brothers.

25~ Friends and Foes

Harry

Loud groans and yells rang out through the living room. Tommy's elbow knocked right into my bucket of popcorn, sending the buttery kernels flying.

"Agh! Tommy!" I bent over to pick them up.

"Sorry."

The commercials came on as the football game paused. Some of us got up to stretch and pop our knuckles from sitting down so long.

"They were so close! Come on!" Lucas stood from the sofa chair. "You got any beer?"

"No beer," Kyle said.

"Come on, it's not like your parents are here."

"I'm not doing this again. I almost got arrested because of you."

Lucas laughed with the others. "That was two years ago!"

"Just get some soda."

"I'll get some Fizz. I'm the adult here." Sam nudged Kyle and went to the kitchen with Lucas.

"What time do your parents get back?" Hector asked.

"In an hour. They had a late meeting again," said Jack.

"I thought they had a lighter schedule."

"Yeah, well, lockdown's over," he remarked bitterly. There was an awkward pause.

"How've you been holding up?" Eddie asked us.

We all shifted, glancing at each other. "Okay," Tommy said.

"Now that she knows, are you... I don't know. Better? Worse?"

"What do you think?" I asked dryly.

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

Tommy shrugged. "As good as anyone can be in this situation." He grabbed my popcorn and ate a handful. I snatched it back.

"What about you, Rick?" Hector nodded at our best friend sitting on the floor next to me.

He only glared at him, downing the rest of his soda. "I could use some beer." He stood.

"Rick, no, no beer. Please." Desperation crept into Kyle's voice. "I promised Mom."

"Why do we have to talk about this?" Rick demanded.

"Because Diana's coming back, and we'll have to face it anyway," Jack pointed out.

Rick only groaned and grabbed his empty bottle of soda. "I don't have to see her. I don't want to look at her."

"Well, neither do we, and we have to see her every day. You'll have to face her eventually."

"Whatever." He went to the kitchen.

"She's taking a while to come back, now that you mentioned it." I checked the time. 4:53.

"If Mom said until 5, she has until 5," said Jack.

I looked at him. "Since when?"

"What do you mean?"

"For you, 'come back at 5' meant 'come back at 3'. You're still like that with me and Tommy."

"Yeah, well, now I'm not." He threw some popcorn into his mouth, crunching it between his teeth.

4:53 turned into 4:54. I decided to text her on GoodNews. Hey hows it going over there? Is the movie over?

"Game's on! What's taking y'all so long?" Kyle called.

Sam and Lucas soon returned with more bags of potato chips and two sodas in hand. Lucas looked disgruntled while Sam was amused. "They better make it this time," Lucas grumbled. "I feel like I'm wasting my time with this game."