Overprotective Brothers

*Tessa*

"You left them alone?! I specifically told you to watch them! Who knows what they were doing!" I rolled my eyes as Spencer kept freaking out at the fact I had been in the kitchen.

"Dude, I was in the other room! It's not like I went to go to a party and left them alone in the house. I could still hear them. All they did was homework."

"And how do you know that they didn't share a kiss?"

"Maybe because they are thirteen and just met?" I was getting annoyed, and fast.

"That is no reason. They could have been making out the entire time and you wouldn't have known." I huffed as he finished speaking.

"Oh, give her a break. Tessa has things to do you know. Plus, she left us in the car, so this wasn't as bad." I smacked myself in the forehead and Spencer's eyes went wide. As soon as she finished speaking, Lena realized what she said and smiled sheepishly at me. "Oops."

"YOU WHAT?!" Spencer screamed at me. I walked back to the kitchen, and Spencer was right on my heels, Lena following behind, trying to stop her brother from destroying something. "You left them, in a car, by themselves?! They could have been doing anything! They could have even had sex!" Lena gasped and smacked her brother on the back, not being able to reach his head.

"I'm thirteen!"

"There are mother's who are thirteen!"

"SHUT UP!" Spencer glared at me and Lena let out a breath.

"You are the one who left my sister in the backseat of a car with a boy."

"And you are the one who is getting on my nerves."

"Ugh! You are so annoying!"

"Yet here you are, annoying the shit out of me!" We continued arguing when I heard the door opening, shutting us both up. In walked my mom who had been working late.

"What is going on in here?" My mom asked when she walked in the kitchen. When she saw me and Spencer glaring at each other, she sighed. "Seriously?"

"He started it!" I said quickly, pointing my finger at him.

"Did not."

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Enough! You two are driving me up the wall. People can hear you from outside. And Tessa, please explain to me who you are arguing with."

"Mom, this is Spencer. Mason was getting help from Spencer's sister and she came here. Spencer," I paused to glare at him, "is having a hissy fit."

"Hey, I didn't leave Mason and my sister in the care, alone." I threw my hands up, exasperated at his childish actions.

"Okay, okay. Let's just everyone take a deep breath. Spencer, I assume you and your sister need to head home, and I need to unwind. Tell your mother I'm grateful her daughter helped out my son." Spencer nodded and left with Lena. Once they were gone, my mom raised her brows at me.

"He started it. I was responsible."

"That's not why I gave you a look. He seems like a nice kid."

"I wouldn't head straight to nice. He's annoying."

"Oh, give it time. He is probably just protective of his younger sister. Most brothers are like that, you know. Anyway, how was school?"

"It was fine. I sit next to Spencer in every class, but he just ignores me. I have to do a project with him that is due at the end of the semester, but he didn't even want to discuss it."

"Maybe he has a lot going on. I wouldn't worry about it for right now. Let's just relax for the rest of the night. I'm sure things will work out." I nodded and my mom went to go change out of her work clothes. I walked up to my room. My guitar was against the wall by my piano and there were a bunch of binders full of songs I had worked on in the past. I went up to my guitar and grabbed a binder with songs and sat at my desk on my chair. I put the music on the stand I had and began playing. I was a song I had worked on awhile ago, so I needed more of a refresher on the chords, but as I played, I began remembering everything.

I played the song peacefully and felt myself melt into the song. I always enjoyed this part of music as I would always get lost in it. When I finished the song, I looked up and saw my brother standing in the doorway. I smirked and put my guitar on the ground.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"Do you like Spencer?" I jerked my head back in confusion. What was that question about?

"No. Why would you ask that?"

"It just seemed like you do. You may have been arguing, but you kinda ignored the fact that Lena and I were in the same room as you."

"I don't like Spencer. He ignored me the whole day, so I'm good. What about you? Any feelings for Lena?" I asked, smirking.

"No. Besides, if I did, Spencer would probably have my head." I chuckled at that.

"Why were you just standing there? Why didn't you come in?" I asked him.

"You were playing. When you play your music, you tend to forget the world around you. I was just waiting for you to finish." We stood there in silence before Mason spoke again. "I miss dad. Our first day at a new school and he isn't here. Not only that, but he never texted or notified us that he knew it was our first day."

"I know it sucks, but that is just life. Dad's busy with work and he didn't know when we were gonna start school."

"It's gonna get worse though. It may be this for now, but what happens when he forgets our birthday? Or when he forgets about us and dates a new woman?" I could tell Mason was gonna cry so I went up to him and hugged my little brother.

"I know. But dad won't forget us. He was always busy. And if he dates another woman, we can support him. But trust me, dad loves you. He loves both of us and will never forget us. I mean, he did make us." Mason laughed at that. "Trust me Mason. It'll all work out for the best." I felt him nod against me since we were still hugging.

Even though I was comforting him about this, I knew I was worried too. What would happen if dad started dating someone new? What if he got married? The thought scared me. Would the woman be mean? Would she like us? What if she had kids of her own? Would we have to meet them too?

I blinked a couple times to erase the thoughts. I couldn't think about that. It hadn't happened yet and I had other things to focus on. I let go of Mason and wiped my eyes cause I could feel the tears coming.

"Are you crying?" He asked.

"Oh shut up." I said with a smile on my face, pretending to be annoyed.

"You are! Ha! I finally got you crying." I rolled my eyes and wrapped one arms around his shoulder and brought him close to me and he struggled to get out of my grip. "Let me go!" I laughed and released him. "You're crazy."

"And you're a loser who ruins moments." He rolled his eyes and left my room. I smiled and put my music stuff away. As much as a pain in the ass he was, Mason always came through. I may complain about siblings, but they were also awesome. At least sometimes they were.

*****

"Tessa, you coming to lunch?" I looked up from my locker and Rocky who had asked the question. I smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm just grabbing my lunch. Give me a sec." I put the rest of my books in my locker and took my lunch out before shutting the locker door and locking it. "Ready."

She smiled and I followed her into the cafeteria and sat at the table. A couple minutes later, Spencer and Carlos showed up holding their lunches a sat down. Spencer glared at me and I threw a grape at him from my lunch.

"What happened between you two?" Carlos asked. "I knew you were ignoring her, but I didn't realize you hated each other."

"Nothing happened. Spencer's just a little bitch." He rolled his eyes.

"You left them in the car together."

"They are thirteen. Plus they are together the whole school day."

"Who's 'they'?" Rocky asked.

"My sister and her brother." Spencer answered.

"Oh. That makes sense. Spencer has always been protective of Lena and Emma. Hurt them and your are a dead man walking." Carlos said.

"She didn't get hurt! All she did was help Mason with homework and sit in the car with him for ten minutes while I was at an interview."

"Interview for what?"

"A job. I need money."

"What job?"

"Doesn't matter. Point is, Spencer is a bitch." I purposely didn't say what job I took. Talking about my talent always made me uncomfortable. You never know what criticism you could get.

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"Okay! Who wants to hear about that beach trip we had planned?" I looked at Rocky who broke up our argument.

"What beach trip?" I asked.

"Every year, we go to the beach after the first week of school. We also go on like the weekend before the last day cause it is warm enough and we go a lot during the summer. Kind of our thing. We thought you would want to come, unless you don't wanna be around Spencer. I would completely understand that. It is very tempting to refuse when he's gonna be there." Carlos said. I laughed, but Spencer just rolled his eyes.

"It sounds fun. Would you mind if I decide to come?"

"Not at all!" Rocky said.

"I mind." Spencer countered. I threw another grape at him.

"It'll be weird having four people again. Maya used to come, but then things happened." Everyone was quiet for a minute before Rocky continued speaking. "So we will pick you up at eleven and we will probably stay there for like two or three hours and then we will get lunch. We also do a sleepover because why not?"

"Sounds fun. I'll be there."

"Awesome. You and I can get ready together and the boys can do whatever." I chuckled and felt my phone buzz. I picked it up and saw Mason had texted me. I looked at the text and it said he was gonna study with Lena again after school. I made a face and my friends noticed.

"What's wrong?" Rocky asked.

"Well, either my brother or I or both of us are gonna get yelled at by Spencer. Maybe Lena too." Spencer's eyes went wide and an angry face showed up.

"What happened?! Did they kiss? Did they do something?! What did your brother do to my baby sister?!" He started yelling. I groaned and banged my head on the table. People were beginning to look.

"Would you shut up?" I yelled. "Jeez you make it sound like my brother is a female predator."

"How do you know he isn't?"

"Cause half the time he ignores girls and hides in his room." I said with a bored face.

"Well what did that text say?" Carlos asked. I looked at Spencer with an exasperated face.

"Mason and Lena were gonna study again after school."

"Absolutely not!" He yelled, cutting me off.

"Again: shut up. I hadn't finished talking. It clearly didn't go well the first go-round, so why don't they go to your place? You obviously care so you can watch them. Or I could go too and we can work on our English project. We need to start at some point and I don't feel like cramming it in when it is finally due."

"Fine. We will go to my house, work on the project, and the kids can study. And only study. We will also watch them."

"Little hard to watch them when we are working on a project."

"We'll make do." I rolled my eyes and texted Mason back the plan. He agreed to it and I put my phone away.

This was going to be an interesting afternoon.