Just A Rebound (BWWM)

seven

"And by the time I got to your age, I was already the best spokesperson the state has ever seen. In no time I got my first job as a commentator for UCLA along with a couple of their top scholarships. My calls were quick and efficient. I never missed a play. God I was so proud of those boys when my team won. But as a commentator, I always remembered one rule."

"And what was that?" I scattered out a new piece of paper since my quotes paper was all full.

"Always remain humble. I was never in any sports but I absolutely love them. I know somewhere in there you do too." He then slapped a heavy hand on my shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. "Is that all you need?"

I nodded with a forced smile on my face. "Uh yeah. That covers your life from age five to nineteen." He then got up from the kitchen table and fixed any wrinkle in his suit. Without another word, he was out the front door.

I opened my laptop to organize all the written work into a blank document to later be written into a neatly formed essay. I had to have my first paragraph by tomorrow and I knew I would be up all night trying to perfect it.

"At least we got to see Dad briefly!" In came Tyler from outside with his crutches decorated with stickers and cast full of signatures. "Guess he's off to another planet again."

I raised my eyebrows and huffed before concentrating back on this assignment. At least I thought that's what I was doing until he sat right across from me and stared me down. "And how can I help you?" I say with irritation.

"Well, Hollie is coming over-"

I held a hand up quickly since this conversation could no longer move forward. "You can't have company. I'm having company."

He scoffed as if I was joking with him. "Take your company to your room. Hollie is coming over."

We were now having a stare off on who would get the living room since that is where most of our company hung out. There wasn't a rule anywhere but bringing the opposite sex to the bedroom was something our mother didn't have to say but simply it was applied. "You know I can't do that. Even if I could, bringing her to my room sounds too close to hidden intentions."

"So you like this girl?"

"No, I'm apologizing to this girl," I clarified. "I don't even know why I'm going back and forth with you. We can sit on opposite sides of the living room then. Case closed."

He stared at me for a bit before relaxing his posture and simply letting out a short chuckle. "That's not even what I wanted to talk to you about. I was saying that Hollie is coming over and I need your help to keep mom out of my room when she gets off work. It's a no interruptions kind of thing."

Although a part of me wanted to be completely grossed out to my core that my little brother was admitting to me he was making it to home base when I didn't even know if he started puberty. I was also pretty impressed that he was able to make it this far with a girl that looked like Hollie.

"You're taking her to your room after going back and forth when I said I called dibs on the living room?" His smile let me know he would do anything to get on every single one of my nerves and I'd fall for it. "Whatever. I'll keep her distracted for as long as I can but once you start getting carried away up there then the jig is up."

"Thank you, big bro!" He slapped the back of my shoulder before jumping up on his one working leg to head to the garage. It was the only place that the outside cameras weren't pointing to.

"Good luck!" I called out to return to my work. Just then the doorbell rung and I looked at the clock to see Paris was just in time. I jogged to the front door and was met with her beautiful smile and a bag that she held up to my face. "Oh, wow. What is this?"

She giggled. "Open it. My parents said to never come to a home empty handed."

I did as told and opened the brown bag that had a candle in it. No one in my home was a candle type of person. We usually just plugged these scent things into the wall. "Wow! Charcoal Oak Grinds!" I sniffed it and it smelled like outside. "I love it!"

"Don't lie." Her smile was wiped smooth off her face which made me quickly drop the act and put the candle back in the bag. "I didn't know what manly scents would tickle your nose so I went with the first thing I saw."

"Yeah, I'm sorry." Once the bag was on the table I patted my jeans the moment I saw any sight of a wrinkle. "We can go to the living room and-" Our path was cut off when Tyler and Hollie came rushing through the garage door and straight to the stairs without looking back. Their giggles and laughter filled the air until it disappeared behind his bedroom door. "Uhm... the living room! Yes, the place with the first largest television."

"Your house is really beautiful." She says on the grey sectional that had burnt orange throw pillows. The rug was a large grey rectangle with geometric white lines. A glass coffee table that had one large layer and a smaller glass section on top where a vase of fake white roses sat. She sat on one end of the couch and I sat one square over. "So I'm guessing we're here to discuss yesterdays events."

I cleared my throat when she set her purse down to get more comfortable. "Uh, yes. I wanted to apologize. I didn't turn my data on which means I received none of your texts. We most likely had the same idea that the other stood the other up. I just want you to know that I would never do that. I was really looking forward to-"

My words were cut short when she threw herself forward and used my shoulders to rest her hands and my mouth to rest her lips. My eyes bursted out of my head at what was occurring but I also had no intentions of cutting this moment short. Just as I was about to put my all into the kiss, she pulled away.

"You know what we both want."

"I have no idea what we both want," I admitted.

"You wouldn't be doing any of this if you didn't want nothing in return and I too want something as a payment for my time." She unbuttoned the top part of her blouse and my eyes were once again wider than two moons. "So why are we wasting time?"

I gulped as I slowly caught on to what she was implying. I didn't want to pull a Brett and go on a horny rampage like he did when he was sneaking with his ex's stepsister. Then again, Alyssa and I had a rough schedule on when we made time to please each other.

"You want sex? We both want sex?" She nodded urgently. "But the thing is we can't do it here or now. I have an essay and my mom gets home in ten minutes."

She buttoned back up her blouse and stood up while grabbing her shoulder purse along the way. "Well text me when you have a time. Don't make it last minute, late at night, or too late in the week." She then walked towards the door and my body followed her despite me still not leaving the couch. "And turn your fucking data on."