13/01/06

Mason’s pov

I am woken up by a knock at my door. Damn what time is it? Only 7:34? God I shouldn’t have stayed out so late last night. How my mum actually believes that I’m at study group until 2 in the morning is beyond me.

“Hello?”

“Mason, honey, it’s me! Can I come in?” 

“Mum? Yeah come in.”

She comes in and sits on the bed next to me, her hand on my knee.

“Your father and I are going out today and I’m gonna need you to look after your brother. Is that okay?”

“Yeah sure.” I mean what choice do I really have in the matter. 

“Awe thank you mason.” She strokes my hair and gets up to leave before stopping at the door.

“Oh also, I think Ash has been struggling lately, make sure he takes his meds and all that”

“Will do” 

“Thanks honey, I love you!”

“Love you too mum” I flash her a quick smile and with that, she’s gone.

I hear the front door lock and immediately barge into Ash’s room.

“You didn’t tell her that I pushed you right?”

“No no I didn’t! I just said that my leg hurts!”

“You better not have told her!” I grab him by his messy, curly hair.

“No no! Mason! I swear!”

“Right” I let go and take a step back. I never know if I can trust this kid. He’s always so quick to talk, but only about the things you want him to hide.

“But you remember what I told you about snitches right?”

“Snitches don’t get bitches.”

“Exactly.” I’m not sure if the kid even understands what that means. It’s funny hearing him say it nonetheless.

I decided to try getting on with some uni work, hoping that ash wouldn’t bother me too much, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen.

“Mason.”

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

“Sleeping. what does it look like i’m doing?”

“How can you talk if you’re sleeping?”

“It was sarcasm, idiot”

“Oh.” He stood staring at me. I knew he was just thinking of another thing to say to annoy me.

“Mason.”

“What?” Why did I even bother replying to him?

“Are you going to the club tonight?”

“Why do you care?”

“because if mum and dad aren’t back then i’ll have to go with you.”

“Okay, first off I go to study group remember? and second, i would rather kill you than bring you along again, so you better pray that- for your sake- they get back in time.”

“okay.”

He had finished talking yet continued to stare up at me with his big, buggy eyes. 

“Yo, can you just leave me alone for a bit?”

“Why?”

“So I can work.”

“why?”

“Look, ash, if you leave me alone for a couple hours, I'll buy you some Pokémon cards.”

“Really!”

“Yeah, we got ourselves a deal?”

“Deal!”

*something more probably happens or maybe it is just a time skip*

“Is Bennis gonna be at the club?”

God I hope not. “Yeah probably. Why, you wanna see him?”

“Yeah, Bennis is cool.”

“You’ve got to be the only person who has ever said that.”

Of course it was my luck that my parents were gonna be out all night. Why was it that they thought it was okay to dump this kid on me all the time?

“I think Bennis is cool because he plays Gameboy with me.”

“Really? That’s so cool Ash. Please, keep talking, I’m so, so very interested.”

“Last time I saw him we played-“

“Sarcasm, Ash. I don’t actually give a fuck about what you and Bennis get up to. Frankly, I find it sad that Bennis spends so much time with a six year old.”

“Oh.”

The walk to the club wasn’t too long, but in temperatures like these the walk felt longer than ever. Of course this matter was not helped by having Ash clinging onto me and him tripping every 5 steps.

“Shit!” I shouted, coming to a sudden halt. I should’ve known better than to stop so quick, Ash went flying onto the floor, God that kid has no balance.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, brushing the dirt from his knees.

“I was meant to pick up Rachel on my way.”

“Is she coming to the club?”

“No, she just wanted to come on the walk with us.”

“Oh.”

“It was Sarcasm, Ash”

“Ooohhhh.”

And so we walked back over to the other side of town to pick up Rachel.

I knocked on Rachel’s front door, not too aggressively, but not too pathetically.

Her parents think I’m trouble so I’ve found myself getting way too paranoid about how I act around them. That’s the one good thing about having ash with me, I guess, he makes me look like a super caring guy who loves spending time with his little brother, the opposite of the truth.

Her dad answers the door and offers me a swift handshake. His hands are soft and gentle, mine not so much, and he has a very warm smile, one that his daughter clearly inherited.

“Mason!” Rachel squealed pushing her way past her father.

She gave me a tight hug before turning her attention to Ash.

“And who are you, little guy?” Ash is short as hell so people often think he’s a lot younger than he is.

Instead of answering her question he hides behind my leg, clutching at my jeans. Why is it that he won’t stop talking to me yet refuses to talk to anyone else?

“This is Ash, my little brother.” I pull at a piece of his hair trying to gesture to him to stop clinging onto me and to man up.

“Awe aren’t you the sweetest.”

“Yes, just the sweetest.” I say through gritted teeth.

Rachel takes my hand as we walk across the park and to the club.

On our way Rachel talked non stop, which is good because I had no conversation topics in mind, but honestly, I couldn’t care less about the stuff that she was rambling on about.

Rachel was telling me all about the art course that she was currently taking, and about which teachers she liked, and which she didn’t, and what projects she was working on and so on and so on. All the while, I kept giving Ash looks, trying to make sure he knew to keep to himself and not ruin this for me.

We finally arrive at the club and I can already hear the music from outside, a good sign that it isn’t gonna be dead.

If you're not a member of the gang you have to pay an entrance fee to get in, but being the gentleman that I am, I paid Rachel’s for her.

“Yo! Bennis!” I shout. God the music is loud in here.

Bennis turns to look at me. “Look after Ash will ya?”

“Okay!” Perfect, now I got Ash out of the way so I can focus on spending some quality time with my girl.

I order her a drink, vodka lemonade, no ice, and walk her over to the quieter side of the club.

“So, you come here often?” I joke with a smirk.

“Haha stop! mason!” Damn, didn’t know it was this easy to make a girl laugh.

“Sorry man, it’s a little crowded in here tonight.”

“That’s okay, I mean if it gets too busy you could always take me back to your place. I'm sure there’s lots of room there” she said, leaning into my ear.

“I like the way you think” I brushed one of her braids back behind her ear. God was she was smokin’ hot. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mixer tries to get with her after we inevitably break up.

I take a sip of my drink and lock eyes with Bennis. Why was he staring at me so much? I decided that it’s easiest to just ignore him and get back to talking to Rachel.

“So you were telling me about college on the way here, how’s that going?”

“Oh it’s just great, really, I love it, but this one girl is really starting to piss me off, she’s such a bitch!”

“Really? How so?” I love bitchy girls so subconsciously I’m probably just trying to scout out a new date, wait, now that I’ve thought of it it isn’t subconscious anymore is it? Damn now I seem like an asshole.

“Well, her name is Lindsey and she’s so gross and mean, like I mean I’ve tried talking to her but she just scoffs at everything I say. And I’m all for girls supporting other girls, so usually I’d never say anything bad about another girl's appearance, but she looks like she hasn’t showered in weeks! And don’t even get me started on the ratty bleach job she did on her hair!” Okay on second thought, maybe she is too gross, even for me.

“Wow, what a bitch.” I reply

“Mason, dear, I’m allowed to call her a bitch because I’m a girl, you’re a dude so it’s kinda misogynistic for you to call her that.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” No I wasn’t, I just wanted her to think I was. Maybe I’m the bitch?

I see Mixer approaching from across the room. I'm kinda glad because I don’t know how much longer I can hold down this conversation.

“Mixer! Hey.” 

“Yo! Mason wassup?” We exchange our typical handshake-hug.

“This is Rachel, the girl I was telling you about.”

“Rachel! Nice to meet you. Damn mason was right, you are beautiful.” She blushed and started fiddling with her hair. Mixer has always been so smooth with women.

“So how long have you two been together now? A week?” He gave me a joking nudge on the arm.

“Yeah about that.” I replied

“Ooh Rachel, you better watch out, you’re quickly approaching the two week limit mason has on relationships.” Was he trying to ruin this for me?

“Really? Scared of commitment aye mason?” She joined in on the joking.

“Ah no no, Mason here doesn’t believe in love.” He really is trying to ruin this.

“He thinks it’s all a scam.” This was beginning to become more than the usual tease.

“Is that so?” Rachel turned to me, her hand on her hip.

“Oh yes, he’s always jumping between women, leaving them right when they begin catching feelings.”

“Ugh what an asshole! I can’t believe you mason, I thought you were so sweet!” To my credit, I’m good at the charade.

I agreed to walk Rachel back home, I may be a dick but I would never want to put a woman in harm's way.

While Rachel was getting ready to leave I decided to take things up with Mixer see what his problem is.

“Yo Mixer! What was that all about man?”

“Sorry bro, but none of what I said wasn’t true.”

“You made me look like a proper asshole!”

“Because you are a proper asshole dude!”

“JJ was right, things have changed.”

“Maybe they have.” 

I saw Rachel leaving the toilets and walked over to her. 

“I’m sorry about that man.” 

“I don’t wanna hear it, Just walk me home mason.”

“Right.” 

And so we left the club rain slamming down around us.

“Fuck!”

“Hm?”

“Ash. Hold on, let me go grab him.”

I walked back out with Ash and resumed the awkward walk back to Rachel’s place.

I offered Rachel my hoodie so that she wouldn’t get too wet, which she accepted, but apart from that she ignored me the whole walk back. 

I couldn’t blame her.

When we got to her front door she threw my hoodie back at me and crouched down beside Ash.

“Hey little guy, will you make me a promise?”

Ash nodded his head.

“Never become a sleazy jerk like your brother. Okay?”

Ash nodded again and held out his pinky. They linked fingers.

“And you’re lucky that I’m into guys who are bad for me” she winked as sidled past me. She was right, I was bad for her, but that’s what kept her coming back.