A u s t y n
Chapter 15- A Day With Daddy
"Okay, who's up for a game of basketball," Nathan asked his kids, who were just kind of lazily laying around the living room, eating chips and playing video games.
"Um, kind of busy," Nate responded, reaching his hand into the bag of chips for another handful.
"Actually," Nathan said, holding the plug to the TV in his hand, "I see and opening in your schedule right about now," smiling at the blank TV screen, "All of you, it's a nice day, outside, unless of course you'd like to help your mom," then looked at Nick, "sister-in-law, with the house cleaning, I mean you can vacuum and dust, and wash the dishes, and change the beds, and do the laundry, and clean the bathrooms, or, you can come outside with me, and play a game of basketball, now it only works if all of you get off of your lazy butts to come outside, and if one of you, like Farley, decide they like to clean, then we all clean."
Farley just then got a lot of death glares, the worst by Nathan, even though he was the daddy, did not want to play clean the house.
"So," Nathan said, looking at the ball in his hand, then to Farley, "are we cleaning, or going outside?"
Farley looked around, he knew what his answer had to be, if he didn't want every bone in his body broken, "We're going outside."
The boys started zooming past outside, through the door, shoes untied, coats halfway on.
Farley staggered behind and finally bade it outside, bundled up, shoes all the way on. Nathan passed him the ball as soon as he reached the court, and everyone started going towards him, so he threw it, and it went in. He wasn't paying attention or anything, just getting rid of it, and he threw it, and it went in. The shocked faces of James and Kyle shocked him into an asthma attack, and he fumbled around for his inhaler.
Poor kid. He was so shocked he made a basket, he had an asthma attack, which made James and Kyle crack up. He couldn't go two minutes without his drugs. They were always picking on him.
Nick and Nate took over the ball, and that made James and Kyle mad, it was greater than their need to make fun of their brother. They immediately went after them, playing dirty, as usual, kicking them, grabbing them, punching, they knew the game, they just didn't care, just as long as they got the ball. Then they'd fight with each other over it.
Eventually, Nathan had to go get other basketballs so that they could actually play. James and Kyle just took over one basket, seeing who could make the most shots, while being attacked by the other. Sure they got plenty of skinned knees and elbows, but what Haley always told them, don't go to her unless you're bleeding to death, but then again, to a five year old, a paper cut could be bleeding to death, with dramatic motions of falling to the floor too.
Farley would rather watch the game then actually play it. He had fun keeping mental score, of all the different things going on. As everyone saw before, he could play, he just couldn't, in a matter of speaking. He knew he would never play like James and Kyle, and to him, that was a good thing, watching what they did to each other, comparing it to what they did to him.
Nathan looked up at James and Kyle… and wondered how Haley possibly kept them alive for five years, "Boys, boys, we do not hit our brothers with our shoes, or take out the laces to strangle him with. That goes for scarves too, we don't strangle our brothers with scarves, they're around your neck to keep you warm. Put your shoes back on, with the laces in, and tie them. Then wrap your scarves back around your necks," he shook his head. His kids were little monsters. Who thinks to do that, take off your shoe in the middle of January to hit their brother with it? He was just lucky they didn't get snow. Can you imagine, snow on the ground? Snow shoved down their clothing, into their mouths, formed into balls to pelt at one another, oh yes, no snow was a good thing.
Nathan looked at his watch a couple hours after sitting on the bench with Farley, watching his kids attempt to play a game of basketball, that turned into keep away. It sure was a fun day, and wondered what time Haley would let them back into the house, or he might just go to Luke's house and chill there a while.
