Like Gods

[15] confrontations

Dylan stirred. He felt warm even though he had kicked off his covers and sunlight streamed in through the window. It was hard to open his eyes, and he turned to his side to look at the clock. 10:30. His eye throbbed a bit, but he tried to ignore it, hoping that it wasn't that bad.

Slowly, he sat up in bed and pushed the hair out of his face. From downstairs he could smell the cooking of bacon and eggs. His stomach growled.

Not a moment later the usual dinner-bell rang and he stood, not bothering to change out of the shirt he'd slept in. Still tired from the night's rest, he moved down the stairs, every step heavy with sleep.

"Good morning," his mother smiled from the kitchen table. She had her phone out and was probably reading some clickbait article about something completely insignificant. "Dear God, what did you do with your eye?"

"Morning," Dylan mumbled, acting as calm as he possibly could as he grabbed a seat at the table. "I dropped a bowl on myself last night."

William hadn't come down the stairs yet, which didn't surprise Dylan considering that when he'd come home, his brother seemed to be in no rush to get to bed. Riley was probably still at Nelly's.

"Did you get home late last night?" His dad asked from behind the stove, fully occupied with getting the slices of bacon just right. Dylan hesitated.

"Not that late," he lied, "when did you go to bed?" 

"We got a pretty early night last night," his mom thought out loud, "I think we were asleep at ten." 

"I think I was home about eleven, maybe eleven-thirty," Dylan smiled, hoping with all that he was that they wouldn't see through the lie.

"Then you were in bed before William," his dad said, "I heard him sneaking into bed at two." 

That wasn't him, Dylan thought just as William came down the stairs fully dressed.

"Good morning," he greeted and took a seat next to their mom. 

"Good morning, darling," his mother smiled, "we were just talking about you. I heard that Dylan came home before you went to bed."

"Uh, yeah he did," William stretched his neck.

"Why didn't you go to bed when he got home at eleven?" She inquired. Dylan met William's eyes, pleading to him not to say any different. After a minute of silence, William spoke up.

"Well, I had some work that I wanted to finish, though I probably would have been more awake now if I had followed his example." 

Dylan felt his shoulders relax a bit. That had been a close call, but William seemed to have been telling the truth about not telling which actually scored him a few points in Dylan's mind.

A shrill ringing noise came from upstairs. Dylan shot out of his seat, hurriedly walking up the stairs and into his room. He picked up the phone, not even checking the caller-ID.

"It's Dylan," he put the phone to his ear, grabbing the discarded ice pack from his desk, weighing it in his hand.

"Wow, I didn't think you'd answer this early," Felicia chuckled through the phone.

"You know that I always try to wake up before ten, right?" 

"Yeah, but I figured after last night that you'd want to rest up."

Dylan smiled. He probably should have rested more, but now that he'd woken up there was no way that he would fall back asleep.

"Anyway," Felicia after a moment, "I was thinking that you could come over later today. Or we could go get a coffee at Lava?"