When Twister arrived home from the pier he found Lars flopped on the couch watching TV. He didn't feel like dealing with his brother. They'd been getting along somewhat lately, but Lars still knew how to drive him crazy when he was in his 'I'm going to torment my little brother' mood. Twister hoped that tonight wasn't one of those times.
"What's up dork?" Lars called from the couch when saw Twister come in. "Why are you home so early?"
"Just leave me alone Lars." Twister mumbled and headed towards the stairs.
"Awww…what's wrong? Did you and Rocketdork get into another wittle fight," Lars asked jokingly, "or did your wittle girlfriend get mad at you because you're such a lame-o."
"I SAID shut the hell up and leave me alone!" Twister yelled. He stomped toward Lars with his hands balled into fists. Startled, Lars quickly rose from the couch and raised his arms in defense.
"MAURICE! That is no way to talk to your brother! You know that we don't use that kind of language in this house!" their mom called from the kitchen.
When he heard his mother's voice, Twister froze just short of reaching Lars. His hands relaxed at his sides. "Sorry mom" he called back to her, rolling his eyes. He gave Lars a hateful look then walked away and climbed the stairs to his room.
Without turning on the lights or changing out of his clothes, Twister flopped onto his bed. He closed his eyes, but he knew that it would be a long time before he'd be able to sleep. An emotional roller coaster raced up and down in his mind. One second he hated Reggie and never wanted to see her again, then the next he wanted to apologize for how he'd acted and hope that everything would be all right.
A loud knock at the door jarred him from his thoughts. He didn't respond, but the door creaked open anyway. Twister opened his eyes to see Lars's frame silhouetted against the hall lights. He walked into the room and switched on the light, causing Twister to squint from the brightness.
"What the hell was THAT about?" Lars asked as he straddled the chair and folded his arms on top of the backrest.
"What?" Twister asked, faking innocence. He knew what Lars was referring to, but he didn't feel like talking about it.
"Damn, I was only joking. You didn't have to totally freak about it." Lars said.
"Sorry Bro." Twister didn't offer to explain. Instead he closed his eyes again, hoping that Lars would take the hint and go away.
"So what's going on?" Lars pressed. He wasn't going to let it go easily.
"Nothing." Twister lied. "I'm just not in the mood for joking around tonight."
"Don't lie to me dork! I know something's bugging you—now spill it before I whomp it out of you!" Lars threatened, although he had no intentions of actually doing it.
"Fine. If I tell you will you leave me alone?" Twister knew that it was pointless to keep avoiding it. Lars wasn't going to give up.
"Maybe." Lars said smugly.
"Okay. Reggie and I broke up. There. Are you happy now?"
Lars's eyes got wide with disbelief. "Whoa…back up a second man! Did Rocketdork start his shit again?"
"No, it's not Otto's fault this time." Twister simply said. He really didn't want to go into detail.
"Well? Are you going to tell me what happened, or what?" Lars asked impatiently.
Twister sighed, wishing that Lars would just leave him alone. "It's a long story, but Reggie was hanging out with these shoobies, then we saw one of them kissing her at the pier so I whomped him. Then when I asked her what was going on she got all pissed and said that I was accusing her and broke up with me."
"That's harsh." Lars said. "I can't believe she did that."
"Yeah. Me either, but I don't care. I'm glad she left if that's the way she's going to be. You can have her bro." Twister said jokingly, knowing that Lars liked Reggie. He didn't think that Lars would take it seriously.
"Really? You mean you wouldn't be pissed if I asked her out?" Lars asked, his expression changing from concerned to a little excited.
"Whatever. If you want a girl who's going to cheat on you, then go for it bro." Twister could honestly care less at this point. He was torn up over the thought of losing Reggie, but when he pictured her kissing Alex the pain was replaced with rage.
"You're sure that you'd be cool with it?" Lars asked.
"Yeah, sure." Twister said flatly even though he wasn't so sure.
"Are you going to be okay bro?" Lars asked after a brief silence. A worried look crept across his face. He kept thinking about how Twister had reacted when Otto caused him and Reggie to break up. He didn't want to go through that again.
"I'm fine. Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid." Twister said as if he knew what Lars was thinking.
"Okay." Lars got up to leave, then paused when he reached the doorway. "Hey, sorry for what happened man. Um…if you want to talk I'll be in my room."
"Thanks Lars." Twister said quietly, surprised to see Lars actually showing that he cared.
"Yeah…whatever, dork." He said and closed the door behind him.
*************
At the Rocket house, thing were not so quiet. When Otto got home, he stormed up the stairs and barged in Reggie's room without even knocking. "What the hell were you thinking?" He shouted.
She was sitting on her bed looking over a stack of papers for the Zine. She needed to take her mind off of things. "I didn't do anything and would you mind knocking next time?" she said calmly.
"Damnit Reggie! I SAW you kiss that shoobie. How could you do that to Twister?"
"He kissed me. I didn't know he was going to do it. That's what I was trying to tell you, but nobody will listen to ME!" She said, getting angry again.
"I don't know why you even wanted to hang with him in the first place. You were just asking for trouble." Otto said.
"It's called being friendly, Otto. I guess you don't know what that is since you think that you're so above the rest of the world."
"That was harsh, Reg. Besides, this isn't about me."
"That's a first!" she said. "Anyway, you should be glad—you never wanted us to go out to begin with!"
"I was starting to get used to it." Otto said defensively. "You should have seen the look on Twister's face after you left. I think you should go talk to him." He couldn't believe the words coming from his own mouth. After he had made such a huge issue over them going out, now he was trying to get them back together. It had defiantly been a strange day.
"I have nothing to say to him, Otto. I'm tired of him accusing me of stuff that I didn't do."
"He was totally bent. He didn't really mean it." He said. "You would have done the same thing."
"I would have at least let him explain what happened first!" she said irritably.
"Explain it now then." He said, trying to convince her to go talk to Twister.
"I'm NOT going over there. Now CAN IT and leave me alone." She shouted.
Otto groaned. There was no use in talking to her when she was like this. Stubbornness ran in their family. Frustrated, he stared at her and tried to think of something that might change her mind. Finally, he gave up and left her room, slamming the door behind him.
**********
The next morning, Reggie was sitting on the front porch, putting on her blades. She had no idea where she was going, but she needed to get out of the house. She had tried to concentrate on the Zine, but her thoughts kept drifting to last night at the pier. She was still fired-up over Twister accusing her without even letting her explain what happened, but she couldn't help but wonder if she was making a mistake.
To make things worse, Otto had been giving her the cold shoulder all morning. She didn't know what his problem was. She thought that this was what he wanted. Now, he was acting totally whacked over it. She shrugged it off and decided that she'd never be able to figure out how his mind works.
She was about to leave when she saw Lars coming out of his house. She started to ignore him, but he was waving his hand around like he wanted her to wait. He caught up with her at the end of the driveway.
"Hey! Where're you going?" he asked.
"I don't know…somewhere." She said and shrugged her shoulders.
"Yeah, I kinda figured that. Would you like some company to somewhere?"
"Look Lars, if you're here to convince me that I need to go apologize to Twister, then you're wasting your time. I had to listen to enough of that from Otto last night."
"Otto? He wants you and Twister to get back together? You can't be serious!" He said in disbelief.
"Yeah, I think he's whacked or something. I couldn't believe it either. The space aliens should be bringing the real Otto back anytime now."
Lars laughed. "Well, I'm not going to tell you to apologize. I just want to hang out. I thought that maybe you needed someone to talk to besides your dork brother."
She eyed him suspiciously, wondering what he was up to. She had a pretty good idea. She knew that Lars liked her and he was totally bent when he found out that Twister was dating her. In fact, he had gone so far as to kiss her in an effort to break them up. At the time, all she could think about was Twister and wanted nothing to do with Lars. When they were younger, he had made life hell for all of them. He could still be an ass when he wanted to, but now that he was seventeen and more mature, he really wasn't so bad of a guy.
She figured that if Twister wanted to be a lame-o, then she might as well accept his invitation. "Sure. Where do you want to go?" She asked.
"I don't care. I guess we could just go hang at the pier or go to Madtown." He said.
The thought of going back to the pier made her queasy. It was too soon for her to face it again after what happened there last night. She wasn't really in the mood to rip it up at Madtown either. "Um…how about we just go sit on the beach and talk."
"That's cool. Let me go get my blades, it'll just take a second." He turned and ran back to his house.
Reggie sat on the curb and waited. She wondered what she was getting herself into.
*******
In his room, Lars was throwing dirty clothes around trying to locate his blades. Cursing himself for not being more organized, he hoped that Reggie wouldn't get tired of waiting and leave. He finally found them under a t-shirt by his bed. When he turned around to bolt out the door, he was looking Twister straight in the eye.
"DAMN! You scared me, dork. I didn't even know you were standing there!" Lars said, startled.
"Where're you going?" Twister asked. He already knew that he was going off with Reggie because he had been watching them talk through his bedroom window. He just wanted to see what Lars was going to say.
Feeling uncomfortable and a little guilty, Lars said. "I…uh…I'm just going to the beach…um…with Reggie." He paused and waited for a response. Twister just stood there with a blank look in his eyes. Lars was surprised when he didn't totally freak. "You cool with that?"
"I said I was, didn't I?" Twister said without emotion.
"Yeah, but…well, never mind. Later bro." Lars said.
"Yeah, Later." Twister turned to go back to his room. "Much later," he mumbled when he was sure that Lars couldn't hear him.
He knew that he couldn't be mad because he'd told Lars that he would be okay with it. Still, he couldn't believe that everything was happening so fast. He looked out his window again to see Lars sitting on the curb beside Reggie, putting on his blades. They both were smiling. He flopped back into his bed and stared up at the ceiling. A single tear slipped down his face.
A/N: Don't forget to Review!