hasn't really been in the game—"

       Grace snickered in the background.

       Jax continued, "—and top that with the prank we pulled on the Foxes and now, you're missing practice? Where even where you?"

       Reid sighed again. He hadn't told the two of them that he was working at Foxcreek, and just settled on telling them that his brother managed to keep him from being locked up in lieu of paying a couple thousands of dollars in fines and not getting into any more trouble again.

       But now that he realized he was going to need the two of them on his side if he planned on maintaining his position on the soccer team and getting away with being gone all the time, there wasn't any way he could get away with not telling them. He was just already dreading this conversation. God. God.

       "I've been at Foxcreek."

       "What?" Grace screeched, shooting to her feet, at the same time Jax yelled, "The fuck?"

       The resulting reaction was them talking over each other, their voices raising with every word. Their eyes were identical, wide and crazed and looking at Reid had grown two heads. Reid sat down on his bed, placing his (one) head in his hands as he let his friends rant at him. After a considerable amount of time, he raised a hand and they settled down.

       "Tell me you're not going to school there next year," Grace said first.

       "I'm not going to school there," he reassured her.