brooks & hale - Chapter 8: Chapter 8

"TWO CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKES, THREE slices of cheesecake and two packets of salt and vinegar crisps," Will said, rattling off the order with the accuracy of someone who'd thought this through very carefully. "Well, that's me done. What do you guys want?"
The waitress laughed like he was making a joke, and trailed off uncertainly when Will looked at her with complete seriousness. When it came to food, Will did not mess around. Hale wasn't even kidding when he said Will ate for an entire army on a daily basis, and he somehow managed to stay skinny as a stick. Maybe it was all the practises he attended that managed to shave off all the extra calories, or maybe he was just a genetic anomaly.
"Ignore him, he's a fat shit," Alec said, with a wink at the waitress. "I'll have the blueberry pancakes and your number, please."
Will mimed throwing up behind the laminated menu card, earning chuckles from Hale and Elliot, but the waitress swallowed up Alec's shitty flirting with a deep blush and fluttering eyelashes. "I'll be right up with that," she giggled, taking up their menus with a coy smile directed at Alec. "Hope I don't keep you waiting too long."
"Barf," Will said conversationally, as the waitress sashayed back into the kitchen. "Can't you try and get laid without an audience?"
Alec looked smug. "But it's so much more fun with an audience."
"The rest of us didn't even get to order," Oli sighed, with a sad look towards the kitchen. "She was too busy flirting with Alec."
It was a crisp afternoon, snow falling in fluffy white bits outside the window, and Juniper's Cafe was packed with students and adults alike hiding out from the cold weather. The place was mostly frequented by school kids from the two closest schools, Woodway and Lexus, chattering and laughing in groups or pairs around the booths with steaming mugs of the hot chocolate that the place was famous for.
Hale and his friends were packed in the usual booth tucked in the corner by the window, with a few of the seats empty. The guys had just had football practise but the girls had bailed on them, helping the school council set up for the February charity fundraiser. Dylan had ditched them in favour of staying late for extra practise with Lewisham, because unlike the rest of them, football and lacrosse were more than just pastimes for him.
"I have a bone to pick with you, Hale," Elliot said, narrowing hazel eyes at him across the table.
"Yeah?" Hale yawned into his hand and unwound the scarf from around his neck. Juniper's was heated and blissfully warm after their too long practise in the ice cold. "Hurry it up, I'd rather get it done before the food arrives."
"You totally ditched me in chemistry, and it wasn't even to chat up a cute girl," he said accusingly. Of course, Elliot would have gladly given up the seat if Hale had done it for a girl, shooting him sly looks the whole time. "It was to sit at the front with what's-his-name. No, seriously," he insisted, when Hale just rolled his eyes, "what's his name? The beer pong guy?"
"Oh, yeah, I remember him." Will ripped open a sugar packet and upended the contents onto the table, for no particular reason beyond boredom. "The one who totally destroyed Dylan and Markov in beer pong. Benji? Billy?"
"Brooks," Oli supplied.
"Yeah, that's it. Brooks," Elliot said, raising an eyebrow at Hale. "What's all that about?"
Hale pretended to be fascinated by the mess Will had made on the table, drawing a sugary smiley face with his finger as he considered how to reply. What was it about? The basic truth reduced to simplicity, that he preferred Brooks' company to Elliot's, would only piss the latter off and lead to unwanted questions. He settled with the same excuse he'd given to Brooks, a lie he'd been using so much he almost believed it.
"I'm on the verge of failing chemistry, and I need to get my grades up to get the school off my back," Hale said with a shrug. "No offence, but you're shit at chemistry, Elliot. I have a better chance of actually learning something next to Brooks."
Elliot looked annoyed. "You're shitting me. Does this mean you're sitting next to him for the rest of the year?"
Was he? "Yeah," he replied, hoping it was true.
"Fucker," Elliot grumbled, but Hale knew he'd get over it by the time their food arrived.
"Hey, that's actually not a bad idea," Will said thoughtfully, leaning back on his chair so he was balancing on a single leg. "Sit next to a nerd to copy off their homework, cheat on the tests. Then again, I'm doing fine with Bs in my classes, so who's got time for that?"
"Mate, you're Chinese," Alec said. "Isn't it hardwired into your genes to be smart?"
"Uh, isn't that racist?" Oli asked, a little uncertainly.
"Nah, just a fact of life."
"It was hardwired into Wendy's genes to be smart, actually," Will said matter-of-factly. "Those genes skipped me in the womb."
Elliot snorted. "Pretty sure that's not how it works."
"Don't question my judgement, smartass, I'm the one doing biology a level here." Will flicked a bunch of sugar packets at Elliot and grinned when he failed to swat them all away in time. "Do you even know how sexual reproduction works? It'll take more than a sex ed class in year eight to understand how the birds and the bees work."
Hale badly disguised his laugh as a cough, and Elliot jabbed an indignant finger at Will, but before he could say anything the waitress returned with their orders; or at least the half of the orders she'd stuck around to take. All of Will's food covered the majority of the space on the table, which he was too busy tucking into to notice the waitress not even subtly slip Alec a napkin with her number scribbled onto it.
The conversation had long since moved away from Brooks, but Hale thoughts were still lingering around that topic even while the others all discussed how many girls they thought they could get at the weekend. They hadn't talked much since chemistry, other than the odd exchange when they passed in the hallway, but not for lack of trying. Hale couldn't think up a good enough excuse to talk to him and beyond the occasional smile or lingering look, Brooks never tried to approach him.
Hale gazed absently out of the window at the gritted roads and icy pavements, watching people slip and skid on the snow with detached amusement. He was the kind of person who laughed when someone fell over, and there was no denying it was a hundred times funnier when they did it on frosty ground. He was watching a group of teenage girls tumble to the floor in a giggling heap when something else grabbed his attention across the road.
A couple was walking along the pavement, gloved hands clasped together and heads ducked close with the air of two people who were instinctively comfortable in one another's company, caught up in their own world without any awareness of anything going on around them. That wasn't what made Hale stare at them. He was staring because it was two guys who were holding hands and acting like a couple.
"Jeez," Alec said, following his gaze out of the window as one of the guys pulled the other closer for a quick kiss. "I don't understand why any guy would choose another dude over a girl. Dick over tits? It's just wrong."
"What do you expect?" Elliot scoffed. "They're faggots. Everything they do is queer."
It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, his friends taking the piss out of gays, but it irked Hale more than usual. "So what?" Hale demanded, feeling a rush of anger when Elliot started making gagging sounds. "It's not like it's your problem."
"Actually, it is." Elliot gestured towards his pancakes with a grimace. "How the hell am I supposed to eat with that going on outside? It's putting me off my food."
"Then don't look," Hale snapped. "Or don't eat. Either one works."
Elliot wasn't the only one who stared at him at his unexpected outburst. Hale never really cared before when they exchanged rude remarks and snide insults regarding being gay, not enough to actually say something about it. He knew his friends could be dicks but they were dicks about everything, and it was always a joke. But something about this didn't feel funny at all and left a bad taste in Hale's mouth.
"They're just messing about," Will said, his expression almost curious as he looked at Hale. His heart suddenly started beating too fast at the searching gaze, even though he hadn't done anything wrong and he had nothing to hide from Will. "It's not a big deal, right?"
"Yeah, what the hell?" Elliot irritated expression was verging on a scowl. "Since when did you give a shit about faggots?"
"I don't," Hale said, forcing himself to keep his voice calm even though he felt his hands curl into fists under the table. Elliot had a hair-trigger temper that was a fuse just waiting to be lit, and even the slightest hint of aggravation meant the argument had the potential to turn physical when he was involved. Hale was careful with his next words: "I just don't get why you have to waste your breath bitching about something you can't change."
For a painfully tense moment, no one spoke. Oli's wide eyes were darting fretfully between each of them, clearly worried about any potential conflict which he usually steered clear of. Will looked the most unbothered by the uneasy atmosphere at the table, but he was still looking at Hale, as if waiting for something. Then suddenly, Elliot laughed. Oli chuckled nervously along with him although he clearly didn't find it amusing
"Well, if that's all it is, you do have a point," he admitted, and just like that, the situation was diffused. "Queers are born bent, and we can't change that sorry fact of life. Jeez, the way you were going on, Hale, I thought you were a fag yourself."
Hale froze, his heart dropping to his stomach, but none of the others noticed. "Yeah, right," Alec laughed, clapping Hale on the shoulder. It was a friendly gesture but he had to stop himself flinching away from it. "Hale, gay? He gets with the most girls out of all of us, with the exception of my delightful self."
Hale's fingernails were digging into his palms so hard he was surprised he hadn't drawn blood. "Yeah, get off it," he said, forcing a laugh around the hollow sick feeling in his stomach. "You assholes wish I was gay, so you'd have a better chance with the woman."
And just like that, they were back to chatting as if nothing had happened, as if Hale's pulse wasn't still racing and his fingers refused to unclench. He needed to get out of here. The gay couple had disappeared from outside but he still felt sick, and sitting in Juniper's pretending everything was okay wasn't helping. "I've gotta go," he said abruptly and stood up, cutting off one of Alec's many tales of getting laid.
"What, already?" Will frowned at him. "We just got here. Hell, you haven't even eaten." He said it like it was the most atrocious thing that someone could do.
"It's fine, I'll get something at home. My mum just texted me saying I need to babysit Iz tonight," he lied, winding his scarf back around his neck. "I better get back now."
The others were satisfied with that answer, but Will still didn't look fully convinced. "But you're still coming to mine tomorrow, right?" he asked. "Wendy's been droning on and on about how much she misses you, and wishes you came round more often. Obviously, she can't shut up about you."
"I'm sure she has," Hale said, as lightly as he could with his usual smirk. "Course I'm still coming round, just for Wendy, obviously. I'll see you later."
The air was bitterly cold outside and a relief to his flushed face. He didn't pause as he strode past Juniper's, kept walking down the street with his head ducked against the chill, and only allowed himself to come to a stop as he rounded the corner. He sagged against the rough brick wall of the Chinese takeaway and tipped his head back to stare at the blank white sky, the occasional flake of snow still drifting down. He wasn't inside anymore but he still felt too stuffy, like he'd been taken apart and put together with haphazard carelessness.
He took deep breaths, in and out, watching his breath mist in white puffs in front of his face, until his chest didn't feel quite so tight. He didn't know why he felt so out of sorts. Elliot had been joking when he'd called him gay, so...why had he panicked like that? Like he'd just stumbled on a hidden truth about himself? No, that wasn't possible. He wasn't gay, he couldn't be gay - he would have known something so major about himself. He'd never considered it before, never thought about anything much beyond having to kiss girls.
He uncurled his fingers and examined his palms, half-expecting to see marks left from his nails. The faded tanned skin was untouched and unblemished. He was shaken from his thoughts by a shrill, impatient voice calling his name and he looked up with a groan when he saw the blonde figure tottering towards him in sky high heels. How she hadn't slipped and broken her neck on such unstable footwear was beyond his comprehension.
"Hale," Bellamy said again, as if he could somehow miss the high keen of her voice. She planted herself in front of him with her hands on her hips. "What are you doing skulking around the Chinese takeaway?"
"Just acting like your typical hooligan youth, planning how to rob these poor owners of their Chinese delicacies," Hale said in a monotone voice, and heaved a sigh when Bellamy's eyes widened. Before she could call the police on him and start screeching about robbery, he added, "I'm not skulking, Bellamy. I'm just standing here. It's a perfectly innocent act."
"Yeah, whatever. Like there's anything innocent about you," Bellamy sniffed, as if he was a particularly nasty smelling piece of trash. It was generally the same expression she wore when looking anyone "lesser" than her. "Anyway, I'm not talking to you out of choice. As if. Dad wants to know why you didn't come round last weekend."
Hale gritted his teeth. "For the last time, he's not your dad."
Hale always wondered what horrible thing he'd done in his past life to end up with Bellamy Moore, of all people, as a stepsister. He was only four when his parents had separated, so it hadn't really meant much to him when they both remarried. The only difference was that his father only found his second wife when Hale was thirteen, and along with Lisa came the baggage of his snotty new "sister".
"Oh, get over yourself, Hale," Bellamy said, sticking her nose in the air. "I know you're sour about sharing your dad with me, but that was, like, three years ago. You're stuck with me."
"Jesus, please don't remind me." Hale mimed blowing his brains out and smirked at the withering look she shot him. "You can tell dad that I'm not interested in suffering through a painful weekend where Lisa acts like she's interested in my life and you act like a spoilt brat. Well," Hale reconsidered, "you are a spoilt brat."
Bellamy's jaw dropped in comical shock. "Oh my god, Hale, I'm not spoilt in the slightest. I am, like, the most humble person ever," she went on, too caught up in her autobiography to notice Hale's exaggerated eye roll, "and just because I know I'm beautiful doesn't mean I'm not modest, okay? I appreciate that not everyone can have such shiny hair and it's all about the hair regime really, using the right shampoo and conditioner for your hair type so...are you even listening?"
Hale most definitely was not listening. Actually, he was wondering how one person could ramble on about their hair at such length without growing sick of their own voice.
"Are you finished?" Hale looked pointedly at his watch. "As fascinating as listening to your many wonderful characteristics, I have places to be and things to do." At this point, he'd do anything anywhere if it meant he could get away from this conversation.
"Yeah, well, I clearly have better things to do than talk to you as well," Bellamy said, with haughty condescension written all over her face. "I'm just telling you what dad said, okay? As far as I'm concerned, I'll be glad if you never come back to my house."
"Well, isn't it just great that we can agree on one thing."
Bellamy tipped her chin up and bestowed upon him one last I'm-so-much-better-than-you look before spinning around, an impressive act considering how dangerously thin her heel was, and flaunted away from him with the blonde tips of her hair swaying. Hale watched her go and shook his head in disbelief, before stuffing his hands into his pockets and making his own way home.
When he reached his street, his house was easily identifiable by the large, slightly lopsided snowman grinning at him from the front garden. The first sign of snow had sent the Ryves children running outside to reconstruct Fitzgerald, the same snowman they'd been building every winter for as long as Hale could remember. It had mainly been TJ and Tessa's doing, and he could tell they'd been adding to him from the extra accessories and decorations adorning his rounded body.
"Sup," Hale said to Fitzgerald, as he passed him on the path. Fitzgerald didn't say anything back. "Damn, you've always been chilly with me."
Hale chuckled at his own joke, and let himself into the house. The warm aroma of something delicious wafted through the air, and he could just about make out the familiar bickering of the twins over the blaring sounds of the TV. He barely had time to kick off his shoes before a golden ball of fur came careening around the corner, and launched itself at Hale.
"Hey, Maxy, I missed you too," Hale grinned, staggering back under the weight of the large golden retriever. Maxy barked loudly at his name and licked Hale's face with ferocious enthusiasm. "Have you been a good boy? Yeah? Maxy, okay, quit it with the licking, I don't need another shower. Hey, hey - "
He finally managed to push his excitable dog down and gave him one last rub on the head before heading towards the kitchen. Maxy padded after him, his shaggy tail wagging contentedly. His mum was standing with her back to the door as he slipped into the kitchen, humming a Spanish tune under her breath as she stirred something on the stove.
Hale slid his arms around her shoulders in a hug, an easy feat considering he was far taller than her, and propped his chin atop her head. "Hey, mum," he said, switching to Spanish without having to even think about it. Interactions at home were a mix-up of Spanish and English, blending seamlessly into each other during conversation. "What're you cooking?"
"Just your favourite, Picadillo," she replied, and Hale could hear the smile in her voice. It was a traditional Mexican dish he'd loved ever since he was a kid. "How was practise?"
"Okay, I guess." It was what came after practise, the unwanted discussion at Juniper's, which wasn't so great. "It'll be better when we finally get to beat the other teams in matches, and we have one next week against our rivals."
"Beat?" She sounded amused. "Aren't games about teamwork and having fun?"
Hale smirked. "Yeah, but everyone knows it's really about winning."
"Ah, Hale, you've always been so competitive," his mum chuckled, sprinkling spices into the pan. "You got that from your father."
Hale grimaced and pulled away, scanning the kitchen for something to snack on. "Please don't remind me," he groaned, reaching across the counter to grab a packet of crisps.
His mum knocked his hand away with a stern look. "Not until you've had dinner, Hale."
He pulled a face. "But - "
"Why don't you go check on Izzy?" she suggested with a sideways smile. "I've left her with the twins, but you know how they can get."
"Yeah," Hale grumbled, retreating from the kitchen. "Crazy."
In all fairness, TJ was the cause for most of the crazy. Tessa was the milder and calmer counterpart to her hyper brother, inclined to be less reckless, but they brought out the crazy in each other when they were together. It wasn't helpful that they were always together, so it was rare you'd have a quiet moment while either of them were around.
In the living room, TJ and Tessa were wrestling on the carpet for possession of the remote while Izzy was perched on the sofa, happily chewing the felt ear of her teddy bear Mr Snuggles. Maxy began yapping excitedly and started jumping around the twins, clearly thinking it was some kind of game. Izzy's eyes lit up when she saw Hale and she raised her arms in a demand to be picked up, chirping his name.
He scooped her up easily in his arms. "Hey, chiquita," he smiled, giving her silky black curls an affectionate ruffle. She giggled and tugged on his hair with chubby little fists, the soggy ears of Mr Snuggles coming too close to Hale's face for his liking. "Sorry I left you with these idiotas. I'm surprised you manage to stay in one piece."
TJ, who had managed to pin Tessa to the floor with a triumphant yell, looked up to stick his tongue out at Hale. "I don't know what you're talking about," he huffed, folding his arms across his chest. "I'm perfectly responsible and mature, Hale. Izzy could never be in safer hands."
"Yeah?" Hale smirked. "Do you even know how to make toast without burning it?"
TJ blinked. "Yeah, well...uh, that toaster is clearly faulty," he said indignantly, too busy bluffing to notice Tessa's hand creeping towards one of the scattered cushions. "In fact, I - "
The cushion clutched in Tessa's hand came up and smacked TJ in the face, knocking him back to the floor. While TJ rolled around the floor dramatically clutching his nose and whining that she'd broken it, Tessa brushed her clothes down and calmly took the fallen remote. "Ooh, Home Designs," she said brightly, hitting TJ in the face with the pillow again when he reached for the remote without even glancing at him.
Hale dropped onto the sofa and set Izzy on his lap, where she proceeded to chatter a strange blend of English, Spanish and mostly nonsense in his ear. He caught a few familiar phrases and words, his name among them, but it didn't make much sense. She talked far too fast for a two year old. TJ and Tessa were back to grappling for the remote with pillows thrown into the fray now, Maxy rolling on the floor with them.
It was just another typical day in the Ryves household and the sense of normalcy was almost enough to help him forget what happened at Juniper's.
Almost.