Chapter 5 - David

“Who are you texting at this time of night?” I asked as I saw Dane with his phone in his hand, slipping one hand down his pants.

“Do you have to ruin a man’s private time?”

I choked. “No, not when we’re supposed to be the same guy.”

Dane and his dirty little secrets. He seemed to think that I wanted to sit and watch him jerk off, as if it was my idea of fun. He didn’t have a clue. I knew my brother was a gigolo on campus; he thought he was good at keeping his secrets, but he wasn’t.

If anything, his kiss and tell was his biggest flaw. He’d kissed far too many girls that whenever Daxon or I were him, we knew the reason the girl next to us was rubbing up on our leg like a cat was because Dane had done the deed.

“You’re a fucking man-whore. It disgusts me to think we’re related.”

“You don’t think it, but know it. We are related.”

I shook my head as he stood and pointed his finger at me. I moved away; he was using the same hand that was down his pants only moments ago. I didn’t want to look at it, knowing what it’d just been used for.

“You’re the one who told me about Lisa. About her sweet hips and how she could probably ride all night long.” I hated the way he spoke about women, so vulgar as if they were only good for one thing.

Sex!

I raised an eyebrow. “What, like Fiona?”

“How did you find out?” He jumped up defensively, as if I’d touched a nerve. He wasn’t the smartest brother, especially when it came to hiding his tracks.

I wondered if Mom dropped him one too many times when he was a kid?

Which was why I had to take all his exams, because he was incapable of getting over ten percent on any exam. The school couldn’t believe that he used to score so low, and when he moved, his grades improved like overnight. Sometimes I wondered about the school system in America. As for me and my brother, we were supposedly in London with our dad. Yes, we supposedly immigrated to a country we’ve never been to, to live with a man we hardly knew. Dad worked all the time when we lived together. He missed birthday parties and every family event he could avoid attending, and we didn’t remember him when we were young, which was when Mom said he was really hands-on.

We soon discovered the real reason he was always busy. It had nothing to do with working all the time, but more to do with him fucking his secretary. Mom said she had no doubt he would dump her for a younger model in time, and he did.

Ever since Dad left, it was clear that we would not get into UCLA with a scholarship individually. Between my brains and Mom debating about us pretending to be one person, that was when we came up with this plan. No one understood why we never lived on campus. It would be too hard, and we couldn’t pretend to be one person if we did, so Mom got a job as a secretary in an office which wasn’t too far from campus. It just meant that we couldn’t invite anyone over, which suited us when we first started college, but now we’re seniors and our final year is ending. We know this will mean the end of an era. The problem was that as fun as it was pretending to be Dane in college, we needed to think about what to do next. We’re going to graduate, and our futures are not clear at all. We would have to go back to being three guys again, something we hadn’t thought about long-term, only the short-term effect of our actions.

Dane will be a professional player. Daxon still craves his musical talents to be up in lights.

Before we thought we were doing it for the good of the family, Dane would be a professional football player and we would all profit from it.

Now, it feels as if it wasn’t enough. I love classic plays, music, and everything my brothers despise. Nothing which came out of Dane’s mouth made any sense to me but meant everything to him and his football buddies. They were loud, vulgar about women, and even our own damn sex. They acted as if they were inferior because they struggled to calculate without a calculator, and played a sport.

The world was on a downward struggle with these new generations because we’d lost all values of the past.

There was no doubt about it, we would need our own identity, something we’d lost when we were too busy trying to be Dane.

He waited for a response, and when there wasn’t one, he got back on to the bed and moved to the side, and sighed as he said, “This is our last year. It’s all going to be over soon. We just need to hang in there and do what we need to do, so we can go back to having our own lives again.”

It was as if he read my mind. The idea of Dane reading anyone’s mind gave me the creeps.

“You need to get a haircut! It’s clear that we’re not the same, if you keep growing it that way,” he said as he pulled on my growing sides.

“I don’t like having short hair; why can’t you just grow it? So, you don’t look as if you’ve just been let out of prison. It would be easier.”

Dane, Dane, and Dane. Everything was about what suited him, and he didn’t think about us at all.

He shook his head. “Never bothered you before. We’ve been doing it for so long, you should be used to it. Besides, this is our final year, it’ll all end soon. I just said this, now you’re annoying me. Chill man. Take a chill pill.”

I nodded, knowing he was right. “For some reason, this year feels even longer than all the previous years, it’s as if time has gone on pause and now it’s just dragging on. Anyway, it has bothered me for a while, I just haven’t said anything till now.” I slapped his hand away as he threatened to poke me with it. He really had to stop doing that. It was annoying. He was trying to be playful, but I really wasn’t in the mood. “Daxon’s in class, right?”

I sighed as I changed the subject, knowing that my inner feelings and thoughts had to be put to the side as I checked-in with where one of us was supposed to be right now. Neither of them were good at keeping to the schedule, and most of the time I felt like the underpaid babysitter, making sure they were at the right place at the right time.

“Did someone call my name?” Daxon called as he opened the door and scratched his head. He was wearing boxers, which once again meant he’d skipped class.

“I swear, sometimes I feel as if I’m your dad rather than your brother. Daxon, it’s the final year. Just get it together. You should be in class. Why is that so difficult for you?”

He was about to say something, but I stopped him by raising my hand.

“Don’t answer the question.”

It was as if he had a rude awakening. “What, today’s Monday?”

I didn’t even bother replying.

“Yes, today’s Monday,” Dane said. “Remember, David couldn’t go to class today. He had to take Mom to work since she hurt her hand and can’t drive.”

I was the only one with a license, so I always did the taxi service and Mom had been injuring herself a lot lately. She refused to go to the doctor, like most of us did whenever we were sick or injured. Sometimes the stress of going to the doc’s and discovering a fat bill afterward wasn’t worth it. Though Mom’s job came with insurance, it didn’t stop her from panicking if it would cover everything.

“Her hand still hurting?” Dane asked.

I nodded.

We stood as if we were frozen in time. All of us were lost in our own thoughts, which was the issue with us—we may be identical, but we all had different priorities. Dane was clearly still thinking about Lisa. I was worried about Mom, and as for Daxon… well, he was on his own musical planet most of the time. Always thinking about a new song or something. He was talented; there was no doubt about that. I was crazy about math and the whole logic of it, and how it was important to the world, but my brothers didn’t get it. They called me a geek whenever I wanted to share a new discovery or a logic problem. They would dismiss me as if I were speaking a language they didn’t understand.

“You seen Lisa?” Dane asked as he broke the silence.

Daxon shook his head, not moving after I’d done and told him to get to class. I wasn’t repeating myself.

“No. I better get out of here. I’m going to be late for class,” he said as his eyes met mine.

I laughed as I watched him break out of his trance, knowing no matter what, my brother was a disaster and he would probably get there too late. He’d missed one for sure, and if he didn’t get his skates on, he’d miss another.

“I’ll take you,” I said as I grabbed the hat that I was wearing earlier and put on my shades. It was the only way to make sure he got to at least one class today. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but there was no way Daxon was going to make any classes today if he got on the bus. He rushed into our room and threw on jeans and a shirt. I glanced at Dane, who was no doubt going back to masturbating, thinking about Lisa. I had to get the fuck out of here. My brothers were really starting to drive me insane.