"Hey, man!" Sam called as he slammed the door to his best friend's car behind him, "See you tomorrow."

He turned around and rested his forearms on the car window and leaned slightly into the car, "And don't forget, I want details first thing when I see you." His face was graced with that signature smirk he always got when he knew Austin was about to do something between the lines of remotely and really stupid.

"I'm gonna pull it off, you know." Austin said cockily, turning to face his friend, "So you better have the cash ready. I can think of a couple of ways to put it to good use."

"Can we go now, please?" Nicole impatiently whined from the backseat, her mouth in a frown as she paid most of her attention to her phone.

"What's got you so on edge, sweetheart?" Sam smirked at her.

"Oh, nothing," She huffed, taking her eyes off the screen for a second. "I've been looking forward to this since last week. I have a feeling he's seriously gonna do it tonight and I wanna get the whole thing on video. I have a bet of my own to win." Her eyes twinkled with emotions that were a cross between mischief and excitement, a look Austin associated with his sister.

"Great idea! Why didn't I think of that?" Sam exclaimed with sudden realization of the prospect of making this situation even more unbearable for Austin. 

"Video? What video?" Austin glanced back at his sister with surprise, "And what do you mean by a bet of your own? Who else knows about this?"

"Relax, dear brother. It's no big deal. I just thought it would be a little bit fun to earn money off of this. So I kind of told Gina, Hannah, Kelly, Claire and Max." Nicole replied, oblivious to the homicidal look Austin was sending her way.

"Why would you do that?" 

"It's ok. Hannah and Max totally think you'll pull it off, Claire and Gina think you're gonna chicken out and Kelly doesn't care. She's still mad at you." Nicole went on, not the least bit fazed by her brother's reaction .

Sam cleared his throat and stood up straight, "Ok, this looks like it's gonna take long and I have crap to do, so, bye!" 

He turned and walked away briskly.

The inside of the car remained silent as Nicky went back to her phone and Austin just sat there, staring through the windshield and pondering whether it was a good idea what he was about to do.

For one, he was not very fond of their father. What he planned to do was not a great or smart idea. He was just doing it to try and prove a silly point to his best friend, and the growing audience he had just found out about made him even more nervous.

"Is there any chance this car is gonna start moving any time this century?" His sister asked, kicking the back of the driver's seat.

"Stop kicking me!"

"I only kicked the seat. And stop whining."

With that, he pulled out onto the street and started for home.

"Getting cold feet, are we?" Nicky asked, a knowing smile painted on her face through the rearview mirror.

"Dream on," Austin said, eyes fixed on the road ahead and a small smile working its way onto his face. I can totally do this, he silently reassured himself.

Why was any of this worth it, again? At this point, he had no clue other than an unknown force inside him that was involuntarily driving him.

Sam's house was only a five minute drive from theirs and it was not long before they were pulling up into the driveway of the modern five bedroom split-level that they called home.

Austin parked the car inside the spacious garage and Nicky got out first, hurrying inside in her four inch heeled boots that Austin had no clue how she could walk so seemingly comfortable in without tripping, considering the fact that she never once took her face off her phone.

He followed her, swinging his backpack over one shoulder. Neither of his parents' cars were in sight which meant they were not home yet. That thought, at least, cheered him up some.

He swung open the door and headed straight for the stairs which led to his room which was located right next to Nicky's. As soon as he entered, he slammed the door behind him, carelessly tossed the backpack on the floor and threw himself onto his queen sized bed, his thick, long hair spreading like a dark mop over the white pillow.

He closed his eyes and tried to think of how he was going to do this without chickening out the last minute. He wasn't worried about his mother's reaction at all. Her intrinsic bohemian ways always helped predict what her reaction would be to any particular situation.

She was the happy-go-lucky type of person who took life lightly and actually knew how to take a joke. Austin thanked fuck for that because there was no way he could survive a house with two parents with character like their father's.

He was the complete opposite. A total nightmare —according to Austin—and never seemed to know how to use his mouth. Austin could practically count the number of words his father had said to him in the past year... or five.

The man had a gift with his eyes, however. Those cold, brown eyes, which Austin had inherited, always did the talking and they hardly ever had anything nice to say. They could look at you to the point where you felt like you were about to combust, as if a concave glass had been placed in the path of the sunlight and the collected rays focused on your skin.

To put it simply, Austin wasn't ready to burst into flames tonight.

He got up and made a beeline across the hall to his sister. He carelessly pushed the door without knocking. She was laying on her stomach across the bed, her computer open her bedside table. She was on a video call with Gina, from what he could see, while still typing away on her phone like she always did as if it was second nature to her.

"Don't be an uncultured baboon, learn how to knock!" She barked, turning her head slightly to glare at him.

"Why? What's there to see?" He asked casually, "Unless you were hiding a body, in which case, I can leave and come back later and pretend I don't know anything"

"If you don't get to the reason why you're here quick, it's gonna be your body I'll be busy hiding," She threatened.

"Hey, Aussy!" Gina greeted from the computer.

"Hey, Gina! I told you not to call me that."

"And somehow you think I listen to you. Why would I do that?"

"You really should, because my beloved sister here doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut sometimes and reveals quite a few skeletons in your closet when asked nicely," Austin offered her a cocky smirk.

"Nicky!" Gina gasped from the other end of the line and Nicky simply stared at the screen like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Gotta go! Bye! Love you!" She shouted dismissively at her best friend before slamming the laptop shut and sending her brother a dangerous scowl.

Austin simply shrugged and sat down beside his sister on the bed. She readjusted herself so she was sitting upright, her legs folded beneath her as she faced her brother.

"So.." She began.

"So... " He imitated, looking down on the floor.

"Austin, is this about the bet? Because, you know you can back out now. Won't cost you much."

"A hundred dollars is much. And also, I'll never hear the end of it from Sam or you!" He vented, feeling exasperated.

She let out a light, playful chuckle then said, "Yea, totally. I'll never let you forget about it. Like... ever!"

He gave a small smile that didn't reach his eyes, "I'm freaking out because of dad," he lowered his voice to just move a whisper, mostly talking to himself.

"The guy couldn't take a joke to save his life!" She replied anyway.

"You know what," Austin suddenly stood up to his full height , "I'm gonna do it. I'm not losing money 'cause of dad. He'll have to deal with it !" For all that he was so suddenly amped up and psyching himself up, on the inside, he was sweating bullets.

"Hey, if we can't lie to ourselves, who can we lie to?" Nicky encouraged her brother, knowing exactly what he was doing, and offered him a short, encouraging hug.

Despite their everyday dynamic and bather, the constant between the siblings was the fact that, when it came to what mattered, they were as close as it got. Always had each other's backs no matter what, when, where, how or why. It was where Austin was drawing his strength from for what he was about to do.