Sam`s friends spend a lot of time over at the house over the holidays, especially for the first couple of weeks. It was great at first, the girls were actually pretty awesome, but I still end up spending most of my time out of the house on the beach with Cas. He loved his present. The strange boy had been more than a little surprised when I held it out to him with a somewhat shaky hand, a faint pink blush splashed across my freckled face, which only made them stand out more prominently.
"A gift? For me, Dean?" he had questioned curiously, brows knitted together. He took the unwrapped blue hoodie out of the plain black gift shop bag it had come in, lifting it out gingerly as though if he was too rough handed it might disintegrate.
"No, I bought a gift for someone else and just wanted to rub it in by showing you," I roll my eyes, half expecting the sarcasm to be lost on the confused older boy.
He unfolds the soft blue fabric gently, the long sleeves flopping about in the warm summer breeze. The past week had we had seen nothing but cloudless blue skies, sunshine and ice creams, with the temperature soaring somewhere in the high twenties, and at times even in the very low thirties. English weather sucked, so this is a shock to everyone, TV weatherman included. Pasty bodies were baking on their deckchairs on the more popular beach in the nearby town of Great Yarmouth, but thankfully the usually empty stretch of sand we frequented was for the most part at least, blissfully unaffected. There had been one or two dog walkers, but thankfully no small children screaming their impressive lungs out and disturbing us.
Despite the raging heat, Cas still pulls the royal blue hoodie over his head to try it on, fluffing up his permanently untidy hair. It was a little big on him, a little too long in the sleeves, which was easily remedied by folding them over once. Even though it was easily twenty nine, maybe even thirty degrees he was still dressed in his usual scraggily jeans with the rips at the knee. Even I had admitted defeat and given into Kate's motherly nagging and had worn a pair of shorts today. Well, I say shorts, but they were really an old pair of jeans Sam and I had hacked at with sharp kitchen scissors earlier. The frayed hem now rested just under my knees, leaving room for a very disconcerting breeze to whip around my bare legs.
"Thank you," Cas said gratefully, tugging off the jacket in one swift effort, the movement lifting up half of his shift with it. I groan inwardly, cursing my luck and turn away before he can see my face heating up. At least I would have the excuse of the bizarrely hot weather today.
"I`m glad you like it." I say honestly, shrugging my shoulders awkwardly.
"I love it," he replies happily, maybe a little too hastily because he flushes, and begins to refold it when something catches his eye. He stops. "Are those supposed to be wings?" He points at the intricate black design that almost completely covered the back of the jacket, the wings starting at the shoulder blades and swirling down, curling inwards slightly at the bottom.
I nod, scratching the back of my head uneasily. "Well yeah. I remembered the story you told me about wishing you could fly as a kid and I know how bad the weather is supposed to be in England, so I just thought you might have use for it," I ramble. Bringing up the weather? I mean really? Was I trying to bore the poor guy? This was hopeless, a fucking disaster movie waiting to happen.
Cas seems amused by this and actually laughs. "It`s just perfect," he chuckles. Although I have no idea why, I join in. "I don`t think the weather got the memo though." He jokes, and much to my dismay (and partial delight) pokes out a delicate pink tongue and swipes it gracelessly across his chapped bottom lip.
When I get back later, Sam and Adam were waiting for me in the back garden. I had just missed the girls, and John was busy preparing dinner while Kate was working a late shift. His idea of cooking dinner either involved grabbing whatever in the fridge was fresh, bunging it altogether in a pot or tray and hoping for the best, or calling for a take out. Luckily for us, payday had just been so we were getting treated to a Chinese takeaway. I answered the door to a lovely older man with greying hair, aided of course by my trusty shadows, Sam and Adam. We take our plates out into the garden, tucking into the heaps of vegetable rice (Sam) noodles (Adam, and we had saved plenty for Kate). I wasn`t sure what to order, so I had a mix match of everything everyone else had. Chicken and pork balls, prawn crackers and noodles formed an unsteady mountain on my plate that I was more than ready to conquer.
"So, Dean," John begins, speaking through a mouthful of food. "Did you have a good day?"
"Yeah." I still hadn`t told them about Cas, though Sam did keeping asking the occasional question when it was just the two of us. Nothing too difficult to explain, just if I had seen the boy from the beach again or if I had found out more about him. I hated lying to the younger teen, who by now I considered a valuable friend, but I wasn`t prepared to trust anyone with that sort of information.
It was late, and I was helping Sam with the last of his summer homework. How cruel is that? The holidays are supposed to be fun and the biggest part of that was revelling in the lack of schoolwork, but nope. His school had lumbered the poor kid with a mountain of work to be completed for his new teachers in September. It was positively medieval. The studious boy had nearly completed his already, explaining to me once he saw the look of upmost horror and disgust on my face that the sooner it was done the sooner he could forget about it and just enjoy himself. Made sense I suppose, in a strange way.
"This is stupid," I complain, throwing a worn paperback down on his bed in frustration. "Who even read this crap anymore?"
Sam sighs, "They are classics for a reason, Dean."
"I don`t care what a bunch of boring old English teachers and people with no lives say, classic novels are boring. Just a bunch of old-time speak and a bunch of boring guys trying to woo prudish rich girls in long skirts."
Sam looks personally offended. "Not all of them are like that," he counters. I blink once and pull a face to show my disbelief. "No really!" he insists.
"Right." I lay back on the bed, throwing my arms behind my head and closing my eyes. "Guess I`m not much of a book person."
Sam looks horrified, I can tell without even opening my eyes, just by hearing his sharp intake off breath. Two tall and proud bookcases covered almost all of the far wall. Books were stuffed in every available crack of space, rows and rows of paperbacks, hardbacks and limited editions with even more squeezed in on top of them. The extensive collection of books didn`t stop there, it spilled over onto he oak shelves that were zigzagged across his walls. The ones that weren`t stacked high with books were piled even higher with even more books.
"You have a couple of books in your room."
"Not many. Only about five or six and I can`t even remember the last time I picked one of them up."
Before the split, I had been an avid reader, like Sam, devouring anything in sight. The School library was my favourite place, the sports field taking second place and mum would take me at least four times a month to buy a new book to keep me quiet. When John left, my interest in reading, like most others things had crawled up and died just like my love for him. My piles of beloved stories had been carelessly thrown into big cardboard boxes, along with other childhood memories like sports certificates and trophies, teddies, hot wheels cars, and anything else he had ever gotten me, and dumped.
"I used to read a lot as a kid," I begin, cluelessly wondering how to explain to make Sam understand. "Then one day I just stopped."
His eyes narrow as he thinks, then soften sadly. "Oh." He says nothing else for a long time, doesn`t even look up from his book report. Then, "I`m sorry."
"It`s not your fault." I felt horrible for ever thinking that it was, for blaming such a lovely young boy like Sam.
"I think I get it, why you hated me at first. I`d stolen your father and then had the cheek to think that we could be friends, that you would even want to be friends."
"Sam, listen," I begin, hesitantly wrapping an arm around him. "Look, I was mad alright? I was furious. I`m not gonna lie, yes, I hated you at first. You were some little brat who had everything, the perfect family that loved him. I didn`t have that. I wasn`t wanted."
He tries to interrupt. "You are wanted. I want you here." He blushes and ducks his head down, his long hair making an effective shield.
I smile. "I know. And you didn`t steal dad," I pause, a smiling image of Kate coming to mind. Not too long ago the image would have made me hurl, or punch something, but it wasn`t her fault either. He didn`t tell her. "It isn`t anyone`s fault. No one can make John do anything. He wanted to leave so he did. Kate wouldn't have wanted that, I`m sure. She`s a good person." I groan. Why was this so complicated?
"You`re a good person too," he admits softly, eyes full of adoration, looking up at me shyly as though he was afraid I might snap at him.
"I`m a mess, Sam." I clarify, not wanting him to get his views mixed up and warped, thinking that I was the kind of person you could look up to. "Not a good guy, not a hero. I`m not anything. Back in Kansas, at home-"I frown. Since when had it became so hard to think of Kansas as home? What did that even mean? "Back home I never could do anything right. I was failing all my classes, I couldn`t keep a girlfriend, my ex got knocked up and I was petrified it might have been mine, I was drinking out of control and all my so called friends," I sneer the word, "were assholes."
Sam sits up. "Well maybe that`s all true," he glares at me upon seeing my stern face. "Ok, so that`s all true, but that isn`t what things are like now. You`ve changed. You`re being nice to me and Adam, helping Kate and making friends. Especially with this Cas person." He smirks, seeing my horrified face. "Yes, I know you have been sneaking out to at night and where you are during the day when you say you are studying."
"I don`t know what you are trying to get at, but Cas is just some guy who is sometimes at the beach when I go there to study. Unlike you who is on holiday, dad and Kate think I should still do a page or two of work a day so I have something to show the schools in September in the hopes that they will accept me."
Before I can stop and ask him where he is going, Sam is up and on his feet, racing out of the half open door and down the hallway towards my room. He comes back in a minute later, panting from tearing my room apart trying to find what he was looking for. An A4 sized black notebook was in his hands and he was flicking through the pages trying to find anything that could be considered schoolwork.
"Hangman, noughts and crosses, random doodles, this doesn`t look much like work to me, big brother," he smirks, and I can hear the glee in his voice. "Is this Cas guy your boyfriend or something?"
I scowl at him and snatch the book back angrily. "No, and even if he was, which he isn`t it would be none of your business anyway!" I snap, regretting it straight away when I see the hurt look on his face.
I sigh, "Look Sammy, it isn`t that I don`t trust you or anything, but things are…complicated. I hardly know the guy, heck I don`t even know his last name and I probably won't be staying here much longer, not after the new baby is born because I`ll only get in the way and there is not point getting too attached to someone I will never see again. And besides, I`m not interested," I tack on lamely, fully aware of how pathetic that sounded.
"That doesn`t sound like somebody who isn`t interested," Sam gloats.
"Yes, thank you Sam!"
He full on belly laughs and I flick him across the back of the head, warning him to keep his voice down.
"When can I meet him?"
Hmm…let me see…Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs-never!
"When hell freezes over."
"I`ll tell Adam."
"Wow, so scary. What`s he gonna do? Draw me little hearts? Make kissy faces?" I scoff.
"And mum and dad."
It was as though a bucket of ice water had been chucked over me. Sammy hadn't meant it, it was an empty threat and he couldn`t have known the pure terror his words had instilled on me, but the though still petrified me.
"Please Sam, you can`t, you just can`t," I try and remain calm, but the tremor in my voice gives me away.
"Dean, I`m sorry. I didn`t mean-"He catapults his long body into my lap and clings to my shirt. "Of course I won`t tell, I was just joking. I just really want to meet the guy who is making you so happy."
I groan, but the overeager puppy look he has had years to perfect makes a comeback, and I grudgingly agree. "Fine, but no one else, not even Charlie can ever know." Out of all of his friends, I would have to consider myself closer to the red haired nerd, who had become something of a little sister to me, despite only being a month or so younger.
He grins, "Deal."