Close Behind || Aaron Minyard

4

"He'll bother you until it is," Naomi mumbles, pushing forward towards the locker room. Andrew laughs and follows, not disagreeing at all.

They find Kevin in the locker room, Andrew trods off somewhere and Naomi ignores it in favor of staring at Kevin defiantly for a few seconds before going to the girls section, daring him to stop her.

He doesn't. She figured he wouldn't. Kevin doesn't care much about her playing, he only wants Neil. Easier for her, it keeps Neil happy and her around. Win win.

Normally after Exy she'd shower, but she can't really bring herself to fully take off all her clothes at once and remind herself exactly who she is. Naomi would rather ignore it for a little longer.

So she doesn't shower. She ties her hair back up in a bun and strips her shorts first, most of the damage in her legs is her upper thighs and that's normally covered just fine. No one would notice it unless she was practically wearing underwear.

Her chest is another beast entirely. Neil has a lot of littered scars all over the place, from being shot or stabbed or road rash. Naomi's is a bit different. There's no bullet wound. There is a road rash scar across the underside of her right arm.

She doesn't have his crossing maps worth of scars but a few very deep and very pointed ones instead. There's one at the base of her neck, where her throat could be cut deep but easy enough to keep her alive. She has a slash across her stomach, it's crossed to look like a T. Then there's the little lines that drag from her collar down to the edge of her bra from when she was tiny. None of them are really that bad and haven't hurt in years but the phantom pains of a kid screaming rings in her ears when she looks at them.

On her shoulders, on her back, she looks like a topographical map. They stop a few inches down but there's tens of them and those do hurt sometimes. The skin pulls wrong sometimes, just like the cigarette burns on her wrists from her mother.

She slams her things into her locker, angry at herself and storms out of the locker room with her tight turtle neck back in place, like a layer of armor.

When she gets out Neil and Kevin are looking at each other all weird and Naomi vaguely remembers why she hates boys. "Neil understands."

"Congratulations are in order, I suppose! Since I have none to give, I will ask Naomi to respond appropriately," Andrew grins widely at her.

"Absolutely not," She says, glaring at Kevin's baffled look. "Not my circus, not my monkey."

"He's literally your twin..."

"Neil! Hello! We meet again," Andrew cuts Kevin off and ignores them both accordingly.

"We met earlier," Neil quips easily. "If this is another trick, let it go."

"Don't be so suspicious, you saw me take my medicine. If I hadn't, I'd be keeled over somewhere by now puking from withdrawal. As it is, I might puke from the fanaticism going on."

"Agreed," Naomi muttered. She heaved a sigh and leans against the doorway of the locker room.

"Hes high," Kevin tells Neil. "He tells me when he's sober, so I always know. How'd you figure it out?"

"I would like it known, I figured it out first," Naomi said with a raised hand. Across the room Andrew raised his in a mocking air high-five, she chuckled a little.

"They're twins, but they're not the same," Neil says, ignoring how he's sounding more irritated by the second. He should check his temper. "One of them hates your Exy obsession and the other couldn't care less."

A few seconds of silence before Andrew is bursting out laughing as if nothings ever been funnier. "He's a comedian now too? An athlete and a comedian and a student. How multitalented. Some grand additions to the Fox Line. I can't wait to see what else they do. Perhaps we should throw a talent show and see what else he can do. But, later, Kevin. We're going. I need food."

She huffs as they leave and go towards the locker room, where the remaining cousins are taking far too long and she wishes they'd hurry the hell up so she could ignore everyone for five minutes.

Graciously, though, Naomi figures that going into the boys locker room isn't her place so she plops down on a couch and listens as well as she cans and memorizes the room around her.

The conversation starts fine, boring even, and Naomi is tuning it out until she hears Andrew talking excitedly. "Nicky going to be a problem?

She frowns a little at that; there's no reason for Nicky to be a problem unless he makes himself one. Naomi isn't going to pretend she thinks he's not a little bit of a pervert, that he won't make himself a problem, but he hasn't yet.

So why does Andrew feel the need to ask that? If Neil was uncomfortable with someone being so obviously into him, that's his right. He's allowed to be uncomfortable if Nicky is being creepy. That has nothing to do with him being gay it's just him being creepy.

Except, Naomi's mind wanders to an article that explained the court ordered mania. Andrew nearly killing people in the back alley of a bar where his cousin works. Nicky with injuries as well, but that had only been in one article and was ignored in all the others.

Her head whips over to the locker room at the realization. Andrew had done it for a reason and it was probably Nicky, he's making sure he doesn't have to do it again.

A few seconds later Andrew comes wandering out of the locker room with the whiskey to his lips, Kevin trailing behind him. He stops in a comical fashion as if remembering she's there. "Come on, Kitty Cat. The cars waiting."

"Got anything to say to me?" She ignores Andrew and glares at Kevin.

He scowls in return and crosses his arms over his chest, seemingly throughly annoyed at her. "Don't tell back liners how to beat you. It's just stupid."

"I told my team mate," Naomi says slowly, getting up and stalking towards Kevin with a heavy glare. "How to beat short strikers. Not me. I'm a dealer, and on his team."

"You're barely a dealer," Kevin says with a scoff.

"And you can barely play," Naomi says back easily, she leans away from him and looks at Andrew delighted smile. "If you're going to be an ass I won't play on your court."

Kevin sputters at her mocking for a few seconds before Andrew claps a little. "Kitty has claws. Let's see if she follows on her threats, it would be so much fun."

"Let's hope you don't have to find out."

"If you speak that way I won't let you on the court," Kevin cuts in.

"Fine with me," Naomi shrugs and motions for them to leave. She follows Andrew without much care. "You didn't want me here anyway."

"Little actress, Kevin, you signed a comedian and an actress," Andrew says, laughter bubbling up. "Which twin has more secret talents? Should we make it a competition?"

They reach the car and she sighs, looking over her shoulder to see how far away the others are. "I like you better without the meds."

Kevin visibly winced, like the idea of not medicated Andrew is a little scary. It makes Andrew grin even more. "You and no one else, kitty."