bardolatry

~ two

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

- William Shakespeare

AFTER PLAY PRACTICE (which was more or less a disaster), Jase is transported home by a school bus, and faces a great disappointment upon arrival.

His sister isn't there.

Jase lives with his sister, and his dad. But Mr. Ryker is a cop, and is often busily preoccupied with bigger things than his offspring, and therefore is not home as much as desired. And since he has an inconsequential fear about staying home alone (just the slightest) he loathes the independent afternoons, especially independent Friday afternoons.

His sister is eleven, but the extremely sociable kind of eleven, where she (Delilah) always has plans with her fellow sixth graders. The fact that his middle-schooler sibling has more of a life than he does makes him slightly disheartened.

He needs more friends, Jase decides, as he walks to the fridge, retrieving a plastic Tupperware container of last night's Chinese takeout.

Or, he thinks, as he shovels a spoonful of lo-mien into his mouth, maybe not.

Foods are friends, right?

Settling in front of the television, Jase places his bowl of refrigerated noodles onto his lap. If he turns his head ever so slightly to the right, he can see out the large window directly to the Monroe's abode, which makes him slightly uncomfortable because he enjoys privacy and thinks that this is rather a violation.

So he studiously glues his gaze to the movie that's playing (Captain America) and does so for the next couple of hours, emptying his bowl. Just when he is rising from the couch to get a refill (He blacks out for a second, which is never good), his sister walks in the door.

Delilah has a mass of white-blonde angel curls and large, hazel eyes that are framed with short lashes. His dad says that she looks like a cardboard cut-out of their mom, but Jase had never really remembered her (it had been eleven years, after all).

"Hi, Jase," She smiles, shrugging out of her scarlet coat and tossing it onto the sofa, unwinding her scarf and dropping it, discarding her hat, and kicking off her boots, leaving a trail of garments behind her.

"Hello, little sister," Jase says in return, brushing a hand over his hair, which seems to be in a perpetual state of messiness. She grins.

"I was gonna ask if we have anymore Chinese, but, obviously you thought it was a splendid time to wipe out the fridge."

Jase shrugs. "It's always a splendid time to wipe out the fridge," He defends.

Delilah laughs, a high, twinkling bell of a noise.

She scrunches her nose a second later. "Are you, like, spying on Harley? Because if you are, her sister goes to my school and I'm kinda obligated to tell her -"

"No, I'm not. You always think that, but it just so happens I cannot move the window from its position on the wall."

"Alright. I'm going to go make some ramen - " (Delilah is fueled by ramen) "- Okay?"

"Okay."

≫∙−≫

Harley is sprawled over her bed, listening to a band she likes, The Cobalt Players, when Quinn walks in.

"Thank the Lord," Harley praises, raising herself from a pile of fluffy snowflake pillows and reaching for the box of pizza balanced on her sister's palm.

"Nuh-uh," Quinn laughs, placing their dinner on the nightstand. Her hair (blonde-streaked brown, just like Harley's), swings in a ponytail that nearly reaches her waist. Harley keeps hers around her shoulders.