Close Behind || Aaron Minyard

They finish maybe an hour later and group back up towards the glass where the bucket of balls has been refilled. Neil and Naomi had only managed to score a few more times because Kevin switched their sides again to put Neil with Aaron.

Nicky whipped his face all over his jersey and Naomi refrained from making a disgusted noise at it. "How's that?"

"It was fun," Neil said. "You guys are really good."

"Good enough," Naomi sort of agrees and sort of lies.

Aaron snorts and looks between the twins, two different levels of hostility. "Kevin would kill himself if he heard that."

Naomi flinches a little but it's mostly ignored by everyone so that's fine.

"Kevin thinks we're a waste of oxygen," Nicky says with a shrug.

"Youre certainly wasting some right now," Naomi says with a mocking grin, Neil huffs beside her.

"At least you two won't totally drag us down," Aaron says, growing more hostile at Naomi's mocking. "It'll take most of the season to get you where we need, but i see why Kevin picked you."

He speaking directly to Neil, entirely ignoring Naomi and she wants to point out how Aaron and Nicky are only here because of Andrew but she doesn't. Like sees Like, but sometimes it's not accepted.

"Speaking of..." Nicky trails away as they start walking towards the court doors. "Someone wants to get his hands on you."

True enough, Kevin is stood at the doors watching them with what's supposed to be a menacing look but he just looks constipated to Naomi. She scoffs.

"Fear for your life," Nicky keeps on sounding happy. No one is that happy. "He's not a forgiving tutor and he doesn't know how to be nice. Kevin can piss anyone off on an Exy court, up to, and including, a drugged up Andrew. Except maybe Renee, but she's not human, so."

Both of their eyes trail over to Andrew, his grin is firmly in place now and there is little of his stoicism at the edges, Naomi feels a bit bad for him.

"I thought his drugs made that impossible," Neil mumbles.

"Spring was a learning experience," Nicky says. Naomi makes herself look uninterested by taking off her gloves. "Wish you'd seen it. Andrew would've taken Kevin's head off if Kevin hadn't already thrown Andrew's racquet across the court. I can't wait to see you two handle it."

"Fantastic," Neil mutters sourly.

"Doesn't sound so bad," Naomi says with a shrug.

She feels eyes whip to hear, the cousins, because of that but Naomi doesn't look at them when they do it.

If they want to believe that the drugs are as bad as they think that isn't her problem, their opinion of their own family isn't her problem. Andrew seems to operate by doing what he needs rather than wants, and whether his methods are fully right or not doesn't bother her in the slightest.

There are cruel people, and then there's people like Andrew. Forced to be cruel, looks almost awful, but are really just an ambiguous front. Swaying on the line of surviving and fighting back.

She can respect that. If they can't, if they don't understand, Naomi doesn't care. Andrew pretends not to, she thinks maybe she cares about that part.

They make it out of the court and Kevin is somewhere else, which is a blessing, and Andrew is waiting for them. "About time. Nicky, it's so boring waiting."

"We're done now," Nicky says grabbing the whiskey from Andrew. "Abbys going to kill me when she finds out."

"Doesn't sound like my problem," Andrew says with a broad smile.