brooks & hale - Chapter 5: Chapter 5

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF the year award had just been assigned to Brooks.
No, not just idiot of the year. Biggest idiot in the world. To have ever existed in the history of time. He just wanted to bury his head in the ground and live like a mole for the rest of his life. A miserable, pathetic mole questioning it's sorry existence. As if it wasn't bad enough that he'd been babbling on about doors to Hale, the words not registering until the embarrassment set in, he had to go and stick his tongue out at him.
What the hell, Brooks? Who even did that? He was drunk, sure, but he didn't think he was that drunk.
Brooks paced back and forth across the patio, which was proving challenging enough with his fuzzy vision and dizziness. Why did he even care what Hale thought of him? He was just a random jock who thought he was hot shit. Hot, maybe...nope, wrong line of thought to take. Stick with the air headed brute jock idea. It would be easy enough to just avoid him for the rest of his life and selfishly hope Calla didn't date him so that it would be easier.
Brooks came to a stop next to the door and dropped his head against the wall. This was why he never drank. He said stupid things and his head was beginning to pound with a promised hangover. Why, oh why, had he taken that second round of vodka? He just wanted to go home but a) he didn't have a car, b) he had no money for a tram and most importantly c) his parents would kill him ten times over if he came home drunk or even slightly tipsy.
"Idiot," Brooks muttered, banging his forehead lightly against the wall. "Idiot, idiot, idiot..."
The front door opened and a thin shaft of warm golden light sliced across the floor. Brooks paused his with his head inches away from the wall and slowly turned it, meeting a pair of dark brown eyes. Hale stopped halfway out of the house with his hand still resting on the door handle, staring right back at him. In his moment of blank-faced horror, he idly registered that Hale had slipped on a dark leather jacket that fit him a little too well.
Holy shit, stop it, Brooks told himself.
"I, uh..." Brooks stepped away from the wall. "I can explain?"
The surprise had passed in less than a heartbeat and Hale's lips were curling up into that oh-so-familiar smirk. "No, please, it's clear to see what's happening here," he said, propping a shoulder against the doorway as he regarded Brooks. "You're experiencing some sort of mental breakdown that seems to involve killing off your brain cells."
Brooks was red all over again. "Shut up."
"Okay, okay, I'm just messing with you," Hale said with a laugh. The sound of it revived the butterflies in his stomach to a frenzied whirlwind that he tried desperately to ignore. "Want to tell me the reason you were bashing your head against the wall like a crazy person?"
Just wishing I hadn't acted like such an idiot in front of you. "Not really," he said instead, with something of a sigh. "Classified information."
He turned away before Hale could start up with the unwanted teasing again, and sank down on the steps leading down from the patio. The nice, fluffy part of being drunk was fading away and the hangover was beginning to kick in with vengeance. Brooks heard the door close and told himself he had no right to feel any disappointment that Hale had left. He should be glad he was finally being left alone.
He jumped in surprise when the step creaked in protest. "What?" Hale shrugged at Brooks' disbelieving stare. "You're not the only one trying to sober up in the cold air. I just have more experience with being subtle when I'm drunk."
"Experience?" he questioned, absently rubbing his sweaty palms against his jeans. He had absolutely no reason to get nervous. They weren't doing anything, just talking. He had to play it cool so the truth wasn't so painfully obvious. "Who says I don't have experience? I have loads of experience. Bucket loads."
Hale looked sceptical. "Really?"
"Um...no."
"Unsurprising," Hale snorted. "You clearly have the look of someone who has no clue how much liquor their body can hold. The glazed, drunk look."
"Yeah, well..." There wasn't really anything to say to that one. He clearly didn't know his limits well at all. "Shut up," he concluded lamely.
Hale chuckled and shook his head, but didn't bother rebuking his pathetic comeback. Brooks was suddenly painfully aware of their proximity, which wasn't all that much seeing as there a couple of feet between them, but still. It was closer than they'd ever been before and that was enough to set Brooks' stupid heart racing. He could tell his body that nothing was ever going to happen all he wanted, it would make no difference.
"So," Hale said, shaking him from his irrelevant thoughts, "I'm curious. What's a nerd such as yourself doing at a high school party?"
Brooks frowned. "I'm not just a nerd. I'll have you know I'm a nerd who can enjoy himself and have a good time, too."
"Really," Hale smirked, drawing the word out. "So, it's not just because you got bored of burying your nose in the books?"
"I'm curious too." Brooks folded his arms across his chest and pinned Hale with what he hoped was an intimidating look. He didn't have much expertise in this area, and judging from Hale's amused expression, it wasn't working. "What's a popular too-cool-for-school jock doing talking to the nerd at a high school party?"
"What a relief," Hale said, dark eyes glittering with mirth. "The too-cool-for-school reputation I was going for has finally reached all my fans."
"That really answered my question, thanks."
"No problem."
Something in his lighthearted, unconcerned tone bothered Brooks. His question had been entirely serious, even if Hale had been joking; what reason did he have to waste his time socialising with someone like Brooks, when anyone in that party would gladly welcome him into a conversation? This might be a joke, a dare meant to embarrass Brooks when everyone jumped out of the bushes.
"Do you even know my name?" he demanded, a little sharper than he intended to. It was the damn alcohol messing with his head again.
"Seriously? Try a harder one next time," Hale said, leaning back on his hands as he turned to frown at him. If Brooks hadn't known any better, he would have thought Hale looked almost offended. "We've been attending Lexus for nearly six years now. You're in my chemistry class. Of course I know your name, Brooks."
His skin tingled at his name rolling off Hale's tongue, smooth and perfect, and it took him another few seconds to find his voice. "Right," Brooks murmured, swallowing his guilt and irrational surge of happiness. Sure, he knew his name. It wasn't a big deal. They did share a class, after all. "Right, yeah. Sorry."
He could feel Hale's gaze on him, piercing and dark. "And do you know my name?"
"That's a stupid question," was his automatic reply.
"You don't know my name?" He sounded more amused than anything. "Well, that's not hypocritical in the slightest."
"It's a stupid question because everyone knows your name," Brooks elaborated, still staring with steadfast determination straight ahead into the night. He knew his stomach would start doing strange things if he met Hale's gaze and he preferred to keep his mind as unclouded as possible. It was already hazy enough as it was. "Hale Ryves, sports star extraordinaire of Lexus."
"It's always such a pleasure getting to meet my fans." His smirk was wide and teasing and tugging on Brooks' heartstrings just a little. "Always an ego boost."
Brooks felt the need to add, "And incredibly modest, too."
Hale laughed and Brooks involuntarily glanced at him, at the exact same moment Hale turned to look at him. The action meant they were both suddenly a lot closer than Brooks had anticipated, close enough that he could differentiate between the black of Hale's pupil and the deep rich brown of his irises. Hale clearly hadn't been expecting it either, because he went still and Brooks thought he heard his breath catch in his throat.
The front door banged open and Brooks rocked back so quickly that he fell off the step. "Oh my god, Amy!" a loud feminine voice shrieked, shattering the quiet night. "I can't believe you fucking puked all over my dress! Do you know how much this fucking cost?"
The girl Brooks presumed was Amy staggered to the edge of the wide patio and threw up over the side, giving the roses an unwanted shower. "Jesus Christ, Bianca, will you fuck off?" Amy wiped her mouth and glared at her friend. "No one gives a shit about your dress."
"You're such a little...oh," Bianca said, only then noticing Hale and Brooks. Brooks barely noticed over the wild pounding of his heart, terrified they'd be able to somehow see Brooks had just been thinking about kissing Hale Ryves. It wasn't possible. They couldn't possibly have known what just happened. "What are you doing?"
The question was directed at Brooks, who had fallen onto a flower bed in his haste to move away from Hale and was sitting on his ass among the flowers. "Sitting," he said stupidly, his cheeks on fire. "Just...sitting."
"I apologise for my friend," Hale said, smoothing the situation over with a charming smile in the girls' direction. Friend, Brooks thought with giddy stupidity. They were friends now? "He had a little too much to drink, if you get what I mean."
They fell for it just as hard as anyone else would have. Brooks couldn't even blame them. If Hale had smiled at him like that, he would have done anything in the world.
"Jeez, do I get what you mean," Amy said, running a weary hand through her hair with a half-hearted smile. "I've had a little too much myself."
"No shit," Bianca said flatly, shooting her friend a nasty look. She flipped it to a sunny smile for Hale. "I'm so sorry you had to see that. Hope it didn't ruin your evening too much."
"Bitch," Amy snapped.
"I'm the bitch? You're the one who ruined my fucking dress!"
They continued bickering as they retreated back into the house, their strident tones fading away to music as they disappeared. Brooks suddenly couldn't bring himself to look at Hale. It was like they'd never shared a conversation and Brooks was back to the invisible, awkward kid who'd never consider speaking to someone like Hale. There was also the part of him that was freaked out he'd been a little too obvious about his thoughts, and Hale was onto him now.
He finally risked a glance at Hale when the teasing and mockery didn't come. He wasn't laughing, or even slightly amused, but staring at Brooks with an indecipherable expression. It was almost confused and a stark contrast from the Hale Ryves presented to the rest of the world. Unsure what to do, with squirming insides at the intensity of his gaze, Brooks just stared back at him.
He didn't have to decide what to do. The front door banged open again, and two guys were ushered out of the house by Wendy. "Yeah, that's right, no one's doing drugs in my house," she said, flapping her hands in an aggressive shooing motion as they passed Brooks and Hale. "Get lost! And don't even think about coming back to my house."
One of the guys flipped her off. "You're a fucking prude."
"Yeah? And you're a fucking junkie, so we all know who's worse off here."
The guys grumbled under their breath but the fierceness in Wendy's glare sent them on their way. "Christ, Wendy," Hale chuckled, and just like that, he'd reverted back to his usual unbothered self. "Have you always been such a savage? Clearly you got all of those genes, and Will got none."
"Not my fault Will's about as confrontational as a limp piece of lettuce," Wendy said archly. "Speaking of my idiot brother, he needs help getting Alec out of the sink."
"Did you just say out of the sink?" Brooks said incredulously.
"Yep," Wendy said, with an almost sympathetic look at his disbelief. "You must be new around here, huh? Hale and his crew get up to all kinds of stupid shit. Alec's decided he needs to take a bath right now in the kitchen sink and Will's a stick who can't stop him."
Hale stood up and brushed off his clothes. "Oh, Alec," he said, shaking his head. "He always was a strange one. I'll be right in."
Wendy nodded and slipped back into the house.
Hale made it to the front door and had his hand on the handle before he paused, glancing over his shoulder at Brooks. "See you at school?" he said, with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Yeah," Brooks murmured. "See you."
It was another five minutes after Hale had gone inside that his pulse finally slowed down to a normal rate. He was left sitting in frozen soil among withering dying plants with a out of control house party still raging inside, wondering how his life had gotten to this point.
*
The Montgomery household was more of a mansion than a house.
He stared up at the huge building and picked out his bedroom, third window across and fourth window up, lost among the row after row of other windows built into the wall. It was a stone and brick structure that harked back to the Victorian Era, but beyond the creeping tendrils of ivy and columns that tapered off into spires, it was nothing more than an expansive space filled with dusty silence. Brooks had lived in it for seventeen years, but it had never felt like a home.
But it especially didn't feel particularly homely right now, because the curtains of one of the windows twitched and Brooks saw his mother standing there, watching him hawk eyes. She had the kind of gaze that was impossible to ignore because it pierced straight into your soul and compelled you to admit every wrongdoing you'd ever committed. Considering Brooks had broken quite a few rules last night, it wasn't a fun feeling.
The last thing he felt like dealing with was one of Amanda Montgomery's lectures. His head was pounding and his eyes still felt sticky with sleep and, basically, he felt like a piece of shit. Hassan had been kind enough to tell him this morning before he left Calla's that he looked like shit, too. He wasn't supposed to sleep at hers last night. He'd told his parents he was staying late at Calla's for an English assignment, and he'd be home for eleven.
Yeah, right. There was no way in hell he was stepping foot in his house if there was even the slightest chance he couldn't pretend to be sober.
He trudged up the stairs leading to the double doors with a sense of impeding doom and gave a rap of the knocker shaped like a golden lion head. Why a lion, Brooks didn't have a clue. There was undoubtedly some backstory regarding the Montgomery ancestry that linked back to the lion, something about nobility and power, but Brooks really couldn't give less of a shit.
The door swung open. "Brooks," Inkeri greeted him warmly, far more warmly than his own mother had ever greeted him. "Did you forget your keys again?"
"Uh, yeah," Brooks admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry?"
She chuckled, ushering him in out of the cold. "Lucky I'm always here," she said fondly, ignoring his protests as she took his bag and coat. "You would like some pancakes? I just made a fresh batch."
Brooks wasn't sure he could stomach any food right now, but nothing would have stopped him from scarfing down the pure heavenly bliss that was Inkeri's pancakes. "Yes please, I'd love some," he said with a smile. "Thanks, Inkeri."
She offered him one more crinkly-eyed smile before disappearing into the kitchen. Brooks glanced warily up at the top of the stairs as he passed them, waiting for Amanda to appear to exact her vengeance upon him. The punishment would definitely come, that was for sure. He knew the game his mother enjoyed to play. She'd leave him in suspense,  more and more on edge as time passed, before striking.
Or even worse, she'd bring his father into this.
Brooks made his way into the kitchen and immediately wished he hadn't. Lounging at the breakfast bar was his older brother Adam, scrolling through his phone, but he wasn't really the problem. Adam was condescending and acted like he owned the place with impossible arrogance, but when they weren't arguing, he just ignored Brooks. Their lack of communication made him tolerable.
Reed Bishop, his insufferable best friend, was not tolerable in the slightest.
Brooks spun on his heel and made to slink out before either of them noticed him, but then Reed called, "Oh, hey, look who made an appearance. The loser Montgomery."
It was far too early in the morning to deal with Reed, but he knew ignoring him would only result in something worse later. "Yeah, it's me," Brooks said through gritted teeth, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice as he slowly turned back around. "Surprise, surprise, I live here too. It is my house."
"Is it?" Adam said, without the slightest hint of interest, not even looking up from his phone. "Last I checked, you weren't even here last night."
"Since when did you check?"
"Ooh, has the baby finally found himself a social life?" Reed sneered. "Found a girl to trick into sleeping with him?"
Brooks blushed, for all the wrong reasons. "What are you even doing here?" he demanded, making a beeline for the fridge in order to hide his red cheeks. "You're here more often than I am, and you don't even live here. Don't you have your own family to go and harass?"
"There's just so much more to harass when you're concerned," Reed said rudely. "Pass us the orange juice."
Brooks flicked him an irritated look. "What, no please?"
"Just give me the goddamn orange juice, you tosspiece."
Reed was saved from having the entire carton of orange juice upended over his head when Amanda materialised in the doorway, wiping all the frustration Brooks was feeling away to be replaced with dread. She was painted to perfection as always, blonde hair coiffed into a polished coil at the nape of her neck and not even a single wrinkle in her pantsuit. Her eyes were the same bluish-green Brooks had inherited, but that didn't make him feel much better.
"Uh, mother," he muttered, studiously ignoring the smug smirk Reed shot him. "Good morning...I, um, didn't see - "
"Sweetheart," she said, in a simperingly sweet time that barely masked the dangerous undertones. He was in big trouble. "How about we have a little chat?"
Brooks winced. "Okay." Like he had any choice in the matter.
Her heels tapped imperiously against the marble floor as she walked back into the hallway without a backwards glance, clearly expecting Brooks to follow her. "Uh oh," Reed said mockingly, leaning across the counter and snatching the orange juice from Brooks' limp hand. "Someone's about to get a thrashing from mommy. Should have passed me the fucking juice when I asked, shouldn't you?"
"I hope you choke on it," Brooks said sourly.
Inkeri had left him a plate of delicious, buttery pancakes on the counter, and he shot them a last wistful look before dragging himself to the hallway where Amanda was waiting. She was standing with her hands clasped behind her back, and he knew he had to get the apology part out of the way.
"I'm sorry I didn't come home last night," he said, staring at his feet. "It was getting late while we were still finishing the assignment and Calla offered to let me sleep over, so I wouldn't have to get the tram when it was dark and - "
"Calla?" Amanda's painted red lips puckered as if she'd just swallowed a lemon. "Oh, dear. Is that the black girl?"
His eyes snapped up to look at her. "Yeah," he said, barely keeping the edge out of his tone. "Calla, who I've been best friends with for six years."
"We've had this discussion, sweetheart."
She used the term of endearment as if it was a insult. "Your father and I don't approve of these associations you've chosen. I understand you're confused and young, but the affiliations you make reflect badly on the Montgomery name."
"What are you trying to say?" Brooks knew exactly what she was implying, and it didn't make him feel any less nauseous. He didn't understand how a conversation that was supposed to be about him had switched to one he'd had one too many times. "That I can't be friends with Calla because she isn't, what? Rich enough? White enough?"
"Don't make this into a big deal," Amanda said, her voice cool and icy now. "You know exactly why you can't waste your time on her, or that other Muslim boy you seem so fond of. You have a status and reputation to uphold. Is it really so difficult for you to find nice, civilised friends like your brother?"
"Like Reed?" Brooks scoffed in disgust. "That's the biggest joke I've ever heard. I've never met a more pigheaded, inconsiderate person in my life. Not to mention he's - "
Brooks abruptly broke off, the word dying in his mouth and leaving a bad taste. Homophobic. That was a probably a plus in her books, right? He was a pretty white boy who hated gays. Tick, tick, tick. All the boxes ticked for an appropriate and "respectable" young man.
"Whatever," Brooks said coldly. "Forget it. Think whatever you want about my friends. I don't care."
Amanda's eyes narrowed minutely. "That attitude needs to be fixed, and until you learn to speak to me with respect, you're grounded."
For what? Defending his friends against her racist bigotry? He'd been nervous about this discussion earlier but there was nothing to worry about here. This was a topic he had no doubts about.
"You will speak to your father when he returns home," Amanda continued, succeeding in sending a chill down his spine. "Get to your room."
"Gladly."
Amanda watched him as he stormed up the stairs, his steaming pancakes forgotten in the kitchen. He wasn't hungry anymore, anyway.