Sorry for the delay! Thanks for all the comments! Here's Chapter 4, hope you all like it :) Reviews appreciated
Chapter 4: Getting to Know You
Mikayla rolled around to the other side of her bed for what seemed to be the millionth time. In the time she headed to bed after dinner, Mikayla did not get one minute of the slumber she was hoping to get. Although more calm than she was a few hours ago, her mind still lingered at the thought of her angry father finding out she put herself and the kings in danger.
On the other side of the divider, Brady was wide awake and grossly kept himself preoccupied by creating odd noises with his body. His entertainment seemed to be working as he giggled every so often for the past hour. His latest endeavor was playing the alphabet song.
"BRADY!" Mikayla got up from out of bed and forcefully pushed the divider that separated them away. She caught a glimpse of the king with his hand under his armpit. His amused smile instantly faded away at the sight of the angry girl. "It's been three hours and your brother or Lanny aren't here yet, so I decided to try and sleep it off to clear my mind and it really isn't helping that you're conducting an orchestra with the disgusting sounds coming from your body!"
Brady was going to blurt out a suggestive comment at her last statement but decided against it, for fear of the wrath known as Mikayla. For a girl who seemed to always have some sort of anxiety in her life caused by the kings, Mikayla still had a beautiful head of hair that did not gray or fall off. Brady quickly thought of a plan to help Mikayla relax more.
"Well since we're both wide awake, I guess we have no other choice but to keep our mind off this situation with a game!" Brady suggested. He gestured for Mikayla to join him on his bed by patting an open space very close to him. Mikayla decline his offer with her now seemingly signature rolling of the eyes. She sat on her bed facing the king, now that the divider was no longer separating the two.
What is he trying to pull? Mikayla thought to herself.
"So back in Chicago, on Friday nights, some girls and guys would throw parties that Boomer and I were never invited to, and played this game called, Twenty Questions. Of course, we heard about all of this through the grapevine and picked up the rules pretty quick." Brady stated. It was true, the pair of twins were never formally invited to the parties their classmates through, but heard about the little activities they played.
Mikayla raised an eyebrow. "Twenty Questions?" was a little apprehensive toward his suggestion. Knowing Brady, she thought it would be some childish game involving odd noises or a tea set or something of that matter.
"The rules of the game are easy," Brady began, "Each of us asks a total of twenty questions. You ask ten and I ask ten. And they can be any question, and I mean any question. There's no boundary on how embarrassing, personal, or confidential it can be. Whatever you ask has to be answered fully. No simple answers like 'yes' or 'no' because there's no fun in that. Uh, there are no repeat questions cause that isn't fun either and you can't pass or plead the fifth or whatever that means." Brady chuckled. This would finally be the perfect opportunity to play such a teenaged taboo game. He and Boomer tried once to play this game, but there really is no fun when you already know what the other person was going to say. Now, the chance came for him to finally play, and what better way to play than with, the girl of his dreams, Mikayla. He was not afraid to admit that even though he was madly in love with the girl in front of him, he still had a lot to learn about her.
Mikayla felt a little timid after hearing Brady's explanation. Like Brady, she herself never attended these so-called boy-girl parties because of her father's overprotective nature. So it felt a little odd allowing herself to spill the secrets to some guy who she found to be a little creepy at times. But how bad would it be? After all "some guy" was just Brady. Mikayla had already done a pretty solid job at keeping Brady's paws off of her. And she secretly did want to play this game of twenty questions for it would be one of her only chances to actually engage in some real hormone-driven teenage recreational activity that she had yet to experience. "Okay. I'm in. So who goes first?
Brady responded with lightning speed, "You just did by asking that question, so I guess it's my turn."
Mikayla's jaw dropped. She could not believe she was outsmarted by the king she stated as being dumber than a bag of hammers. "That's not fair! You cannot be serious!"
"Explained it clearly in the rules, sweetie. Just because you've got a pretty face doesn't mean I can bend the rules for it. Sorry." Brady shrugged, slightly proud of his quick wit; he'd never put Mikayla in her place before. It felt… good to say the least. Her reaction was quite priceless.
Mikayla crossed her arms with infuriation. She was still in disbelief that Brady was right and she was wrong –something that had never really occurred in the their time of knowing one another. "Fine. Ask away, my king." She sarcastically replied. The bitterness in her voice could not have been anymore apparent. But of course, Brady took it as a reply of blissful respect; he loved it when Mikayla referred to him as her king.
Brady twiddled his fingers. What would be the perfect question to ask? He gave it some good thought, choosing the right words. After a good minute or two, Brady's mouth curved into a smile as he folded his arms with pride. "With an answer of either King Boomer or the very adorable, yet still incredibly hot, all around amazing King Brady, which King are you more attracted to?" Brady's incredibly detailed question made would sure to give the king the answer he wanted.
Mikayla on the other hand, had to stop herself from asking "Are you kidding me?" allowed. She had already wasted her first question. Maybe she had underestimated Brady's cunning nature entirely. The guy was playing this game like a pro.
She sighed heavily. There was no way out of this question whatsoever. She thought about it for a moment. While she did like King Boomer's humor and confidence, she found herself more drawn to King Brady. She reminded herself that it was only for the sole purpose of the question asked that she was "attracted" to Brady. She reasoned that is was probably on account of his persistent presence. If Brady was not with Boomer he was always near Mikayla. Despite his somewhat stalker tendencies, she thought that the two became pretty close since their arrival. And as much as she did not even want to mentally admit it, Brady was the more attractive one in her eyes.
"." She murmured quickly. Her response was almost incomprehensible.
Brady cupped his ear. "You might want to repeat that because I just heard a whole lot of gibberish. Come on, you can tell me."
Mikayla took a deep breath. "I am more attracted to King Brady, the adorable and hot and all around amazing guy, blah, blah, blah." She managed to utter the words through her clenched teeth. Although forced into answering the question, she really did find Brady to be the more attractive twin. Brady had perfectly cut, dark hair. He had hazel eyes and when the light hit it right there really were golden flecks that shined. Brady had the most effortless smile too, and by effortless it meant he didn't have to try hard to actually look happy, say for instance, Lanny. She felt her cheeks flush with color with the realization that she was getting lost in Brady's appearance. So this what Brady did on a regular basis? She shook off the current thoughts running through her head and regained focus.
Brady was going to ask her about the change in color in her face and realized that it would have been a question counting towards the little game they were playing. He still could not help but wonder if it was that bad to say he was the more attractive brother.
"Your question." Brady stated.
"Oh right. Hmm, let's see. Since I wasted my first question, I need to make this good." This was a little harder than she thought. Since he inexplicitly embarrassed her with his question, what better way than to embarrass him. "I'm going to be a little typical and ask you, what's your most embarrassing moment?"
This time it was Brady's turn to change colors. He was just forced into spilling the most humiliating moment of his life to the one girl he had been trying to impress since the moment he laid eyes on her. He fidgeted as he thought back to that particular moment he would never speak of.
"Come on! Stop stalling!" Mikayla humorously said. She mischievously smiled at the king. All the nervousness he built up thinking about his embarrassing moment had been replaced with the nervousness that Mikayla made him feel. Why did she have to look even cuter with that teasing expression?
Brady felt his jaw drop and his pink cheeks burn red. He managed to snap back to the reality of revealing the awkwardly embarrassing moment. He sighed heavily. "Fine. I'll tell you. Only because I have to. And you have to swear you won't tell anybody."
Mikayla mockingly raised her right hand. "I swear."
The king let out a loud sigh again. "Okay. It was in the seventh grade. Boomer and I were at the community pool. And well back in America you had to shower off after swimming in the pool cause of all the chemicals and whatnot. So I get in the shower in get cleaned off. And my genius self didn't bring a towel. When I finished my swimming trunks were nowhere in sight. So I either had to walk around naked to get leave the community pool or wear the only available garment in sight… that was a short sundress. To this day, I still feel kind of bad for stealing some poor girl's clothes, but that didn't stop me from embarrassing myself any less when I walked out of the community center. Turns out I had used the girl's restroom to shower and change. So, my pre-teen self in a woman's dress awkwardly left the room with a number of other girls staring at me. To make matters worse, Aunt Nancy met me outside and well, when we got home, we all had the most awkward conversation ever…"
Mikayla had literally turned red at the end of his story. She was literally sprawled out on her bed holding her stomach in pain from all the laughter. Brady exchanged his version of her death stare. At least she seemed to finally forget about the stress she had about her father. Despite the glare he tried to give her, he ended up smiling.
He giggled, "Okay, okay, let's all settle down now, story's over." His attempt at controlling her loud laughing burst had failed, for Mikayla was still roaring over on her bed. He playfully threw his pillow at her to calm her down and successfully aimed it toward her head. Mikayla was rudely interrupted with a surprise pillow bomb and in no time at all went from joyous laughter to intense anger.
"I'm sorry, don't hurt me!" Brady pleaded. His arms immediately shielded himself from whatever damaged Mikayla could have caused him.
Mikayla rolled her eyes and regained her composure. She wondered where all this newfound bravery came from. First, Brady had attempted to save her from the crumbling cave and now he had the nerve to actually hit her. She would have painfully flipped him as a response to pillow launching. "I guess it's your turn now."
Brady had already had the perfect embarrassing question to counter the humiliation he was feeling. "Hmm, since you know something embarrassing about me, I guess I'm going to have to know something embarrassing about you." Brady let out a little laugh. "Mikayla, what's the longest you've gone without taking a shower?"
Mikayla exchanged a horrified look at the king. She could not believe he wanted to know something so disgusting. "That's sick!"
"Yes and quite embarrassing for you. Spill." Yet again, Brady was on top of his game. It was his second question in a row where Mikayla was beyond uncomfortable.
Brady of course had the only intention of embarrassing Mikayla. He already knew that whatever answer she gave him was probably not going to be as bad anything he could have answered. Most importantly it would not make him think any different of her. He just wanted to get even with the girl who now knew about his cross-dressing catastrophe.
"Fine. You had better not tell anybody about this. Not even Boomer. Promise me." Mikayla stood up angrily, grabbed her machete close by and held it close to the king's face. "You better swear."
Despite being threatened with a sharp object, Brady found this little moment to be quite romantic in a playful "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" kind of way. "I promise Mikayla."
Mikayla had backed away from the slightly terrified king and sat back down on her respective bed. "Fine. It was back when I was 10. To become an official royal warrior on Kinkow you must survive a final test in the jungle. Seventy-two hours of jungle survival." Brady gave her a confused expression, which prompted her to explain her warrior training. She went off on a little tangent about warrior training and how she was the only ten year old to complete training and how she was top of her class. She finally finished her explanation and continued to answer Brady's question.
"So for three horribly exhausting days, I had to live in the dark depths of the jungle, with no shower. Yup. Three days. Afterwards, I spent the next three days in a bath tub." Mikayla shuddered. She never wanted anybody, let alone, a male, to know her hygiene stories.
"Three days, that's nothing compared to…" Brady began but stopped after realizing how gross his anecdote was starting to sound. It was true. He thought nothing less of Mikayla, especially how tame her lack of showering sounded compared to how long he and Boomer have gone without bathing. He just liked seeing her squirm with shame. "I guess even incredibly hot girls have some dirty little secrets." He gave a playful wink to which she replied with another shudder.
"Okay I propose that we refrain from anymore embarrassing stories because the next sixteen questions will probably just be about trying to humiliate each other." Mikayla suggested.
Brady agreed. "A proposal from Mikayla, you know already know I'll say yes."
Mikayla rolled her eyes at his cheesy comment. "My turn then. So, how long have you been playing guitar and singing? I mean it's one of the only things you're really good at." Brady raised an eyebrow at her. Mikayla gave him an awkward smile. "Err, so yeah, guitar…" Those were the only words she managed to muster, hoping the king would forget her last comment.
"Well. I've been playing for about 5 years. See Aunt Nancy had signed Boomer and I for after school activities. Boomer took art classes and I wanted to play the guitar. And ever since I picked up the six string, I've been in love with it ever since. I guess it was one of the only things I was really naturally good at. As for singing, I guess that's just another natural talent I've always had. I mean I used to keep it secret for a while, but now I don't. I guess music is something that I'm just so passionate about." Brady answered. He went on a little longer to explain his first music recital and how he fainted because he was so nervous. He talked about how much he knew that girls found musicians incredibly attractive. He went on about how he sometimes dreamed of playing a sold out concert. At the end of all his stories, Mikayla realized how important music really was to him.
Mikayla gave him a warm smile. This was side of Brady she rarely saw. "You know," she started, "You should play music more often. Your last performance was quite the crowd pleaser." She was referring back to Harvest Festival impromptu performance after he and Boomer had made up he had lied to his brother about his horrible singing voice.
Brady bashfully smiled at her suggestion. "Well you were part of the crowd and I pleased you." He gave her a wink.
Before she could shoot him a comeback insult, a loud rumbling noise had come from deep down the cave. Brady freaked out, scared out of his mind. He immediately shot up from his bed and into Mikayla's, hoping the guard girl would protect him. He unintentionally hid behind her, hands on her shoulder and his head ducked down. "What the heck was that?"
The mysterious noise had ceased before Mikayla could grab her machete. She figured it was just some natural cave noises. She calmed down to realize that Brady was shuddering in fear very, very close to her. She felt his shallow breathing on her back. She turned to face the cowering king. "That was your next question and please get off of me."
Brady was surprised Mikayla had caught on to this game. A few questions she had been put in her place and now she had gotten even with him. He nervously detached himself from Mikayla and allowed some space between them.
"Touché, Mikayla." He congratulated. He gave her a smile and playfully punched her shoulder.
She could not help but giggle at her one-upping skills. She was back on top. She was finally beginning to relax and actually enjoy her time trapped in this cave, with Brady.