Chapter Fifty One: Sunshine

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"Go on," whispered Austin, to his closed fists that he held to his chest. He unfolded his hands towards the window, and Lance only stared at him with pure annoyance from the corner, his arms crossed over his chest. "You're free now," said Austin. Then he turned to Lance.

"My last fuck is gone,' he said sarcastically, looking at him. "I have nothing left to give you,"

Lance only rolled his eyes. "There are approximately one million, thirteen thousand and nine hundred thirteen words in the English language," he started to say, "But I could never string any of them together in a sentence to explain how much I want to hit you with a chair."

Austin cocked an eyebrow at his girlfriend's brother. "So insult me in french."

"Not even the Roman or Latin language can determine how much I want to throw you out a window." said Lance.

Austin tilted his head to the side, and gave him an innocent smile. "Well aren't you just a ball of sunshine today?" he asked.

Lance only huffed, sitting down on a bean bag chair. He felt his jeans, and got annoyed to found out his pockets were empty. He rolled his eyes; he remembered how Nicole had been annoying and bugging him about letting her borrow his phone. "This girl," he muttered to himself, sinking into the been bag and slumping his shoulders.

He heard the jiggling of metal against some wood, and he turned to Austin, who was busy trying to twist the doorknob to the practice room's door, a hairpin in his hands. Lance narrowed his eyebrows at him. "That won't work,"

"Because?" he asked, still concentrating on trying to twist the knob.

"The pin is too small," Lance answered. "Where did you even get a hairpin?" he asked. "And why do you still have lipstick on your cheek?"

Austin stood up and his fingers flew to his left cheek. The back of his hand wiped his cheek, and he saw the smear of pink on his skin. He wiped it on his jeans. "I dressed up as a woman,"

"But why-"

"DO NOT ASK," said Austin, and Lance put his hands up in defense.

Austin leaned on the door, his back against it. He shoved his hands into his pockets, then looked at Lance skeptically. "The lipstick stain wasn't from Kath," he said, reading Lance's mind. His head perked up. "If that's what you're thinking,"

Your lipstick stain is a work of art,

I've got your name tattooed in an arrow heart

The lyrics seemed to flow through his mind, and he remembered Kathryn. She'd had her soft and warm lips against his neck, and he remembered how her fingers were tangled in his hair. He remembered how her long brown hair was a mess that reached her waist, and how her blue eyes turned a lighter color and her long black eyelashes were as she looked down at him.

The memory seemed to make his heart race and flutter, even for a boy, yes, and small goosebumps started on his neck. He wanted to smile but he didn't.

Lance shook his head at him. "How'd you know?"

"It's obvious," He shrugged his shoulders.

This time, it was Lance who looked up at the blond-haired boy who had his hands in his pockets as he looked down on the floor. "How much do you love her?" The words flew out of his mouth faster than he meant to or could control. Austin's head perked up, surprised, though he didnt let the expression show through his face.

"What do you mean?" he asked, narrowing his eyebrows at Lance.

"I saw the way you look at her," Lance started to say.

"Try to explain left from right," Austin said as he played with Kath's fingers. She gave him a weird look as she looked down on him. From sitting on his lap, now she had Austin laying his head on a pillow on her lap.

"Yknow, my favorite was trying to describe a color without using anyother name," Kath said as she watched him playing with her digits. "Like trying to explain red to a blind person."

"The worst one would be trying to think of a color that doesn't exist," Austin said, putting his hand against her, comparing the two.

"I know that look," said Lance. "I look at Nicole like that every single day." is what he wanted to say, but instead it was: "It's obvious. Is showing through your face. That's the kind of look everybody unconsciously does when they're in the restaurant and they see the waiter coming with their food."

Lance remembered the way he looked at his little sister. His eyebrows were slightly scrunched together, and his eyes roamed over her face as if she were an interesting specimen that needed studying. Austin didn't say anything, so Lance continued to talk. "You look at her as if she's pizza," he said. "As if she's some kind of miracle."

"She is a miracle," was a sentence that floated in Austin's head, but never left his mouth.

"So, how much?" Lance asked. The sentence wasn't exactly a complete thought, but Austin knew he was talking about the way he felt about Kathryn. Lance crossed his arms over his chest. "You better answer me because they're not letting us out until we get our shit straight and get along,"

"I don't know," Austin said. He sat down on the floor, his back still against the door. He folded his knees to his chest, his arms lazily wrapped around it. "Am I really that obvious?"

"To a usual mundane, no." said Lance. "But to another teenage boy who's facing the same problems, definitely."




"I don't get vests," said Ally, putting down the smoothie on the table. She looked at Dez, who was eating a slice of cake. "It's winter on your chests but it's summer on your arms?"

"Don't spoil the fun, woman." said Trish, eating a fry.

"There is nothing fun about harboring two different seasons in your body," Kathryn added, taking a sip of her strawberry smoothie as she sat back in her chair. "That's just terrifying."

Nicole looked at her black wrist watch, taking a bite of her burger and putting it down on the table. She adjusted the hem of her shirt and sat up in her seat. "Speaking of terrifying," she said. "What do you plan to do after Austin and Lance? We'll need some sort of miracle to evade their wrath and escape how they'll raise Hell,"

"True," said Kathryn, tilting her head to the side, still sipping on her smoothie. "But they won't. The male human species will always be afraid of their woman mates who are unfortunately, the female human species."

"I'd love to see you say that when Lance throws you out a window." Dez said. They all looked to him. "That would be so cool."

"NOT IT WOULD NOT"

"Are you sure your plan would even work?" Trish asked. "For all we know they might come out of the practice room with chainsaws and a desire to murder."

Kathryn and Nicole stiffened, but before any of them could answer, Dez spoke. "Or," he said. "One of them could be alive. So there's that."

Nicole tilted her head to the side, cracking him a sarcastic smile. "Well aren't you just a fuzzy little ball of sunshine today?"

"You're like a ray of sunshine," said Kathryn. "Hurting people's eyes and giving them cancer."

Ally laughed, almost gagging on her smoothie. "Seriously," she said. "Scientists could scour the arctic for decades and never find anything colder than that comeback."

Kathryn only laughed, but was interrupted by vibrating in her pocket. She sat up, putting the smoothie down on the table and feeling for the pockets of her skinny jeans and pulling out her phone, a contact name flashing on the screen. "Oh my god," she muttered to herself, her palm flying to cover her mouth. She slumped into her seat and slid her phone unlocked.

Hey, Kath.

I'm heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeereeeee.

-Brad


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