Back to School Party

The last thing he wanted to admit was that he could feel a lingering tingle on his skin where her lips had touched. It was stupid, Brody realized, to hang on to whatever sort of crush that had formed toward Morgan. He wasn't even sure when exactly it started but suddenly one day he realized that he liked her company as much more than just a study buddy or his best friend. He liked it when she had kissed it to celebrate a protest, or when he had ended an argument about whether or not she was pretty with a kiss. He had even found himself thinking about the last time that they had kissed, but he kept ignoring it, figuring that it was silly to dwell. But the truth was, it wasn't like he had really been going around kissing anything that moved, and between the kisses he had shared with Morgan and a situation he had once found himself in with Melanie Benson, he found himself dwelling more than he cared to admit. Brody had dismissed it as being a teenage boy and then went about his normal routine, but ever now and then it resurfaced.

Laughing at her remark, he shook his head. "You're smart, maybe you should just skip ahead if you're afraid to be without me. Besides, I wouldn't worry about having nice things said to you. There are probably plenty of guys at school who would love to say nice things to you but I've been hogging you attention for so long they haven't even had the opportunity to do so," and while part of him thought that it might be true, another part of him kind of hoped that it wasn't. He liked the idea of having Morgan to himself, as silly as it might have seemed. "Worse case scenario, I'll make Ellie do it. Or I'll call you and say nice things to you."

Ellie had been relieved when he had grabbed the third drink out of her hand. In her decision to make a hasty exit to get away from Will's anti-Brody and Morgan vibes she had thought that she might be able to manage, at least in the short walk, but she wasn't entirely convinced of it. Her fingers just didn't seem to be quite long enough to grasp three decently large cups. She grinned at Morgan after her sister had taken her first sip. "Oh, is it that bad? I just kind of eye-balled it. Whoops." Turning her attention to Everett, she gave a little half-shrug and took a sip of her own drink. For Morgan's sake, she tried to repress the face that she was compelled to make at the strength of it. In retrospect, she realized, she probably could have only made her sister's drink strong, but this had seemed like the right way to go at the time. "Something like that, I guess." Really, she wasn't sure what Will was. He was friendly enough to her, even if sometimes he seemed like he was squashing her love-matching, but at the same time she couldn't say that she hadn't thought about what it would have been like to take him up on his suggestion of a "proper homecoming". "How was your time traveling?" she asked, changing the subject.

A lot of things weren't going to be the same anymore, Brody agreed. And there was a lot that they were going to have to eventually get used to, but it still seemed like it was too early to start thinking about all of that. They still had a year to go about everything the way that they always had. And if he ended up deciding to go to school in New York, they would have even more than that. He probably would have been lying if he had said that being close to her didn't play a small factor in his sway toward staying, but he also knew that he didn't want to make any decisions without knowing for sure what he really wanted. Smirking at her, he took a long sip from his own cup, reminding himself not to let Ellie play bartender anymore. "Planning on any more firsts this year? I mean, you're well on your way to being drunk with me at a party, but is there anything else I should prepare myself for?"

Playing host to the party, in whatever small way that seemed to matter, had its drawbacks. Brody had found himself drawn into conversation with a group of not-so-close friends from school as everyone started sharing the experiences they had had over the summer and what their plans were for next fall. It seemed like all anyone seemed to be able to talk about was what schools they were going to and what programs they were going to study. He supposed that he needed to start preparing himself to be able to answer those questions because if his friends' responses were any indication, "I don't know yet" wasn't going to cut it for long. He finally was able to break away from them when they had spotted other people they had yet to catch up with. Looking around the room he was unable to catch sight of a familiar head of red hair. Seeing that Ellie was still here and still chatting with her own group of friends, Brody figured that she must have been around somewhere.

He had only made it to his bedroom to check for her when he found her. Closing the door behind him, he smiled at her. "Decided to hide away from all of our drunk classmates?" Nodding, he added, "Probably a good idea."

Brody laughed, nodding softly in agreement with her statement. "Yeah, Ellie might not have the best bartending skills." He was starting to feel a little less focused himself though he wasn't sure that it was entirely the fault of the drink. It probably had a lot more to do with the fact that she had never really been in his room like this before. Sure, she's been there hundreds of times to study but that generally consisted of them leaving the door open with his parents not far away. The two of them, alone in his room, with the door closed, and with no textbooks? That was something else entirely, and that was something that had started to make his heart race a little faster.

It didn't help that she kept stepping closer to him until he found her much closer than he would have assumed she would have been normally. "Oh? And did you come up with anything?"

Despite the fact that a large part of him had seen it coming, and in spite of the fact that her demand that he stay still had nearly caused him to laugh at her, he had stood still and let her kiss him. To Brody, it seemed like she had pulled away almost as quickly as the entire thing had begun, and he was overwhelmed by the urge to do it again. "That wasn't a real first kiss either," he argued, somehow wanting to explain to her that two people's first kiss should be something that they not only both see coming, but something that they're both fully aware that the other person wants. He closed the gap between them again, placing his hands on both sides of her face, his fingertips tangling softly in her hair. "This," he said softly, "This is a real first kiss." He brought his lips down to hers and kissed her softly, slowly deepening the kiss at her response.

Brody smirked at and nodded softly before finding her lips again. He had no idea that he was going to like kissing her as much as he did but now that they had given it an honest try, he wasn't sure that he was going to be able to stop kissing her now. This was absolutely going to make their study dates a lot more interesting. He made a mental note to see what he could do about closing the bedroom door the next time she came over to work on her math homework with him so that way he could steal a few kisses in between equations. With a hand sliding deeper into her hair, pulling her closer, he started to guide her back toward his bed. Realizing what he was inching them closer to, he stopped suddenly. "I'm sorry, we don't have to do anything else. We can just leave this right where it's at, with a kiss, and call it good."