The Good Hair Family Sitcom

S2 E2.3: The Gender Divide

Cyrus's POV

I stand by the front door while Jonah stands on a chair, removing the chime unit from it's place at the top of the wall right beside the door. I didn't even know this thing existed. I just never thought about where the doorbell sound actually came from.

"So what have you been up to?" I ask. "Other than fixing doorbells. You and Walker haven't mentioned much about what's new with you guys."

He fiddles with the wires in the wall while stuttering, "We—uh—we haven't been doing much."

"Nothing? Just same old? You and him hanging out?"

"Uh, yeah. Just me and him. Actually, um, we...uh..."

His thought is stolen by Wyatt's arrival as the boy thumps down the stairs, his eyebrows scrunched in anger.

"How could you!"

The shout brings TJ up from downstairs, and he walks through the hallway to come over to me and see the scene occurring.

"You guys are fixing the doorbell behind my back!" Wyatt yells. "You're cheating on me!"

"That's really not what's happening," I state "...at all."

Rather than argue, Wyatt walks down to the bottom of the stairs and whips open the door. Out there, there's a piece of rope that wasn't there before. He gives it a yank, and all of a sudden, I notice movement through the open window in the living room. The rope from outside has been fed through and tied to the leg of the coffee table. The yank of the rope jolts the table, which causes the vase of flowers on it to tip over and roll onto the floor, landing on a homemade lever system using a book and a banana for it to roll on. At the other end of the lever is a set of jungle bells that get tossed up into the air. By some miracle, the jingle bells doing nothing but flying make the actual doorbell go off, and Wyatt reenters with a victorious grin.

"I told you I'd do it," he says before leaving for his bedroom to continue basking in his glory.

"Actually, there was a wire out of place," Jonah explains once Wyatt's out of range. "I just fixed it."

"Hey, Wyatt may not be good at fixing things, but at least he has confidence," TJ says.

"Sometimes too much," I agree.

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Buffy's POV

Brayden hasn't spoken to me or Marty since we got home. Even at dinner, he opted to take his food upstairs rather than risk talking to us. That's by far the worst part of having kids: when they need help, but they won't accept it. As night nears, Marty and I go upstairs to his room, both still feeling like there's more to our conversation with him that we need to discuss.

Brayden is here at his desk, looking between his phone and a book. But Andreas is also here on his own bed, smiling at something on his phone that I'd probably find dumb.

"Andreas," Marty says, "could you give us a minute?"

Andreas looks at Brayden then at Marty and gets up, saying, "Oh, I see how it is. You want to talk to your favorite kid."

"He's not our favorite," Marty replies, confused by our teenager.

Andreas just smiles and says, "Cool. I'm narrowing it down."

He gets to the doorway as I say, "We don't have a favorite."

"Got it," the boy says with a wink that tells me he doesn't get it.

I decide to leave that chat for another time and step into the room with Marty, each of us kneeling down on either side of Brayden's chair. The boy brings his book up closer to his face, avoiding looking at us, but neither of us move.