Stepbrothers

Chapter 2

"Noah. Noah. Noah!" Blake yelled in my ear. I groggily sat up, still really tired.

"What do you want?" I asked in my typical, cranky morning voice.

"Breakfast!" He cheerily responded. "Time to get up!" Yeah, so that was definitely not happening. I pulled my blanket over my head and proceeded to ignore Blake, trying to fall back asleep. He pulled the blanket off of me and smiled. That was cruel, man. Not okay.

"Come on, Noah. Let's go eat." Blake insisted.

"Fine." I gave in, too tired at this point to care. We walked downstairs -well, I trudged down the stairs - and in to the kitchen, where breakfast was waiting for us, as were everyone else.

"Good morning. Nice to see you managed to wake him up." My dad was addressing Blake at that last part.

"It was tough." Joked Blake. I just sat down at the table in the place I always sit - between Blake and Josh- and started to eat my food.

"So, Josh and Jake have a hockey game today. Noah, are you interested in going to watch? Blake was planning on going." Claire asked me. I just shook my head as a response, as I didn't want to drive for like, half an hour, then sit for an hour, than drive for another half an hour. Blake looked disappointed for some reason.

"You'll be home alone, then. We'll be gone all day since the game is pretty far away." My dad informed me. I just nodded in to my cereal.

"You can have friends over if you want." Claire added.

"Don't have any." I mumbled. Blake looked over at me, shocked. Actually, everyone but my dad looked a little surprised by that. My dad knew what school had been like for me, and he knew I preferred to not talk about it. It was an awkward subject, if I'm being honest. I had friends at a point, but... never mind. Pretend I didn't say that.

I stood up from the table some while later and walked in to the kitchen, leaving my bowl in the sink before I jogged up the carpeted stairs in to my small room.

I stood around my room for a few minutes, bored out of my mind, until I decided to unpack my little possessions, and attempt to find a space for them in my tiny room. I hung a 'Deadpool' poster above my dresser and a Spider-man poster above my nightstand, next to my bed. There was a large window behind my bed that didn't have curtains yet, but there was an old blanket hung over top of them instead. I think my dad ordered me a set of curtains, though, so those should be in soon.

I decided to take a break from decorating (Because I'm lazy as fuck) and grabbed one of my few comic books, laying down on my bed. I could hear everyone else downstairs getting ready to go to the game. I know I should probably go, but I just don't want to leave the house. Don't get me wrong, I hate living here; but it just seems worse to spend all day in a stuffy car surrounded by people who don't like me as much as I don't like them. It would just be awkward, for all of us, I'm not gonna put someone else in that position. Not even people I don't like. I mean, Claire is nice, and the guys seem nice enough, but we just don't get along.

Anyways, I heard someone walking up the stairs, and I heard a voice to accompany it. That sounded like Blake, odd. He should be downstairs getting ready for the twin's hockey game. There was a loud knock on my door, so I assumed it was Blake.

"Come in!" I called out through the door. The door pushed open with a slight creak, a sound I had gotten used to by now, and Blake walked through the door and into the small room.

"Yeah?" I asked, confused as to why Blake was in my room, and why he was trying to talk to me.

"I've decided not to go to the game. I'm staying here with you instead!" He cheered, very excited it seemed to be stuck here with me all day.

"Nice." I responded, quietly and awkwardly.

"So, what do you want to do first?" He asked, seeming as though his enthusiasm was not whatsoever deterred by my awkwardness. In response, I just awkwardly shrugged my shoulders, wishing he would just leave me by myself.

"Do you like comic books?" He asked, gesturing to the comic book I had held in my hands. I just nodded.

"I have a whole collection in my closet. I hid them from Josh and Jacob because they'd just make fun of me for having them. I'm pretty sure they still haven't found them, if you want to borrow a few." He actually seemed like a pretty cool guy, well, actually he seemed like a kinda geeky guy, which was way better in my opinion.

"Sure. That sounds cool." I muttered. It took him a few seconds to process what I had even said because I was muttering it so much, before his smile grew even wider. He stood up a little higher as he led me out of my room and in to his, which was a little bit farther down the hall. His room was a lot larger than my room is, but to be fair, he's lived here a lot longer than I have. Granted, I haven't even lived here for two full days, so that wasn't exactly a very hard record to break.

Anyways, his room had two large closet doors on the wall to the left of his door, and he opened the both of them to reveal what appeared to a very messy and unorganized closet, but then he lifted a few things out of the way, and behind them was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen- a comic book collection. A well kept one, too, which was very hard to find in this cinematic universe obsessed world of today. He laughed loudly when he saw my amazed face, and I simply stared, open mouthed, at the cardboard box that stood in front of me.

"Take a few. You didn't seem to have much. You better take good care of them, though. Those books are what my life is centered around." He said, entirely serious. I had to hold in a laugh at that part.

"Thanks." I smiled slightly, something I rarely did, and walked back in to my room. I laid down on my bed again, reading Blake's comic book carefully. It was pretty good, actually. I wonder if Blake actually hates me, or if that was just what I assumed he would be like. Oh no, now I'm re-thinking everything. Great.

"Blake! Noah! We're leaving now!" My dad called up from downstairs. I set the comic book down gently on my bed, and stood up from my bed to walk downstairs.

I trudged down the stairs to go say goodbye to my dad. I stood at the stairs and did a quick wave, one I made sure he had seen, before walking back up the stairs. I sat down on my bed and began to carefully read the comic book before I was interrupted... again. It was Blake, standing at my door, holding two pieces of paper in his hands.

"Hey, Noah. Wanna play a game with me?" I nodded to subside my curiosity, and he put the papers on my bed. he pulled a pencil out from a pocket in his hoodie and smiled -a terrifying smile- as he proudly held up his pencil.

"Twenty questions." Blake said in this weird fake announcer voice. "No chickens." He added in his normal voice.

Great. Now I have to answer every single question he asked me.

"I ask you first. How did you get that bruise on your face?" He asked. Well, I knew this one was gonna show up eventually.

"Sports." I answered quietly.

"You play sports?" Blake inquired. I nodded as a response.

"What sports do you play?" Blake kept going with these sport questions.

"Snowboarding, if that counts." I responded.

"So what exactly happened in snowboarding to give you that bruise?" Blake asked.

"I fell. Really bad. I was out for a while, but there's a competition coming up soon that I might be in. I hope I get in." I responded.

My throat right now was very dry, and very scratchy, because I usually don't talk this much. What? It's not like I have anyone to talk to anyways. I guess Blake heard the scratchiness in my voice so he asked;

"You want me to ask one more question before we finish." I just nodded in response.

"What hockey team do you cheer for?"

"Avalanche." I answered, looking him straight in the eye. He grinned.

"Good kid." He responded, entirely serious.

All I could think was "Finally! Another Avalanche fan." Maybe living here won't be as bad as I thought.