The Clinch

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen: one week on

Sessions at the gym have been a bit touch and go at the moment with Reagan in recovery. I spend every hour that I'm not working at my brother's side as he's laid up in his hospital bed barking orders at everybody.

"Ah" Gabriel murmurs in my ear as we round the corner to Reagan's recovery room and find him ordering about Kaleb who appears to be re-tucking Reagan's feet under the covers for him "Reagan the dictator strikes again."

I snicker and give Gabriel a light shove as I skip to my brother's side and give him a prerequisite kiss to the temple. "G'afternoon bro. See you're being a tyrant as per usual." We'd all been relieved when Reagan woke up three days ago without so much as batting an eyelash, but now I can tell that my family are at their wits end with trying to cope with a whiny Reagan.

"Well if people listened with their ears then I wouldn't have a problem. I swear did I inherit all the brains of the family?" He grouses, stubbornly crossing his arms over his chest whilst scowling down at Kaleb.

Kaleb finally gives up when Reagan kicks the covers aside, and he flips Reagan the birdy before storming out of the room "I'm going to grab some coffee" he offers us with a parting roll of the eyes "lord knows I need it."

"Hey!" Reagan beams when he sees Gabriel propped up against the door-frame off to the side "If it isn't the little life saver slash sister snogger. I swear seeing the two of you together still gives me shivers, but I'll grin and bare it because you saved my life."

Shaking his head, Gabriel walks forward and lands a teasing blow to Reagan's shoulder "just don't make me regret it bro."

"As if" Reagan rolls his eyes and leans conspiratorially close to Gabriel "besides, there's this fit little blonde that keeps giving me the eye. I can't go dying when I've got hot opportunity like that can I now?"

I harrumph and flick Reagan's nose whilst he wriggles his eyebrows up and down. Ugh. He's such a fucking pig. Sometimes I wonder how on earth he gets ladies with this kind of chauvinistic attitude. "Stop sabotaging my boyfriend! I've only just got him house trained, I do not need you wrecking all of my hard work."

Gabriel snatches an arm about my waist and plucks me back against his chest. "Don't worry princess, I'm only playing nice because I pity the guy. I mean, somebody's got to be his friend."

"You lie, I know you just want me for my hot body Gabriel!" He shakes his hips tauntingly and strikes a reclined model pose that makes both Gabriel and I scoff as I snuggle further into his chest. Reagan clicks his fingers at us and makes a sound of disgust. "Alright. Alright. Enough of that! Guy who just went through surgery over here! I don't think my stomach can take it..."

Stepping out of Gabriel's arms, I stick my tongue out at Reagan before leaning up on tiptoes and dropping a kiss to Gabriel's firm mouth much to Reagan's sounds of distaste. "Well I'm going to go catch up with Kaleb and let you boys do whatever it is you do when I'm not here..."

"No homo!" Reagan rapidly blurts out at my insinuation, swatting Gabriel away in revulsion whilst my boyfriend flutters his lashes playfully. "Azazel you are so far from my type it's unreal."

"Don't play hard to get. You know the minute she turns her back you're all over me!" Gabriel teases and receives a thump from both of us. "Hey. Ouch. Don't hit the life saver. I'm just an innocent bystander; he's the one that's trying to do the dirty with me behind your back."

I harrumph and shake my head at them as they fall into hysterics. "You know, I really wouldn't be surprised." I murmur more to myself than anybody else as I make my way down the hallway and opt for the stairs.

In the hospital cafe, Kaleb is moodily stirring sugars into his coffee cup, four empty sachet's already sitting next to an empty creamer packet as he pours in his fifth sugar. "Damn kid, you're gonna get diabetes if you continue on like this. Is five sugars enough?"

Kaleb sends me a hostile look. "You haven't been sitting with Reagan for the past six hours trying to keep him entertained. When you've done that, I'll let you lecture me about having five sugars in my coffee." He bites, and we both seethe at his bitter tone. Kaleb raises his cup to his mouth and winces as he takes a desperate sip. "Sorry Darryl, I just can only take so much of my brother before he makes me want to rip my head off and eat it."

I don't see the logic of his suggestion, but hey, he's been babysitting Reagan for the day, so I let the illogic of his sentence slide. "It's okay. That's kind of why I sicked Gabriel with him. Haven't spoken to you in a while, you doing okay brother?"

With a wan smile, Kaleb pushes his coffee cup towards me across the table. I gratefully accept and guzzle about an ounce with a relieved sigh, before pushing it back to him. "I don't know anymore. Soccer's great. I'm doing good at college. But I'm just not, enjoying it I guess? It's just that marine biology is just so fucking boring. I don't know if I can deal with a life of looking down a mircoscope at a specimen that someone else has seen dozens of times before. It's just not motivating."

"Yeah but you know what area you want to go into, and you've done work experience at the marina; that was fun right?"

He shoots me a lackluster smile. "Best summer of my life, but I'm not disillusioned enough to think that that's the job I'll get in the end. I'll probably be working at some research lab where I don't get to interact with anything but the fucking microscope. It just doesn't sound rewarding to me."

"Then you work your ass off this year to get the grades so you can apply for the positions you want. And there are tons of jobs working with dolphins down at marina's all over the world; you've got nothing to worry about kid."

Kaleb tips his head back and chortles before leaning across the table and ruffling up my hair. "Some sage words there from master Darryl. When did you get so experienced in life, huh?"

 Pouting at him, I furiously smooth my hair back into place. "I just learnt that shit happens, and that you've got to suck it up."

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Two days later...

It's date night.

Well, at least it's supposed to be date night. Last minute my parents shoved AJ, Ray and Sid on me and told me that they're going to some sort of reception with Gabriel's parents. So now rather than the date of just Gabriel and I - like we'd intended - we've now got four kids milling around bored in the front room.

If Reagan weren't knocked out on pain meds and if Kaleb hadn't decided to spend the night at the Uni to cram, then everything would have gone smoothly and Gabriel would be wining and dining me right about now. But no... Now I'm in the kitchen trying to come up with a way to amuse four kids under the age of nine.

I'd looted through the games cupboard for something, anything, but found that they didn't have the mental capacity to handle either trivial pursuit or Monopoly. So now it's back to the drawing board.

Damn you Saturday night television!

Rounding the corner, Gabriel comes skidding in with arms laden full of wii controllers as he waves Mario Kart in my face. I leap from my perch and launch at him. "You are a genius!" I take his face between my hands a reward him with a quick peck.

Once the Wii is all set up and each of the kids have a steering wheel and remote, it suddenly turns quiet as they all determinedly set to trying to win the race and bump one another off of the track. Gabriel and I share a silent high five before we slump down onto a corner sofa and watch Netflix on my tablet. Thank god for technology, am I right?

We'd be so screwed if there was suddenly a powercut. But thankfully there's not, and the more they play, the louder the volume of the room gets until they're all jerring in success and pulling faces at each other. Halfway through the night hotdogs are delivered and each of the boys consume about seven each whilst Gabriel easily guzzles down ten.

I peruse our babysitting methods with a smug grin. Not too bad, if I do say so myself, not too bad.