Disclaimer: Claire is mine, but that's it.
Chapter 8
That night, Bombay (and his driver) dropped Charlie and I off after practice. Luckily, my brother and coach kept up a steady conversation, so yay for no awkward silences! Charlie thanked coach for the ride, and coach told the both of us that we did really well in practice.
"Lemme ask you somethin," Coach started. "What happened to your dad?"
"My mom, Claire and I left him. I don't really remember, but that's what mom says," Charlie said a bit dejectedly. I put an arm around his shoulder and gave him a small smile. He knew, of course, that it was our dad who had driven me to this state of almost complete silence, but neither I nor our mother had actually told him what had happened; we'll tell him eventually though.
"Y'know, when I was a boy," Coach continued, "I had to take care of my mother too."
"Really?" Charlie asked. "What happened to your dad?"
"He passed away," Bombay said a bit quieter. Charlie looked down at his feet and so did I; neither of us knew how to respond to that. "You do a good job takin' care of your mom, Charlie. And takin' care of your sister, too." Bombay saved us from having to respond. Charlie smiled at him a bit.
"Thanks," my brother breathed out.
Keep it up, alright?" Coach said. Charlie nodded. "Okay. I'll see you," He started to walk away, but Charlie called him back.
"Hey, coach," my brother started. "What is that?" He said as he put his finger on coach's coat.
"I dunno," Bombay mumbled as he looked down. Charlie brought his finger up and hit coach in the face with it, letting out a cry of victory. The two of them started fooling around, almost like a father and son, and as I happened to glance up at the house I saw mom watching us through the window. I had no time to respond to what I had seen before I was being picked up and lifted over Coach's shoulder. I grinned and began to lightly beat on his back while Charlie also tried to get Bombay to release me. I heard him say he would, and the next thing I knew I was lying in the snow while Bombay moved back to roughhousing with Charlie. I smirked an evil smirk and balled up a bunch of snow. I moved onto the pavement, threw it square at the back of coach's head, turned around, and bolted into the house, slamming the door shut behind me. Breathing heavily, I took off my snow-coated shoes before running to shower, ridding my body of the coldness left by being dropped in the snow.
The next morning was greeted with a phone call from coach, which led to Charlie and I being rudely awakened, mom yelling at us to get dressed. Food was pushed at us as soon as we sat down at the table and as soon as we were done we were instructed to put our rollerblades on and meet coach at the mall.
Charlie and I skated as quickly as we could to the massive shopping center, and Connie and Guy caught up to us when we were a few blocks away. Arriving at the mall, I nearly ran into coach, swerving away and trying to stop myself at the last second… by running into Averman instead. Since he was on skates as well, it didn't do much to stop us. My momentum propelled both of us backward into the wall of the building. As soon as we had come to a crashing halt, everyone laughed, including us.
"Wow, Speedster, slow it down once in awhile!" Averman commente, further propelling both of our laughter. I backed up to let Averman off of the wall when I saw the reason we were here. Towering above our heads next to coach was my good friend Fulton Reed… on a pair of rollerblades. Coach led us all to the elevator, having decided that it would be best to move downwards while teaching Fulton. As soon as the doors opened we all took off, wreaking havoc across the mall as we went.
We were all travelling in a giant pack, with me and Karp in the front until I dropped back to help Bombay with Fulton. It was a shaky start, and while coach turned himself and followed the others down a ramp Fulton was stuck in a forward motion and went right down the stairs. Of course, being just as disastrous as Charlie is, I managed to follow Fulton down the stairs, both of us screaming the entire way down.
Once we hit the smooth ground of the lower floor of the mall, Fulton ran into a little old lady and knocked her right into the fountain. I grabbed onto his arm and used both of our momentum to turn us, taking us further into the mall. As we continued skating, Fulton turned his head and gave a sheepish apology to the lady in the fountain while I chuckled quietly at him. Without letting go of Fulton's arm I sped up, which caused him to quicken his pace as well. All too soon we caught up with the rest of the team, and I gave Fulton a reassuring smile before skating up to Connie and quickly dragging her to the front of the group with all had a great time, and somehow Fulton actually managed to learn how to skate. All in all, it was a shockingly productive morning.
A/N: So I'm working on writing chapters in advance while I'm on break, but I couldn't resist uploading this for you guys. I've started planning ahead a bit, and I've realized that my original love interest for Claire probably isn't going to work out that way. So, I'm thinking about doing a poll and letting you guys help me decide who she should end up with! Let me know how you feel about it, and I'll go from there.
