Page 17 of Valentine Dare

9

Prent

I woke-up in the morning,and all the bread was gone. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Brent was the last one home and most likely the last one to finish the bread. He was my brother, but also a greedy bastard too.

“Oi, you finished the bread, didn’t you?” I asked as he showed his face in the kitchen. He took me by surprise, but one thing was for sure…he was always the last one to wake-up in the morning.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s just that Jenny tasted some and then, well, we went overboard.”

“Oh, Jenny…”

He stopped scratching his head and approached me, shirtless and with his boxers nearly hanging off.

“Jenny. Why did you say her name like that? Bro, what’s going on?”

I shook my head, trying to get the idea of being attracted to her out of my mind. I hated the idea of him knowing and teasing me like crazy.

“Nothing. Just that I didn’t expect her to look like that.”

“Like what?” Brent sat on the barstool while I became tongue-tied, especially over a girl.

“She’s pretty, pleasant and, well, I didn’t expect her to be nice. That’s all. Anyway, I have to get the bus, and I can’t even make something to eat before I leave.”

“Shit Prent, don’t be such a drama queen. There’s eggs, other types of bread, cereal… If you want, I’ll make you a bacon sandwich so you can stop your whining so early in the morning.”

“It’s seven. Not the crack of dawn.”

He said nothing as he headed to the fridge and started to make bacon and eggs, his speciality - the one thing he tended to make well. The rest, well, let’s say as much time as both mom and I had spent helping Brent in the kitchen to make something else just as good, it was time lost. He wasn’t interested, and unlike Trent, he tended to prefer eating junk.

Maybe he was thinking about saving money, which he should have been doing months ago, and that was why he made the sandwich rather than eat out. Naturally, it made sense to me for him to do it, instead of wasting it all on going out and eating crap.

“I need a shower. I should have had one last night, but I was out here late talking to Jenny and before I knew it, it was well after midnight.”

I said sarcastically, “Well, you go to the same school. Not like it’s the first time you’ve spoken to her, so I’m sure you had loads to catch up on.”

He finished making the bacon, something I’d showed him to do a thousand times. Make the eggs first, and then the bacon second. He liked it dry and crispy, he said, and it always tasted better when it was cold.

“Nope. Never. Seriously, last night was the first time we’d had a conversation.”

I found it hard to believe that Brent had never spoken to her before, or at least tried. She had soft blue eyes, oval lips and dark hair. She was more than pretty, beautiful in fact, and my brother was a flirt. He’d been chasing after girls since first grade. Trent and I were late developers compared to him.

“Remember, she dated Kurt, the Rat. So, I tended to keep as far away from her as possible.”

How could I forget Kurt?

The bully, the fucking womanizer, and most of all, the piece of shit who made me feel like a dumbass because I got a basic math question wrong. We went to the same school back then, before my dyslexia was diagnosed. I hated him back then, and Brent with his temper went and gave Kurt a punch for it. It should have satisfied me seeing him squirm, but it didn’t when he said that he would get his dad to sue ours and take every penny from us.

Trent being the brainbox told Kurt that we would countersue him for emotionally damaging and bullying me. He made up some bullshit story, and as much as Kurt pretended to be smart and act as if he knew everything, he didn’t. Trent’s brains and Brent’s force, he decided to tell the teacher’s that he fell.

A therapist later and not being able to cope anymore at school, I was finally diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. I could remember what I had for breakfast when I was three but couldn’t remember what I ate only yesterday.

“Here!” Brent said as he did what he always did as a kid. Two fried eggs, and a bit of bacon in the whites and bacon in the middle of the plate to signify the nose, and at the end to make it look as if they were both smiling. It did put a smile on my face whenever he did it.

My brother wasn’t all bad, even if he did wind me up at times.

“You seen Trent?”

I laughed. “He was out of the door, when I woke up this morning. Probably out for a run, then straight to work.”

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