this can't be happening

The dawn slowly comes. Orange rays sneak through the crack of the black with white stars and crescent moon design. The rays slowly traveled across the green plush carpet and up the bed with the plush robin egg blue cover and blue tiger printed sheets. The orange rays ghosted over the pale tan strong legs that were lightly dusted with dark hair; up the over the sheet-cover rump, traveled up firm back where gold and electric hair scattered over.

The rays finally reached over the sleeping face of fifteen year old Rene Rayne. He groaned and wiggled under an old purple elephant printed pillow, like an unhappy puppy. Across the way on the green carpet, laid a small sleek blue cell-phone that came to life right at 7:02.

He groaned and flipped onto his back, hand covering over his eyes to keep the light. Then picked a pillow and tried to suffocate himself with it as what he dubbed the ‘Bitch’ song kept playing, signaling that it was time for school.

The song kept playing then it stopped for three minutes and resume playing. Rene sighed and sat up, yawing and rubbing the sleep crust out of his eyes. With his eyes shut, he grabbed an odd hair tie and twisted his two-toned hair up into a loose tail. He finally shut the singing phone off as he stood up from the floor bed.

Leaving the bed in a rat’s nest mess, he grabbed a pair of blue and red boxer shorts and slipped them on and headed down the stairs with a black and red cherry terrycloth robe in hand. One of the bedrooms’ doors open as he walked past it.

“OH HELL NO!” Rude, the usual quite one, shouted out as he saw his baby brother’s hand grabbing for the only bathroom on the second floor. If Rene gets it now, he and his older brother will never be ready for school.

He ran for it, reaching a hand out to grab a pale tan arm but was only a few seconds too late as he ran into the shutting door. He growled and banged on the table over and over.

“RENE! I NEEDED THE SHOWER THIS MORNING!” He shouted. It was all over when he heard the stereo that the three brothers kept in the bathroom were turned on and mixing in with the sounds of the shower running.

Another door open, the eldest Rayne brother peered out with a sleepy look on his face and his dark brown hair tussled up from sleep. A blue-green eye peeked opened to see the middle brother still in his fleece black-and-white checkered sleep pants. His longish hair tussled also from sleep but somehow it looked better on the usual so serious brother then the rest of them. The sleep pants hanged dangerously low on his narrow hips. Showing the top of a firm, tight –

Remus quickly pulled himself back in his room with a disgusted cry, slamming his door loud enough that Rude stopped banging and looked in the direction. He wondered what that was about as he, in defeat, walked back to his room. His older brother has been doing a lot of that recently.


*

Sitting at the counter, after getting the toast in the starting phase of toasting and setting up bowls and plates around the island counter in the kitchen, Ron, forty-three years old and had the women crowing after him because his closely resembling a domestic Johnny Depp with his dark but slightly graying hair, buck-tan skin and dark stunning eyes, sipped at his coffee mug and checked over the schedules for him and his boys.

All his boys were active in something. Remus was the jock of the family and already had signed up for some kind of sport throughout the year. Rude was the classic over-achiever with the clubs in Debate, Science, Math, and so forth. He even signed up for band and orchestra for the school year. He also was doing some SATs prep classes.

Then there was his artistic son. There were drama classes and club, art class and club, and Occult club for those that were into the paranormal. He expected that the girls in that club just joined because sometimes the meetings were held at his house, up in his son’s attic room. And with four handsome men, all tall, dark and handsome, it was every girl’s dream. They have the pickings of each type with him and his boys.

Only Remus and Rene escape the deep chocolate eyes, by inheriting his wife’s blue eyes with flakes of green in the older boy’s eyes. It just made the girls swoon even more.

The fan phone calls and letters and e-mails were an headache. Even more so at Christmas and birthdays. Some of the girls were heartbroken when the youngest Rayne boy started to take on severe changes in his looks. But once he stated to line his eyes with dark eyeliner and wearing clothing that showed more of his swimmer’s body, the heartbreak was over, the girls came back for him.

Ron understood why his baby boy dyed his hair and wore the skirts. The boy wanted to be more then the younger brother of the Jock and the smart-guy, like he had done when he was the younger brother of his successful brothers, the Olympian-now-lawyer and the Celebrity plastic surgeon.

Ron was the one with a failed marriage and hasn’t written anything spectacular since his short story back in college that won him a young writer’s award. Oh, yeah, Thanksgiving and Christmas at his parents’ old cabin in the mountains were just loads of fun.

Just wait till they meet with Rene’s blue hair and short skirt over jeans and glitter make-up. He was still getting hell for naming the boy a girl’s name, this coming from a man name Marion and a woman name Jordan.

He chuckled at the thought as a Rayne boy makes an appearance.

“What’s so funny, Pop?” His middle son gave him a look as he poured some orange juice into a blue plastic cup.

“Just thinking about Thanksgiving about Poppa Rayne’s Cabin, should Ren kept up with the skirts and glittering hair-clips.” He shook his head and went behind him to pull out the toast and placed them on a paper plate. It beats washing dishes later.

“Should I bring the video camera?” Rude slapped some peach jam onto a piece of toast.

“Bring the whole film crew.” Ron sighed and re-filled his coffee.

Remus came in just as the kitchen T.V was turned on for some quality Spongebob time. He chose to sit farther away from his brother, sitting at the table instead at the island with the rest of them like he has for weeks now. His father sighed and wonders if there’s something going on between his boys. This sudden choice of ignoring the quiet member of their little family was hurting the boy more then it shows on his serious face. The older man can see it in the dark eyes as they glanced at the older son as he laughed at some thing on the little TV screen


The second episode came on as the youngest Rayne man walked in. For the day he had decided to mix pirate wear with modern wear as he had donned on a navy blue with green trims pirate captain coat, a long white shirt, unbutton with a black tee with a white skull butterfly sprayed on the front. He wore a red slash around his wrist with a pyramid-studded pink leather belt over it, jeans that were tighter then anyone would like them to be with large holes slashed at the knees and black five-inched boots. He had his hair French-braided down his back with skull and butterfly clips keeping one side of his bangs back while blue bangs hanging over his right eye.

Remus was in a red t-shirt with long white shirt underneath, pale blue jeans with the raggedy ends and white and red NIKES. His dark brown hair was styled up into short spikes and a fake diamond earring glittering in both ears. He had some smudges of facial hair around his lips and chin

Rude was wearing a blue-and-white plaid collared shirt under a dark blue t-shit, slim kakis pants and one-inch heel boots. He sleeked his longish black hair back with a few strands hanging over his dark eyes. After some prodding from his brothers, he had agreed to a piercing on his right ear. There he wore a small garnet earring.

Even Ron had his ears pierced and wore two small gold hoops on the left and one on the right. Only Rene had his lip and eyebrow pierced.

And other thing that the grandparents fight over at the visits.

“All right, you three drove to school together and I’ll pick Rudy up at three for a doctor’s appointment then I’ll swing back for Parent’s Night.”

He ignored the eye-rolling by all three pairs of eyes as he handed his boys their planners, after marking down important things throughout the week.

“Pop… It’s not mandu-“The smart logical boy tried to reason before a hand went up.

“I’m meeting your teachers and find out what you three really do during the school day and you have a few hours to bribe, cover-up and beg your teachers not to tell me everything.” After about eight-teen years, he manages to set a way to deal with school stuff.

His wife the agent for Hollywood most elite before she ran off with some b-list actor never had time for the boys’ school life. So Ron, the stay-in-home husband was there for sport practice and games, spelling bees, science projects, school plays, teacher conferences. All of which had the mothers of the other children helped and took him under their wings.

He never used his handsome looks for evil. Except for that one time, he had forgotten about the pot-luck dinner for Trophy night for Remus’s pee-wee baseball team. It was almost worth it with Mrs. Garfield crooned at him about it was hard to be at home parent with three boys. Almost.

“Now, grab your bags and lunch money and get to school.” He leaned back against the island table, coffee mug in hand and shut the T.V off.

“Oh, Rene.” The youngest boy stopped with a groan at the sing-song calling of his name. “I want the doctor’s note that gets you out of gym.” He offered out his hand.

“Dad..” The boy groaned out, whining as he pulled out the crumbled up note from his pocket.

“I know that gym sucks and is stupid but you need the credit and next year, you don’t have to take it.” The older man sympathized as he pulled his baby boy into a loose embrace between father and son, putting the fake note into his grey robe pocket.

The boy sighed and patted his dad’s back before struggled to get out of the embrace. “Fine, but I’m blaming you when my clothes are soaked in the showers again.”

“You got the extra-set in your bag?” High-school boys are the second meanest species on the planet. High-school girls being the first.

The blue-eyed boy nodded and raised his dark blue gym bag. Which is used mostly to carry his drama and art supplies. His black massager bag was just big enough for some chosen notebooks and schoolbooks.

“Good lad.” The dark-eyed man smiled, and pulled the boy’s head forward to kiss at the top of it. “Please be good. Save the philosophy lectures of pre-ordained gender roles for college. I beg of you.” He hugged the boy’s head before letting go due to protests of the growing boy and the car horn outside.

“You just do your thing and I do mine. Later, papi.” The boy smiled and rushed out of the door.

Ron smiled and chuckled as he sipped his coffee and picked up the morning paper, reading the article about Bellua the town’s pig. A red beaten up looking cell phone that rested next to his elbow vibrated on the table. He picked it up, not caring who may be on the other line.

“Hello?”

“RAYNE, I NEED THAT MANUSCRIPT!”

Ron Rayne smiled nervously as his editor and partner in crime went on, saying that he needed to send the first-draft of his newest book by noon or they’re all out on their ears.

************