Chapter 2

“Do I look okay?” Brian asked, combing back the front of his hair as he leaned forwards to look in the mirror. 

“You look like you do any day. What’s the difference?” I rolled my eyes, running my hands through my damp hair to rough it up and attempt to dry it. 

Brian ignored my comment, still focusing on his hair. 

That was the major difference between us. Brian cared more about what other people thought. His hair was always combed, while mine was messy and untamed, constantly needing to be pushed back from my eyes. 

Brian was wearing jeans and a Allison Football t-shirt, while I was wearing grey sweatpants, a blue under armor, and timberlands. Not something I’d usually wear in Texas, but who knew what people wore in Michigan?

“Could you at least try and make your hair presentable?” Brian raised his eyebrows. 

I rolled my eyes, spitting out the toothpaste as I rinsed off my toothbrush. 

We were identical with the basic features, but completely different on the inside. 

“Boys! I made you breakfast!” My grandma called up the stairs. 

I let out a groan, stuffing my wallet and phone into the pockets of my sweatpants as I headed towards the hallway. 

It was Wednesday, which meant we were starting at our new school. 

Kill me now would be an appropriate expression at this time. 

“Thanks Grandma.” I said sweetly as I sat down at the kitchen table. 

“Wait for your brother, dear.” She told me as I reached for my fork. 

Brian appeared down after me, taking the seat across from me. 

“I made you both lunch, by the way.” She said, toddling over to two brown paper bags. “Just the way your daddy said you like it.” 

“Thanks Grandma.” Brian replied with a grin as we dug into our breakfast. 

I glanced at the clock. We only had about 2 minutes before we needed to leave for school. 

Brian seemed to see the exact same thing as we started shoveling down our food at a record pace. 

“See you later Grandma.” I smiled, giving her a kiss on the cheek as I pulled my bag over my shoulder. 

“We’ll be home after practice.” Brian told her as he gave her a kiss as well. 

We each grabbed our lunches as we headed out of the front door. 

“I’m driving.” I told him as he tried to grab the keys out of my hand. 

“But I-” 

“But shut up and get in the car.” I snapped, tossing my bag into the bed of the pick up. 

Brian just muttered under his breath as we got into the front seat. 

“Do you even know how to get there?” He raised his eyebrows. 

“Clearly.” I replied, turning on the radio as I pulled out of the driveway. 

“You reckon Hank’s got buddies we can hang with?” Brian asked. 

“How the hell should I know? I haven’t spoken to him since the last day he was in Texas.” I replied shortly, turning up the music to drown out my brother. 

I parked near the back of the parking lot, shocked that most of it was already filled despite the fact that school didn’t start for another 30 minutes. 

“Look how small it is.” I said, pointing towards their football field as we walked towards the doors. 

“They must not have a lot of fans.” Brian shrugged, looking at the size of their home stands. 

“This is going to be torture.” I sighed, stuffing the keys in my pocket. 

“The girls are hot though.” I added, smirking in the direction of a few nice looking things standing by a car. 

They all giggled and turned to talk to one another. 

“Cliche though.” I added under my breath, scanning the parking lot for anything that seemed to reference football. 

“Damn this is nice.” Brian said, his eyes widening as we walked in the doors. 

It led to a big open hall with a pool on the left through a bunch of windows, and a gym on the right. 

“Clearly their money goes towards renovations rather than football.” I muttered, feeling my phone buzz in my pocket. 

I didn’t look to see who it was though. The last thing I needed was to hear someone from Texas telling me that the team was already failing without us. 

“Holy crap it’s Hank.” Brian nudged my shoulder, pointing to a group of girls and guys. 

“No way.” I smirked, seeing Hank with multiple girls practically falling over him. 

“Yo Henry Travis!” I called, a grin spreading across my face as Hank looked up in shock. 

His eyes widened when he saw us, quickly detaching himself from the girls as he walked towards us. 

“Charleston! What the hell you doing here!” He exclaimed, grabbing my hand as we patted each other’s backs. 

“Oh you know, the usual.” I smirked. “Ready to win a state champ or two.” I teased, pushing his shoulder. 

“Hey man! It’s been forever!” He said to Brian, giving him the same greeting. “Ya’ll are going here now?” 

“Unfortunately so... You guys even got a football team? Heard that wide receiver dude with the funky hair sucks.” Brian laughed, raising his eyebrows at Hank. 

“Hey it’s no Allison but we’ve got ourselves some potential. You two playing for us?” 

“Hell yea! Coach picked it out specially.” I grinned. “So hey where’s the main office or something? We gotta get our schedules.” 

“Classes.” Brian grimaced. 

“Aw yea man. Straight down this super long hall past all those windows and it’s at the end on your right. Can’t miss it.” Hank said, slapping both of our shoulders. “Ey find me later, alright? And Brian, what the hell you wearing a Gator shirt in here for?” 

“Once a Gator always a Gator, man.” Brian shook his head, patting his own chest. 

“Don’t be lame.” I rolled my eyes, walking ahead of him down the hall. 

“How do you do it. Look at all these girls staring at you already.” Brian said quietly. 

“Because I don’t have a pound of grease in my hair and I don’t skip workout days, loser.” I rolled my eyes, pulling my phone out of my pocket. 

A few girls from home had texted me, but I ignored them, putting my phone away again. 

“Is like, everyone here rich or something?” I raised my eyebrows, looking around at the expensive clothing people were wearing. 

“This ain’t Allison, that’s for sure.” Brian shook his head as we approached the office. 

There was a young woman sitting behind the desk, looking tired. 

“How can I help you?” She asked, sitting up straight as we approached her. 

“Uh yea hi we’re new today. Uh, Jason and Brian Charleston. We need our schedules and stuff like that.” I said, leaning against the tall part of the desk. 

“Oh you’re the new boys on the football team, right? My husband’s the coach, he was telling me about the two of you. Two Texas State championships under your belt, huh?” She said sweetly as she typed stuff into the computer. 

“Would’ve been three if the refs knew what the hell football was.” Brian muttered, thinking of the pass that had been ruled incomplete, that was quite complete right into his hands in the end zone as the clock ran out. 

The woman handed us two pieces of papers. 

“Wait right here I’ll go print off your IDs.” She told us, standing up from the desk. 

20 minutes later we had our schedules, IDs, textbooks, and locker combinations. 

“It’s so cold what the hell.” Brian said as he dumped his books into his locker. 

“We don’t have any classes together.” I frowned, comparing our schedules. “Besides homeroom.” 

“They have homeroom here? The hell?” Brian furrowed his eyebrows, taking his schedule. 

“Twice a day?” He said. “Bullshit.” 

“Let’s go I guess.” I shrugged, turning to walk down the hallway. 

“No man I think it’s this way.” Brian said, looking at the numbers of the nearby classroom. 

“No, it’s this way.” I said, pointing the other way down the hallway. 

“No, it’s this way.” Brian replied, giving me a look. 

“Need help?” A short blonde girl asked, walking up to me. 

I smiled. “Absolutely.” I grinned. “See my brother and I are new here, and this is our first class but he thinks it’s this way and-” 

“Yea he’s right.” She smiled. “I’m Carly by the way. And that’s my homeroom as well, so I’ll show you guys where to go.” She said happily, beginning to walk in the direction Brian had been pointing. 

“Who’s so smart now, quarterback.” Brian teased. 

“Oh shut up.” I said, shoving his face away from me as we followed the cute girl down the hallway. 

“So Carly, you guys got a decent football team here?” I asked, smiling down at the short girl. 

She shrugged. “It’s alright I guess. I don’t usually go to their games.” Carly said as she walked into a room. “No one really does.” 

Brian and I exchanged looks. 

This was going to be absolute torture. 

~*~*~

“Charleston! Over here!” Hank called from another point in the cafeteria. 

I turned around quickly, scanning the crowd for him. 

He was standing up at a table, beckoning me over to him. 

“Let’s go.” Brian said, walking ahead of me towards Hank and his friends. 

“You sit with us, alright?” Hank said, reaching for two empty chairs from a nearby table. 

I found myself sitting next to Hank with Brian on my other side. 

Carly, the short girl who’d helped me find our homeroom, was sitting on the other side of Hank. 

“Oh hey Carly.” I smiled, giving her a wave. 

“Find your classes alright?” She raised her eyebrows. 

“I’m here aren’t I.” I laughed with a shrug. 

I opened up my lunch, expecting to see a ham and cheese sandwich with three protein bars, a gatorade, and protein powder to put in my gatorade. 

Instead, I was greeted with an apple and a piece of toasted bread. 

Brian was looking at his lunch with the exact same look of confusion. 

“I have a peeled orange and bread with a single piece of cheese.” Brian said, looking up at me. 

“Grandma.” I laughed, shaking my head. “Come on, there’s got to be some good stuff to buy up there.” I said, pointing towards the lunch line. 

“Nah it’s all crap. If ya’ll want actual food go to the school store. I’m sure they sell protein bars or somethin.” Hank said, shaking his head. 

I grabbed my wallet and Brian and I headed towards the school store on the opposite side of the cafeteria. 

“This is weird.” Brian said, looking around the sea of people not paying attention to us. 

“Okay it’s not like we’re going to move across the country and everyone knows who we are. After Friday, when we kick the other team’s ass, we’ll be fine.” I replied with a shrug. “If I’m throwing to you and Hank, we won’t have a problem.” 

“But I don’t see any guys big enough to be good defenders. If we don’t got size, we don’t got-” 

“Hey, we’ll be alright.” I said, grabbing a handful of protein bars. 

Brian and I practically bought all of them they had, knowing we’d get hungry and wouldn’t be able to survive on my grandma’s spectacular lunch of apples and bread. 

“You guys got a football team right?” I asked as I handed over a 20. 

The guy behind the counter nodded. “You guys new?” 

I nodded. “We’re playing on the team though.” 

He snorted. “Good luck with that. We won’t win a game this entire season.” 

“When did you guys open?” I raised my eyebrows. 

“Last Friday.” He said, handing me back my change. 

“And how’d you do?” I raised my eyebrows. 

“Shut out, 72-0.” He replied. 

I winced, that was awful. 

“The team is kind of a joke around here.” The guy shrugged. 

Brian and I exchanged looks again as we walked back to the table. 

“I think I’m gonna hitchhike back home and play for Davis again.” Brian said as we sat down at the table with our large amount of protein bars. 

“72 - 0?” I raised my eyebrows at Hank. “What the hell man.” 

“Hey! I can’t do nothing if I don’t got a QB.” Hank shrugged. “We did somewhat okay my first year but we lost all our seniors two years ago and they carried the team.” 

“We’ll change that.” Brian said confidently. 

“A team is more than just a QB and two receivers, man.” Hank shook his head. 

I glanced at Brian, doubt written all over his face.