Chaos Theory

chapter six

The next morning is a quiet affair, until it isn't.

Darcie groans when he wakes her up, groans when he drags her up and out of bed like she's always told him to the morning after a party. Her hair is a mess and her mascara is smudged, but a visit to the bathroom and a few makeup wipes later and she's glaring at him, bare-faced.

"I'm pretty sure Dakota made breakfast," are his first words of the morning, "And coffee."

Darcie slumps into herself. "Thank God."

Del wishes he could like coffee as much as her, as much as anyone, but all he's found in it is a disgusting taste no matter what he does and a lack of whatever everyone claims it does to your energy. He sticks with water and maybe a red bull when he's pulling an all-nighter for school. Those work, and they work great.

Dakota is moving around the kitchen when they finally stumble their way downstairs. He's got a frilly white apron on, dusted with what Del assumes is cinnamon once he sees his brother flipping thick pieces of bread on the stove, and his auburn hair is even messier than Del's always is.

He glances up from the french toast and one corner of his lips lift. "Morning," he greets, and moves towards the island to push a bright pink mug towards where Darcie stands.

"I love you, seriously," she deadpans, slurping up half the mug in less than five seconds and staring at Dakota with softened eyes. "You're the man of my dreams."

He rolls his eyes and cracks a smile before turning back to the stove.

They've always had this thing, where Darcie blatantly compliments or flirts with Dakota, and he never responds, ever. Dakota has never spoken much, outside of cursing in the kitchen when something goes wrong and gushing about what exactly is in something he cooked. Del supposes he shows his emotions through his actions, like the mug of coffee for Darcie and the bottle of ibuprofen next to it, the glass of orange juice for Del, waking up early to cook breakfast for the family.

Despite this, Del is pretty sure his brother is more affected by Darcie's words than she's aware of, and Darcie doesn't even feel the same way. He's told her to stop, but she barely listens to him on a good day. It's a hopeless wish.

"Thanks, Kota," Del manages through the sleep fog that still clouds his mind and makes his voice rougher.

Dakota hums.

They all quietly sit and watch Dakota flip the french toast and drag it onto a plate. There's a container of strawberries next to it, and he watches his brother toss back five of them before he finishes, setting the plate in front of the two of them with a flourish.

The three of them inhale the breakfast together. Del catches the clock and sees that it's almost nine, which means his mom won't be up until noon at the earliest, since she had the night shift last night, and Monty and Kenny were impossible to pin down when it came to waking up. His step dad would most likely sleep in with their mom, because he could sleep longer than anyone Del had ever known.

The quiet lasts through cleaning off their plates, putting them in the dishwasher, Del filling up Sandy's food bowl, lasts through the retreat up the stairs, and promptly ends the second Darcie dramatically falls into Del's bed and lands on his phone.

She frowns as she pulls it out from under her, and Del watches in horror as the screen lights up at the movement, as Darcie automatically glances at it as she reaches her arm out to give it to him. She freezes.

"Oh my God," she says, eyes bugging out at the notification on the screen. "Holy shit."

And Del knows what the notification is for at the same time that he realizes he never got around to telling Darcie that he got Cody's number. "Yeah,' he mutters feebly.