A House Full of Brothers

Chapter 5

I was sitting on the brown couch in the middle of the living room. All of my brothers, except Chase surprisingly, were either sitting beside me or standing in front of me. Some stared at me with confusion and others had their jaws clenched while I was sitting quietly with my hands folded in my lap.

"Why'd you get detention?" Jackson was the first one it break the intense silence. He got straight to the point.

"Chase was being rude so I was being sassy. He obviously didn't like that so he passed me a note calling me a 'dick face'. I passed it back after asking if that's what he was wasting my time with, but he raised his hand and told the teacher I kept passing him notes and that I was the one who called him a dick face." I said quietly. All of the boys looked at each other, silently asking one another if they thought I was being honest.

My face was jerked to the right as my eyes were being closely inspected by Alex. I hadn't seen him all day and the first interaction with him was him nearly popping my neck. He had taken on the features of my father. Light brown hair and green eyes but he had the signature long eyelashes like the rest of us. His hair was always messy but it was styled to look like it. He had strong and sharp features that I can only describe as model-like. The only "sharp" features I had were my cheekbones, and they were still quite subtle.

I looked back into his eyes and he was squinting at mine, guiding my head to the left and to the right as if the correct angle would let him see if I was being truthful or not.

"Brooklyn. Is that true?" Alex asked, not stopping his movements.

"Yes." I murmured quietly.

"I think she's being honest. Kinda sounds like something Chase would do." Cole spoke up.

Cole was the quiet one in my opinion. He was introverted and always off in his room with a book. He, like Jackson and Justin, had dirty blonde hair, and light brown eyes. His eyes were slender and mine were round and doe-like. But just like the rest of my brothers, he was tall at 6'3. He was the most quiet and surely the nicest but he was just as protective. However, when he was being protective he would be as calm and sensitive as he could, where as the rest just break into yelling and scolding.

"Yeah. It looks like it. Besides, she doesn't lie." Alex said after examining my face for several minutes.

"Yeah, she didn't used to, but she was with Blake at detention." Justin said with his arms folded. I wanted to scowl or glare at him but that would just look sketchy.

"It was two hours. We barely even talked. And he's not that bad." I tried to reason with the six faces around me.

"Okay, first of all, two hours is a long time." Jax decided to join in. "Second, you apparently don't know him that well then."

"Aren't you his friend? If he's so toxic, why do you guys hang out with him?" This message was directed towards all the boys, considering they all hang out with him.

"He's a nice guy but he likes to get into girls' pants. He's not toxic to us, he's toxic to you." Jason explained.

"I'm well aware of the fact he gets a lot of girls. But if you guys are so against me even breathing the same air as him, you should not be his friend." I groaned.

"We don't want you near him because we don't want you two having sex!" Jackson said in a whisper yell. He wanted to yell out of frustration but he knew if he did he'd only upset me and make me cry. Yelling always manages to make me cry.

"Well congratulations, because I don't want to have sex with him either." I wanted to yell this but that would only get me yelled at, so I didn't.

"Temptations, Brooklyn." Alex said.

"It would take a fuck ton of alcohol and a fuck ton of tempting." I mumbled. They all glared at me for my foul words, I could feel their stares as I played with my fingers.

"Language." Justin scolded.

"Brooklyn, you can go." Jackson said while running his hand down his face. I was quick to stand up and nearly run up the stairs.

  A large portion of the night was spent on my bed, tapping my stomach. I drew some pictures and had no homework since it was only the first day of school.

  A subtle knock was heard at my door. Since I was dying to do something I stood up and let them in, rather than just calling them in.

  When I opened the door I was greeted with a large plate of food being held by Cole. I moved out of the way to let him in and closed the door behind him.

  "I thought you might be hungry," he smiled, rubbing the back of his neck.

  "You thought correctly," I cheered with a smile as I gently took the plate from him and got comfy on my bed with the plate on my lap as he sat next to me on the edge of the bed.

  "How was your first day of school?" He asked awkwardly. As I mentioned, he was quieter than the rest so we don't have such a strong bond.

  "Bitter. It was going great until Chase had to ruin it." I mumbled before taking a spoonful of soup into my mouth.

  "You can't put all the blame on him," Cole sighed. I raised an eyebrow as a silent demand for him to continue. "You were being sassy."

  "Because he was being rude." I muttered while glaring at the dirty blonde.

  "It doesn't matter. Ladies don't sass." Cole said calmly.

  "I'm being raised by 7 brothers. I'm not gonna be too lady like." I rolled my eyes.

  "We're raising you as a lady. Just like how Mom would have raised you."

  "Well, Mom isn't raising me. Besides, even she would let me have a phone, a tv, a debit card, and she'd let me drive." I said bitterly, annoyed with the current conversation.

  "You'd be too obsessed with a phone-" I cut him off.

  "Like you guys?" He sent me a glare, telling me to shush.

  "TV rots your brain-" I was quick to cut him off once again.

  "Then all you guys have mushy brains." I blink slowly in irritation. Once again, a glare is sent my way.

  "You don't have a need to drive."

  "You guys don't let me go anywhere."

  "And you don't have any money to put into a debit card."

  "Because you guys won't let me get a job." I groaned. My appetite was now long gone.

  "Why would you need a job?" He asked cluelessly even though this was basically answered two seconds ago.

  "To have money." I said slowly so he could see my irritation.

  "Don't be sassy. We make plenty of money as it is, we're more than stable." He explained.

  "There's no point in you having extra money if I can't use a penny of it. If you're going to just tell me what everyone else had already told me dozens of times before, you can leave now." I said quietly, staring at the wall ahead of me.

  The bed dipped a bit more and then went to normal and Cole pressed a kiss to the top of my head before leaving my room without a word.

  It's strange being in a house with seven other people. When we got along it's great. We play board games, they give me piggy back rides, they tell me stupid jokes, and I enjoy it. But lately they have been protective. More than before. This is when I don't like being with seven people. They scold me, look down on me as if I'm stupid, treat me like a child, don't listen to how I feel. The worst thing they do, that I absolutely cannot stand, is 'treat me how Mom would have'. Our mom is dead. They aren't her so why act like it?

  There's seven people but it's lonely. I'm their 'baby sister'. Except they don't treat me with compassion or anything. They just protect me too much and think about my physical well being and forget about my mental well being.