Knock Me Down - [COMPLETE]

24 - Control

Four things:

1) Lol there's so much heat in the next couple chapters 2) I think after this the chapters become shorter for awhile. Some even super short. 3) I'm also changing the way I translate. I'm only translating major parts 4) idk what constitutes as nsfw but if it goes into skin territory it'll be marked

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Practice has been a daze. The oil pattern today was just house shot, easy and standard, yet my brain was drifting somewhere else yet again. Even Oliver's awkward mix of yeehaw and street slang didn't make me laugh. Especially when he ironically would go "Shucks, bro" and slaps his knee at something either funny or awful.

There Jasper goes again spoiling my thoughts with him.

It's bad. I haven't seen him since the band's performance. I stopped by towards the end of his practice in the athletic building's gymnasium and he wasn't there. It's like he disappeared. I'm wondering if maybe he regretted it. It didn't seem like it, if anyone would it would be me. Maybe reality settled in for him.

Should I ask Benicio?

No, he'd think my nosiness is suspicious...but he knows I am normally?

Fuck. I sound pathetic.

"So, how've you been?" My brother asks me from the living room. The question doesn't come out natural. His hair's wet from the shower and he's eating cacahuetes japoneses. Jasper likes those.

"Huh?"

"Like your classes 'n shit?"

I give him a look, confused. He doesn't normally just ask like that. We don't ever ask. We just talk.

"Tch. Solo es una pregunta, estúpido. Pa' que me miras así, eh?" (It was just a question, stupid. Why're you looking at me like that, eh?) He throws a cacahuete at me.

"You just never ask shit like that, man. Are you dying? Trying to bond with me in your last moments?"

He grumbles, "You just haven't been around as much. You're going out more...I just thought you'd have something to say"

"Wow, you really do sound like Ma sometimes"

"I'm serious" His expression becomes pointed, and he says suspiciously, "I know you've made more friends"

I raise a brow, "Uh, yeah, I did. I'm okay. I'm just making friends, I'm going out, hanging with Holden more"

The last one was kind of a lie since after the club night, Holden's been with me less. He's been pretty absent since he usually is the one inviting me out to things and texting me. I typically invite him to eat or study, but we are tomorrow, so I guess that compensates.

"He still like you?"

I shrug, "Don't think so. Who knows"

"What're you doing tomorrow?"

"Studying with Holden"

"I thought you guys didn't have classes together"

"We don't have the same hour but we have some of the same courses"

He throws a pillow at me hard which I catch, "You can't hang out with me once?"

"You see me everyday"

"Don't make me sound like a clingy bitch, Mateo. Movie night. We don't do that anymore. We don't even have to watch Nic Cage. Buzzfeed unsolved? Animated horror stories? Corpse husband?"

We start after I shower, both shirtless and munching on cacahuetes japoneses. My mom comes in the middle of us listening to the unsolved death of Edgar Allen Poe, "Llegué"