Chapter 49: Space Invader

For the next week, Johnny spent most of his time with Lori while Lincoln would disappear for long stretches of time to hang with Bobby. Every time Johnny checked Facebook, Lincoln was uploading pics of him and Bobby doing this: Video games, minigolf, basketball games, each one tagged with the hash #MeNMyBro. Something about that enraged Johnny, and just seeing their stupid, smug faces grinning up at him from the screen made him feel homoiciidal.

It wasn't so bad, he guessed. He and Lori had gotten a lot closer and he'd really come to appreciate her in a way that he hadn't before. Sometimes they played video games or went for walks in the park, and sometimes they just sat and talked about life, the universe, and other random things. He had always liked and looked up to Lori, but after spending so much time with her lately, he came to see her as more human than he ever had before, if that makes sense.

On Thursday, the carnival came to town and set up shop in a field south of Liam's farm. Fliers went up virtually overnight and Johnny found a bunch of free tickets in the lunchroom at school. After the final bell rang, he met Lori for the walk home as he had everyday since last week. They passed a flier and she said, "We should go to that."

"Yeah, it might be fun," Johnny said.

Friday afternoon, Johnny put on his best paper bag and his finest goggles and met Lori downstairs. She wore a pair of shorts and a collared shirt, a simple outfit, but one that, admittedly, looked really nice on her. He rarely checked out his friends, but Lori had a perfect, womanly figure with wide hips and small but perky breasts, and sometimes it hit him that his female bro was downright hot.

"Ready?" she asked eagerly.

"Ready," Johnny confirmed.

They got there just as the sun set. The field was an island of lights, tents, and rides in the middle of the darkness. The smell of popcorn and the shouting of carnival barkers filled the air, and Johnny took a deep breath. "Oh. look," Lori said and excitedly grabbed his arm, "ring toss." She led him over to the booth and he bought three rings.

"I'm gonna win you something," he said. "What do you want?"

Lori stroked her chin and scanned the prizes, finally pointing to a monkey with a long tail and a banana in its hand. "That. He's cute."

"Alright then."

Stretching and limbering up, Johnny rolled his neck, flexed his arms, and worked his legs. The carny behind the counter rolled his eyes and Lori giggled behind her hand. Johnny tossed the first ring and scored a direct hit. The second and third followed with expert precision. "Someone upstairs is looking out for you, kid," the carny said and grabbed the monkey. "This game is rigged and you still owned it."

Johnny took a bow.

I know, I'm great.

Scarily so.

Lori hugged the monkey as they made their way around the fairgrounds. They were waiting in line at a hotdog stand when Lori stiffened. "It's Bobby."

What? Where?

He turned around just as Bobby and Lincoln passed. Lincoln ate handfuls of popcorn from an oversized bag and Bobby held up a gold medal. "I can't believe we won that sack race," he said. "I thought we were done for."

"Until we called on our bro power."

They stopped and high-fived.

Lincoln turned and his eyes met Johnny's. They exchanged an icy glare and then Lincoln ran off to catch up with Bobby. "Fricking turds," Johnny grumbled.

"Don't worry about them," Lori said and took his hand. She smiled down at him and his heart did this funny flip flop thing. "Just worry about us."

Letting go of what Bobby had done to Lori - and the betrayal of Lincoln supporting Bobby - was hard, be he resolved to do it.

For her.

At the end of the night, they walked home, and when Lori's hand crept into his, it felt right. "I had a lot of fun tonight," she said. "But I always have fun with you."

"Same," Johnny said. "I mean...with you."

Lori smiled at him and he smiled back.

You know what?

He liked hanging with Lori waaaay more than Lincoln.

Lincoln could suck eggs.

For two weeks, Johnny and Lincoln had been on the outs, It started with a simple argument over Lincoln acting like a WWE fanboy and saying AEW was worse than NXT and escalated when Lori and Bobby broke up. Johnny hated wrestling as much as the next guy but come on, at least AEW can almost make it to a million viewers every week. NXT is lucky to get half a million. He could forgive Lincoln for that, but the Lori and Bobby thing...that was a different story entirely. In the aftermath of their break up, with Lori sobbing and heartbroken, Lincoln basically defected and started hanging out with the cad who made her that way, which was pretty unforgivable. Johnny had been spending more and more time with Lori recently and...well...he had developed feelings for her. Soft feelings, tender feelings, the kind of feelings that made him hate and want to destroy anyone who dared hurt her.

Lincoln hadn't hurt her, but he had thrown in with the forces of evil and that made for some pretty tense dinners.

Deep down, Johnny missed his brother. He had trouble sleeping at night because Lincoln's absence left a void in the room, and sometimes he even missed their interplay and stuff. He had Lori to talk to and hang out with, but that was different. She wasn't Lincoln. She wasn't a bro.

Johnny was too proud and stubborn to go to Lincoln and apologize, especially since he did nothing wrong, but if Lincoln came to him, well...they could talk turkey.

That likely was not going to happen since Lincoln himself was stubborn and proud. Therefore, they were set to be locked in an epic cold war for many weeks, maybe even months, to come.

This was not the first time something like this had happened and Johnny seriously doubted it would be the last. They had never had something as major as the Lori-Bobby Rift, though, making this kind of new territory. Where would it all lead? Would they ever meet in the middle and bury the hatchet? Johnny couldn't say anything for certain.

Other than this: He missed his bro.

The crushing loneliness of not having Lincoln around threatened to turn Johnny into a simpering little wuss who'd make the first move toward reconciliation. Luckily for him, however, fate intervened.

It was a Friday night and Johnny was chilling in his closet-room with his iPad and a tall, fizzy glass of Chocolate Cherry Cola. Lori had gone out with her friend Carol for a girls' night and Johnny was really missing her, even more than Lincoln. He had been sequestered up here for over an hour looking at cat videos and considering watching a movie. He was just about to check YouTube out when a knock came at his door.

Sighing, he tossed the iPad aside and got up. He unlocked the handle and pulled open the door.

Lynn, dressed in a white T-shirt, red shorts, and white socks stood in the hallway. She put on a big, friendly grin. "Yo, John-NEY. How's it hanging, my man? You're looking pretty buff tonight. Is that a new paper bag? It looks really good on you. Adds, like, ten pounds of pure muscle mass."

Johnny favored her with a blank expression. "What do you want, Lynn?"

Giving up the game, Lynn brushed past him. "I need a place to bunk for the night. Me and Lucy are arguing again."

There's a surprise. Johnny couldn't say much since he and Lincoln argued a lot, but the Loud girls took it to the extreme. There was always some kind of fight, argument, disagreement, misunderstand, or hissy fit between them. Last week it was Luan and Leni, before that it was Lana and Lola; not a day went by that two or more of them weren't mad at each other.

Johnny's first instinct was to tell Lynn to beat feet, but he stopped himself at the last minute because hey, wasn't he in the market for a roomie? He had trouble sleeping alone and Lynn was a lot closer to a bro than anyone else around here. Maybe having Lynn stay the night wouldn't be such a bad thing.

"Alright," Johnny said, "come on in."

By that point it was too late for an invitation; she had already found a basketball and was dribbling it back and forth. Johnny shut the door, on the back of which was a hoop. Lynn tried to get past him, but he blocked her, and when she went to shoot the ball, he jumped up and spiked it out of the air; it hit the wall and bounced back. He grabbed it and turned to throw it into the hoop, but Lynn speared him from the side and they both fell to the floor with a house shaking thump. They sat up and shook themselves off like two dogs coming in out of the rain. "You got some game," Lynn said, "but can you hackey?"

She pulled a hacky-sack out of her pocket and held it up.

Johnny grabbed it and jumped up. "I can sack with the best of them." He dropped the hackey and kicked it with the side of his foot. Lynn hit it before it could touch the ground and they went back and forth for a while, each hopping on one foot. "You gotta do better, Principal Lynner," Johnny said.

"Keep talking smack, John DeSantis."

Being called by the surname of a Republican governor threw Johnny off his game and the hacket hit the floor. Lynn dropped to her knees, ripped her shirt, and threw her arms into the air. "WHOOOOOOOO!"

"Do you eat pumpkin?" Johnny asked. "'Cause you're a cheater."

"Hey, you called me a funny name first," Lynn said. She got to her feet and climbed up onto the framework of the bunk bed to peer at the mattress on top. "Is this my bed?" she asked.

Johnny picked up the hacky sack. "Yeah, I sleep on the bottom," Johnny said. "Lincoln likes it up there, he probably has a death wish."

A wistful smile touched his face at the mention of his brother, but he wiped it away as quickly as it came. None of that now. Lincoln was metaphorically sleeping with the enemy, he could go get bent.

Still, Johnny missed him.

Lynn climbed over the foot board and flopped onto her mattress, shaking the bunk. "It is kinda cool up here." A moment later, one of her socks dropped onto the floor, followed by the other; the second landed half on the edge of Johnny's bed. He caught a whiff of them and nearly gagged.

"You stink," he said.

"I know you do," Lynn said.

He kicked the sock onto the floor. "Don't make me combat your stench with mine. You will lose."

Lynn laughed. "Is that a challenge I smell?" she asked.

Cocking his butt, Johnny farted. "No, it's something else."

A second later, Lynn farted. "Two can play that game," she said.

Hahaha, foolish girl. Didn't she know that he and Lori stopped at Taco Bell on their way home from school? He was like a frigging machine gun, locked and loaded and ready to go. He could do this all night and part of the day tomorrow. He farted and waved it up toward Lynn. She returned fire, and in moments, the room was clogged with the combined stench of two nasty people.

A knock came at the door and Lori poked her head in. "Hey, Johnny, I -"

Her eyes began to water and she slapped her hand to her nose. "Oh my God," she said. She yanked the door closed and Johnny blushed with embarrassment. He should go after her and make sure she knew that it wasn't him, it was all Lynn. He couldn't do that, though, it might look kind of sus.

Up top, Lynn laughed. "What a normie."

"Yeah," Johnny said with a nervous chuckle. "She couldn't stand the heat."

"At least she got out of the kitchen. Speaking of siblings, what's up with you and Stinkcoln? Why's he sleeping on the couch?"

Johnny stretched out on top of the covers and laced his hands behind his head. "That's a long story."

"I got time," Lynn said.

A glance at the clock told him that she did, in fact, have the time. It was a weekend and only nine'o'clock. "It started over wrestling."

The bed shook as Lynn presumably rolled onto her side. "Wrestling? What kind?"

"Pro wrestling."

"I love pro wrestling."

"I don't. And neither does Lincoln."

He told her all about their fight and about their each taking sides in Lori and Bobby's break up. Johnny left out the part where he kinda sorta picked up feelings for Lori and made it sound like he was just upset over Lincoln not being true to a friend.

Feeling awkward, he went back to the original topic of their fight and talkies about that a little more. "He thinks he knows everything but he doesn't. He's just as bad as Dave Meltzer. Maybe even worse. Both of them lie and make things up off the tops of their heads, I really don't see where or how Lincoln gets off thinking his opinions aren't trash. Then he has the nerve to turn his back on our friend in her time of need? Yeah, that guy can get lost."

Lynn was quiet for a long time after he was done, and he waited in suspense for her opinion. Surely she would see reason and side with him. His position was the only tenable one in that argument. Lincoln's was pure idiocy and anyone with half a brain in their head would clearly be able to see that.

Right?'

Nothing.

He shifted uncomfortably and said, "And that's it. We haven't really spoken since."

Still, no response.

"Lynn?"

Finally, Lynn answered.

With a snore.

She had fallen asleep.

Gee, thanks, Lynn. Glad to know my problems put you to sleep.

He couldn't be seriously upset, though, because she got him to open up and talk about his feelings toward Lincoln in a way that he hadn't before, not even to Lori. it felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest and in its place came a sense of relief.

Leaving Lynn alone, he put his ear buds in and went back to watching cat videos. Not so deep down, however, he wished he was with Lincoln, watching one of those dumb Italian giallo movies Lincoln liked so much. He sighed, threw his head back, and cursed himself for getting all mushy over a Benedict Arnold like Lincoln. Feelings are stupid things, aren't they? We have them whether we want to or not, and sometimes we have the exact feelings that we shouldn't be having.

Maybe Johnny would be the bigger man and approach Lincoln.

Or maybe not.

Only time would tell.

The next morning, Johnny and Lynn went downstairs for breakfast, laughing and talking about the wrestling match they had shortly after they woke up. Johnny, for what it's worth, hated pro wrestling but he was totally fine with Greco-Roman wrestling. That stuff was actually real and not a stage show put on for fat neckbeards by men in tights. He didn't admit defeat easily, but Lynn owned him in their three rounds. He only came close to winning one of them, and that was only because he cheated and used a pro wrestling move.

While pro wrestling is faker than a three dollar bill, a lot of the moves were real and could do serious damage if not done right. Johnny was hoping to do a little damage to Lynn, that way he could win for once, but she countered by putting him in a crippler crossface which hurt like heck and almost broke Johnny's nose. "You coulda put me in the hospital," Johnny laughed.

"But I didn't," Lynn pointed out. "I let up at the last second. You're welcome."

Lincoln, Lucy, Lana, Lola, and Luan were sitting at the dining room table with bowls of cereal when Johnny and Lynn walked in. Lincoln shot them a dirty look, mocked Lynn's laughter, and then went back to talking with Lucy. Johnny almost called him out but decided to extend an olive branch by letting him off the hook. He and Lynn both got their own bowls and sat next to each other. Lucy stole a furtive look at Lynn and growled under her breath. "Got something to say, Luce?" Lynn asked.

"Leave her alone," Lincoln said.'

"Stay out of this, Lincoln," Lynn said, "this is between me and her."

"Why don't you and your boyfriend go back to your room and wrestle some more? Maybe you'll do us all a favor and kill each other."

Lucy giggled and Johnny flinched at the biting sting of his brother's words. "Go crawl back in your couch, couch boy," Johnny said. "Everyone's life is better with you there."

Before Lincoln could tighten up, Lori came in and skimmed her hand across Johnny's shoulders as she passed. "Morning, Johnny," she chirped.

Suddenly, Lincoln being dumb didn't matter anymore. "Hey, Lori," he said eagerly.

Rolling his eyes, Lincoln grabbed his bowl and got up. Lucy looked at him, then followed suit; together, they went into the living room and sat on the couch. If he leaned back in his chair, Johnny could see them whispering to one another, probably about their shared sibling problems.

"You wanna head to the park?" Lynn asked around a mouthful of food. "We can ride bikes on the trail."

Actually, he was hoping to get some time with Lori, but maybe it was best to hold off. He didn't want to seem clingy or anything. "Sure," Johnny said.

When they were done, they took their bowls into the kitchen, then went out the back door and walked around the side of the house where their bikes were chained up. Lynn unlocked hers and Johnny's, and they were off. The day was warm and bright and the wind felt good against Johnny's face. "Lucy's really cruisin' for a bruisin'," Lynn said over her shoulder.

"Yeah, Lincoln too."

"Siblings suck," Lynn said.

At the park, they rode around on the trails crisscrossing the forest and then broke to play a game of hoops. They were half way through when Sid and Liam walked up. "Hey, Johnny," Sid said. "What's up?"

"Hey, guys," Johnny said. "You know Lynn, right?"

"I don't think so," Sid said. She stuck out her hand. "I'm Sid."

"And I'm Liam, we're Lincoln and Johnny's pals."

Lynn shook with both of them. "You guys wanna play some basketball?"

They formed two teams, Lynn and Liam against Johnny and Sid. The first team to ten points won. Johnny and Sid had played basketball at school together a thousand times and worked together like a well oiled machine. Liam was a little rusty and his game suffered for it, but once he loosened up, he improved. Johnny and Sid narrowly defeated Lynn and Liam. "Not bad," Lynn complimented. "You're a lot better than Lucy."

A look of sadness flickered across her face but it was gone so quickly that Johnny couldn't be sure that it had been there at all. "Anyway, you wanna hit Burpin' Burger?"

"I can't," Sid, "I gotta get home."

"Me too," Liam said, "but it was nice meetin' y'all."

Ten minutes later, Lynn and Johnny sat at a booth in the dining room of Burpin' Burger waiting for their food to be done. Lincoln and Johnny used to come here all the time.

Johnny sighed.

Lynn sighed too.

"Maybe I was too hard on Lucy," Lynn said. She stared out the window, a faraway look in her eyes. "I can be kind of stubborn sometimes."

"Me too," Johnny admitted. "Lincoln didn't do anything wrong, I mean...he didn't mean to do anything wrong."

Lynn took a sip of her Pepsi. "I don't really like apologizing. It makes me feel…" she trailed off and shrugged one shoulder, not having the words.

"Dumb?" Johnny supplied.

That wasn't really the best word either but it came close enough. Humbling yourself isn't an easy thing to do; it made Johnny feel awkward and anxious. He suspected that most people kind of felt that way, but maybe it was only him. He could, sometimes, be kind of a weirdo. The major thing was that he didn't feel like he did anything wrong, so what did he have to apologize for?

Maybe he could talk to Lincoln and they could hash this out, man to man.

He and Lynn ate their food and then went back home. Lucy and Lincoln were sitting on the couch watching a horror movie and Lincoln excitedly told her all the stats and trivia he knew for it. He and Lynn both looked at their wayward sibling with longing, but neither said anything. Upstairs, they played a game of checkers.

Soon, Johnny decided, he would talk to Lincoln.

Though Johnny missed his brother, he had to admit, Lynn was an awesome roommate. They wrestled, played ball, and did all sorts of cool roommate stuff. As days passed, however, Lynn gradually wilted like a flower. She was homesick for her own room and for Lucy. On Thursday evening, she and Johnny were both lying in their bunks, him thinking of Lincoln and her thinking of Lucy. Lynn sat up, sighed, and said, "It's been real, Johnny, but...I kinda wanna go back to my room."

"That means making up with Lucy," Johnny pointed out.

She was quiet for a moment. "Yeah."

With that, she jumped down from the top bunk, gathered up her things, and left. Johnny watched her go then took a deep breath. If she could make up with Lucy, he could make up with Lincoln.

Getting up, Johnny set out to search for his brother, finding him in the living room. He sat down beside him and he stiffened a little. He started to get up but Johnny stopped him. "Dude, wait."

Lincoln turned to look at him and Johnny resisted the urge to rub the back of his own neck. "I'm sorry for what I said about you," he said. "That stuff about you being a traitor and stuff. That was wrong of me. I was just mad at you already so I was out for blood. You're not a traitor."

"I'm sorry for blowing up at you the way I did," Lincoln replied. "Bobby's a cool guy and he didn't mean to hurt Lori. She's just…." he paused. "They just didn't work out, that's all."

Lincoln told him Bobby's side of the story and though Johnny wanted to spring to Lori's defense, he figured it was well enough to just leave it at they didn't work out.

"From now on, let's not get involved in other people's drama," Johnny said.

Lincoln grinned. "Agreed."

"Brothers?" Johnny asked.

They shook. "Brothers," Lincoln said.

And just like that, their beef was squashed and everything was right in the world again.

THE END