It Happens in April

Two

Luke missed school the Monday after my fathers attempt at a cook-out.

He missed the following two days after as well, skipping baseball practices and consequently lowering his chances to play. I saw him in the hall the next day, but he never came to lunch.

When he returned to our usual lunch spot on Friday - April the 9th, then - he was the most dressed-down I'd seen him. He tossed his packed lunch on the table in front of my school tray and tugged the neckline of his shirt up to cover where my eyes followed a trail of bruises from chin the chest. He didn't give me the time to ask where he'd been or comment on the hickeys before, "You wanna come over tonight?"

I blinked. Shrugged out a nonchalant "sure" and acted as if that wasn't the most composer-crushing question I'd been asked that day.

Luke smiled, the same way I'd seen him smile after torturous minutes of him begging me to do his homework only for me to fall victim to his eyes and give in. A victorious, and slightly spoiled, type of 'I've gotten my way' satisfaction.

And so he had. The rest of lunch was as if the past week hadn't happened. He at his alarmingly healthy lunch, I picked through my school lunch, I offered him half of my candy bar from the vending machine and, like usual, he declined. We finally texted our parents towards the end of the lunch break, at least I had, I assumed he'd informed Ashton as well.

After my first day of school, which my parents insisted on driving me to, I drove myself to school. So we'd reasoned that Luke would just ride with me to his house, instead of making his godfather come to get him.

The road going back from school put Luke's house on the opposite side of the road from where I was driving. I had to speed up into my turn to avoid oncoming traffic and only narrowly avoided the stone mailbox as I did it. Luke tried to hide his amusement from as I took the gravel road to the house.

I realized belatedly that I'd never been to the Hemmings house before. Likewise Luke had never been inside my home either, but the pure force of the fact that Ashton was inside had me hesitant to leave my car.

As soon as I did though, I could hear the music from garage blasting, as if someone had turned it up the moment I stepped out.

"Don't mind that," Luke said with and eye roll. He held open a door that led into a little mud room that connected the house to the garage. There were multiple sizes and styles of shoes lined up neatly in specific little trays in different areas of the room, Luke toed off a pair of worn out, stained white converse. I slipped off my own shoes, assuming it was expected there, even though I'd never done so in my own home. "Mike is home so it's... loud. He's really fucking loud, so just ignore him."

"Say it to my face, why don't you?"

If they were all blood related I would tell you there must be something in the Hemmings genes, something that made them just that much more attractive than anyone you'd meet before them. (Or after, for that matter).

Michael was a different type of stunning. I hadn't known what to expect of the twenty-three year old. Luke didn't like to talk much about his family, but the images I'd conjured of a smaller version of Ashton or a larger version of Luke - he hadn't told me which of them Michael was actually related to, only that they were brothers - were both completely off.

None of them matched the way I thought a family should.

Luke himself was still a mystery to me. In my eighteen years I had never met a man that confident in himself, let alone a boy younger than myself willing to wear eyeshadow to play a baseball game.

Michael was an even lighter porcelain shade than Luke, his hair was bright, unnatural red, and his style was much simpler than that of the others. He had on a baggy sort of cargo pant where one leg was striped in red and black and the other was a solid red which he paired with black shirt with words I couldn't make out printed across his chest.

I could see in his face that he'd come for a fight. Luke had to have picked up on it, but easily slipped into an innocent, whiny sounding question. "What do you mean, Mikey?"

"I mean, fucking tell me to my face or quit your constant bitching behind my back."

Luke flinched a bit, lowered his voice like he didn't want me to hear, but pulled me closer behind him. "Why-why are you doing this right now?"

Michael leans nose to nose, following Luke's lead of lowering his voice, but we're all so close it did barely any good. "You know better... bringing him here?... Ashton's already... I've told you before..." and well, maybe it did do some good when paired with the blaring music. Or maybe I had just been distracted by the parental figure of the arguing siblings standing shirtless behind the college student.

Ashton was yet another kind of mismatched gorgeous, bare chested with low resting sweatpants leaving little to my imagination. And god did I want to imagine, except that his - for all intents and purposes - son who just so happened to be my best friend had his ass nearly pressing against my crotch. Ashton had a collection of tattoos I noticed then, they ran down his arms and-

"I think Calum's heard enough, Michael." Ashton snaps in the same fatherly voice my own dad used to stop sibling rivalries before they even got to start.

Michael closed his eyes, body visibly draining of the will to fight. He sighed through his nose, causing a curl on Luke's forehead to shift its placement, "Yes, sir."

"Nice to see you again, Calum." Ashton smiled around the redhead who had yet to move. The brothers seemed to be conversing through glances. "Hope you can forgive that,"

It didn't seem much like a question so I just gave a nervous laugh and a nod.

"Lu, take him upstairs 'til dinner, won't you."

"Yes, sir."

Luke linked our fingers behind his back and practically dragged me through the doorway, shouldering past his brother. He barely left me enough time to whisper a quiet apology for bumping into the man.

The door from the mud-room lead into a living area. I didn't get to analyze it, to look for awkward family photos. Anything of the sort to give me a hint to this family's dynamic.

Luke lead me up a set of stairs just beside a flatscreen television mounted to the wall. Once we'd reached the top I counted three rooms to my right before we entered one to the left, Luke never slowed his pace.

"He's not usually like that," Luke defended when he'd shut the door. I vaguely wondered if he was suppose to do that, I certainly couldn't have had a boy in my room with the door shut. Maybe that's just a difference in parenting?

"Ashton or your brother?"

"Ash of course. Mikey is always like that, big asshole, he is."

I nodded like I understood, but I didn't, not really. "If you're going to be hanging around here then you should know Michael's not really my brother. We just say he is, like we say Ash is my dad, cause it makes things easier for people. But I wouldn't go pairing us as family to Mike's face. And anyways, don't worry about that thing downstairs, Mike's a bit dramatic, and Ashton did know you were coming."

Luke scanned my face like he was searching for judgement, I hoped he didn't find any. He mustn't have, because he flopped back into his bed, patting the baby-blue comforter in invitation.

I knew then, laying beside him, that I had already royally screwed myself over for the day.

And we hadn't even made it to dinner.

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1382 words
@astroash_94 April 4, 2020
Quarantine Writing

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