"And then they just got in Ruben's car and drove away," Dylan said. She rolled onto her side to face the computer she was video chatting Rebel on, "So?"
Rebel glanced up from her toenails and set the bottle of polish she was using down, "Look this is not the end of the world, you just need to work with Dallas for one class that hardly ever has big projects. You'll probably only have to meet with him on weekends once or twice the whole year and aside from freak instances like today you probably won't have to see him anymore than you already do. I mean, it's not like you have to talk to him." She chuckled at her own joke and Dylan have her an exasperated look. Rebel rolled her eyes, "Quit being such a drama queen, it's only five hours a week."
Dylan sighed dramatically, rolling back to stare at her bedroom ceiling, "I come to you for comfort and all I get is logic and reason." Rebel just made an affirmative noise and went back to painting her nails.
Dylan murmured to herself for a while about how her ceiling was too bare until her older brother crashed into her room. "Dyyylllaan," he whined, flopping dramatically on top of her.
She squealed trying to shove him off, "Obi, get off, I'm talking to Rebel."
He turned his head to the side to look at the laptop, "Hey, Reb."
"Sup, Ben."
He gave her a pleading look, "Can I have her now?"
Dylan tried to make and no signal to Rebel but her friend just replied with, "I said my piece, maybe you can talk some sense into her."
"Bye," he chirped, shutting her laptop and getting up. He then scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder and walked out of the room down the hall, "You said you'd come play in an hour three hours ago." Dylan just grumbled as her 19 year old brother dumped her on the couch next to his friends.
"Hey Linny," Ben's long time best friend, Matty said. He pulled her into a head lock and she elbowed him in the stomach. He let go, doubling over and wheezing, "That's a foul."
"Dude, you just got beat up by Ben's little sister," the other guy she didn't recognize said, clearly disappointed.
Ben laughed and chucked a controller at her, "Clearly you've never been hit by Lin."
"Sorry, we haven't met, I'm Dylan," she said, offering a smile.
"Charlie," he replied, grinning back at her.
"Right," Matt said, "Teams then?"
"Sure," Ben said, squeezing in between Matty and Dylan, "Me and Lin vs you and Charlie."
"What game is it?"
"CoD," Matty supplied as Dylan booted up her controller. Ben scrolled through maps settling on the one he knew Dylan hated, probably as a punishment for taking so long and they all went about selecting their weapons.
Dylan decided on her favorite rifle and a cute, pink, camo printed rocket launcher as well as a knife and her favorite grenades then entering the game to wait for the others to chose their guns. And people say I can never make up my mind. The others finally entered the game and the count down began. 3. 2. 1.
***
Matty threw down his controller down and flopped backwards on the couch, groaning. Next to him Dylan just smiled sweetly as Charlie laughed. "Geez Dylan, you ever considered going professional?" She chuckled a little as she reached down and stole the piece of pizza Ben was about to eat. "Brat," he grumbled, swiping another slice from the box.
Ben and Charlie had given up on teams when the pizzas arrived half an hour ago but Matty would not give up on his deluded misconception that he could beat the reigning champ. That being her. "Ok then," Charlie said, standing up, "How about a movie?"
"Sure," Dylan said tossing her controller aside as well.
Matty pouted as Charlie chose a movie from one of the shelves of DVDs. Ben got off the floor and tossed Matty off the couch and plunked down next to Dylan, who spun in her seat to put her feet in his lap, which were immediately shoved off. Charlie came back with some random action movie and stuck it in. He then sat down on Dylan's other side as Ben started the movie.
Dylan turned so she was facing Charlie so she could lean against her brother. He grunted something to the effect of get off but let her be.
They watched in silenced for around an hour before their mother yelled down the stairs that someone better answer the door or they were both grounded. Dylan rolled off the couch as Charlie piped up, "Oh, it's probably my little brother."
He got off the couch as Ben paused the movie, "Just tell him to come to wait inside so we can finish this."
Dylan shook her head as she walked to the door with Charlie in tow, "You know you could have stayed in the living room."
He shrugged, "My brother's kind of an asshole so..." He trailed off and Dylan raised an eyebrow. Ominous. The doorbell rang again and Dylan rolled her eyes and shouted, "We're coming, hold on!" Charlie gave her a 'see' look and she giggled as she opened the door. She then immediately stopped, Is that... "Ruben, dude, you don't need to ring the doorbell 15 times a minute," Charlie said, crossing his arms.
"Well, I shouldn't be standing out here for more than a minute," he snapped back, walking past them into the house.
"Hey uhh..." Dylan started but trailed off when Charlie held up a hand and gave her a 'don't bother' look.
Ruben was still complaining standing in the kitchen and still wearing his shoes, which is rude, when Ben walked in. He took one look at Ruben then looked at Dylan's part 'deer in headlights', part 'about to rip your head from your shoulders' expression and just turned around and walked out yelling, "Hurry up or we're starting without you two."
Ruben watched her brother leave before turning back to them, his eyes falling on her for the first time and he made a face like he was just noticing she was there. "Don't I know you?" he asked squinting.
"We met earlier today," she supplied but he just made a confused face, "At school.. when you came to pick up Eli, Immy, William, and Dallas..."
"Oh right, your the girl Dallas was paired up with for the science thing, umm," he snapped his fingers, trying to remember her name, "It's like Diana or Delana or umm.."
"Dylan."
"Right, Dylan Vanderson, Ms .Perfect," he said, smirking.
Charlie walked over cuffed him over the head, "Stop being such a little prick." He turned back to Dylan and gestured to the living room, "Come on, Dylan, he can just sit here and stew." Dylan just nodded and walked into the living room without looking at Ruben.
She went and sat back down and a few moments of hushed arguing later Charlie walked in and flopped down with Ruben in tow, who elected to lean on the door frame like a broody ass instead of sitting.
Ben glanced around trying to figure out the mood into the room before just raising his eyebrows and hitting play on the movie. Matty was the only one in the room not vaguely uncomfortable, happily polishing off the last of the pizzas.
They finished the movie in tense silence. Dylan occasionally glanced over at Ruben who was just glaring a hole into the back of Charlie's head. Dylan was a little confused as to how someone so nice and someone so grumpy could possibly be from the same family. They were like Thor and Loki, but at least in that situation Loki was adopted so it kinda made sense. Charlie and Ruben were clearly related, they both had the same wavy dark brown hair and bright golden-green eyes as well as Charlie only standing, at the most, 2 inches taller than Ruben. She was relatively sure Ruben would even have the same adorable dimples in his cheeks if he was even capable of smiling, which was something she was seriously beginning to doubt.
At the end of the movie, Charlie stood up and stretched, "Well, the demon in the corner is waiting so I gotta go, I'll see you tomorrow Ben and it was nice to meet you, Lin."
He flashed her a smile and Ben narrowed his eyes at him, "Dude, don't hit on my sister." Charlie rolled his eyes and Dylan elbowed her brother as Matty laughed on the ground. Ruben let out a long-suffering sigh, "Can we go, now?"
Dylan turned a sugar-sweet smile on him, "Oh, yes. You are more than welcome to get your attitude out of my house, goodbye." She then strode out of the room calling bye to Charlie as she went.
She stormed up to her room and slammed her door. Well, not slammed More like she shoved her door really hard but then made sure it closed quietly so she wouldn't bother her mom. But the sentiment was there.
She flopped down on her bed, Why does he just make me want to slap him right across his smug face? She didn't even know why she was so mad. Realistically, she knew he hadn't really done anything wrong. He was just generally grumpy, with a little bit of entitlement thrown in for flavor. But something about the way he'd called her Ms. Perfect, a term she'd never even heard anyone call her before today, it just made her want to scream.
She rolled over to stare at the ceiling, sighing. You just have to brush it off, Dylan, I'm rubber, you're glue, right?
"Ms. Perfect, huh?" She opened her eyes to find her brother standing in her doorway.
"Ugh," she reached for a pillow to put over her face, blacking everything out again. She felt her bed dip as he sat down. "You wanna talk about it?" he asked, pulling the pillow away.
"Obi," she said, sitting up with a sigh.
"Reb said that you were upset about something, I'm guessing Charlie's brother has something to do with this."
"Not until a couple of minutes ago." He raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to continue. "There's this group at school and they're like bad news and I got paired up with one of them for a class for the rest of the year."
He frowned a little, "So what's the problem?"
She flopped back down, "I know, it's not that big of a deal but they were all calling me Ms. Perfect and I just don't know what I did to them."
He sighed, "Well one of them is your partner, why don't you just ask them?"
"You and Reb are just so unhelpfully logical," she mumbled.
He shook his head and pulled on her leg, "I'll still mess them up for you if you want."
She giggled, "You haven't met them, they'd kill you."
He stuck his nose in the air, "Well, I never." She grinned at him as he sprung up and stormed out. A moment later he popped his head back in, "Seriously though, you gonna be ok, Linny?"
She nodded, "Thanks, Obi."
He smiled before pulling her door to, "Night, Linny."
Goodnight, Ben.