Familiar Faces

When Isaac finally exited his room, his mind still lost in a fog, it took him a moment to register two familiar faces on the couch in the living room.

His brother, James was laying on the couch face-up, remote in his hand as he mindlessly scrolled through Netflix's catalogue. He was bare-chested with a pair of board shorts, and from the looks of things college had done nothing to diminish his physique. James' girlfriend, Lilian, lay curled atop James' body, using his muscular frame as a mattress. She appeared to be responsible for James' lack of a shirt, as an oversized shirt wrapped around her curvy frame and draped onto her thighs.

From the angle where Isaac stood, it seemed almost as if the shirt was Lilian's only article of clothing, but before he could further investigate, his eyes found his brothers' and Isaac realised he had been caught peeking.

"Hey Isaac!", his brother exclaimed, "how's everything been man?"

"Y-yeah good", hoping James would not mention his staring, "I thought you still had exams to do? How come you're back home so soon?"

"Nah man, didn't Mom or Dad tell you? We finished all our assessment a week ago, only people at college doing exams right now are the STEM nerds. We got back yesterday morning, I would've said hi to you last night but Mom said to leave you alone so you could study. Lilian and I are gonna camp here on the couch until college starts back up in a couple weeks."

Isaac silently thanked the heavens that being known as the family nerd had finally paid off; his parents had inadvertently prevented his brother from finding him **** in an office chair with his pants covered in semen.

"Yeah... I've been studying hard; I've got this maths exam next Thursday. I'm gonna study in the library with Emma."

"That's that girl you like, right?"

"Yeah, yeah she is. Actually, she's my girlfriend now."

"Nice man! Hey, if you want, I can drop you off and pick you up today, I'm not doing anything."

And just like that, Isaac ended up going to school with James driving. They stopped at MacDonald's on the way, and there they chatted in the parking lot as they munched through some McMuffins. Isaac had forgotten how good it was to have a brother to talk to.

School was much of the same, although made somewhat more boring by Mike's absence -- he had called in sick with the flu. At lunch, he bumped, literally, into a smirking Owen.

"Watch where you're going, dumbass.", In all honestly, he'd had enough of Owen over the past few weeks. With him and Trent constantly lusting over Emma in the most graceless manners possible, the usual DnD sessions were becoming increasingly difficult. Unfortunately, his entire campaign revolved around having four players currently, but the second they finished it he was never going to let Owen into the sessions again.

He was expecting a retort, but instead Owen kept walking down the corridor, a sly smile plastered onto his punchable face.