My Brother's Best Friend Ch. 04

Eventually we are brushing our teeth together. After, I watch him braid his hair loosely into one long, platinum rope for bed. Just like I do! Except mine are already in braids.

I wash my panties in his sink and hang them to dry for tomorrow. He smiles at that. Tells me I'm cute.

"Guess we did get them pretty dirty today." he winks at me.

"Yea we did." I smile, reminiscing.

"Want to sleep in one of my shirts?" he offers.

"I want to sleep naked with you." I tell him.

"O baby." he embraces me, kissing me. "You're amazing. I hoped you'd say something like that."

He pulls back his soft duvet blanket and top sheet and I slide in, him after me.

I didn't realize how tired I was. I yawn.

"Me too." he stretches, yawning. "Damn. Big day." he says sleepily.

He's spooning me again. And kissing my shoulder. I don't remember much after that moment.

I smell something delicious. I know that smell.

"Coffee." I whisper.

"Right here coffee fiend." it's Shawn, fully dressed in a blue, over size UC Berkeley hoodie and grey jogging pants. His hair is damp and his skin is glowing. He must have just come back from his run. In his hands are two giant black mugs.

"O shit! What time is it?" I sit up and scrub sleep from my eyes.

"It's real early babe. No worries you got tons of time if you still want to come with. I won't be hurt if you don't." he offers me the mug as I sit up.

I take it and thank him.

"No prob." he sits on the edge of the bed, grinning at me over his coffee.

"I'm coming. I wouldn't miss it!" I tell him excitedly, taking a sip. "Mocha?" I smile.

"Yup. Dad's got a Keurig. Not as good as your espresso though." he winks at me.

"Nothing's as good as espresso. But this is great!" I take another gulp, already feeling more awake. "You went for your run?"

"Yup got back about 5 minutes ago." he nods, taking a sip of his hot beverage.

"I promised Pat we'd go surfing later today. He texted me last night. Told me I better not ditch." he smirks. "That cool with you?"

"Of course!" I say. "I should probably get some coding done anyways. I promised the guild I'd have the site done next week."

"Guild?" he raises an eyebrow at me.

I feel my face start to burn but I force it down.

"Yea, it's one of the groups I game with. We got good enough to have a presence in a few tournaments. I'm designing our site. It's just a hobby. Nothing serious." I explain.

"You'll have to show me sometime." he reaches over and fingers one of my braids, now all messy and coming apart at the seams.

"OK but, it might bore you to death." I chuckle.

"Nothing you do bores me to death Kitten." and then he leans over and kisses me.

I'm strapped in and on Shawn's bike. Back in my dress. Braids gone, just my hair loose, past my butt and care free. Rippling from being caught up in plaits for a day. The breakfast of the rest of the fruit from our picnic and toast still lingering as I lick my lips. Shawn comes out of the house with his backpack, he almost forgot it. He shrugs it on and gets on the bike.

The gymnastics and dance studio is across town. About 8 minutes from Shawn's and directly on the way to my place. He's got special status and has his own key card to get in. The place is pitch black before he flicks on the lights.

A huge practice space illuminates. Suddenly I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. I get to watch Shawn use that incredible body of his. My own Olympics presentation. All for me!

"Find a spot to squat. Here's your coffee." Shawn hands me my triple shot caramel latte from Starbucks. I hate supporting rivals to Luna's but they are the only one that's open at 5 in the morning. He gives me a gentle kiss but I want more. I pull him into me, hungrily.

His moan as I enter his mouth with my tongue makes me giggle.

"Damn easy tiger!" he laughs, his eyes so bright and full of mischief. "Shit, maybe I'll have to take you up against the wall in the showers later." he winks at me.

"Promises promises." I smile back.

"You're so dang precious." he chucks me under the chin and marches off to change.

When he emerges he's in the shortest of shorts, dark blue, and the same University of Berkeley bright blue hoodie. Bare feet. Hot, he's so hot!

He starts off just warming up. Jogging around the entire gym, each lap increasing in speed. He does all kinds of lunges and scissor kicks as he does his laps. Then he goes backwards, which if it was anyone else would look ridiculous, but Shawn excels at backwards running like it's his second nature. Then he stands and does a myriad of stationary stretches, nothing in his body is neglected. Everything is warmed up and stretched out. He's laying down now, stretching out his legs. And then he just casually does the splits, BOTH WAYS! Like it's nothing!

I'm sipping my latte and just sighing inwardly about how lucky I am getting to watch this. And this is just the warm up!

Then he's up and jumping, as high as he can standing in one spot. Bringing his legs up as tight as he can against himself. Leaping higher and higher. Eventually he performs a series of different kicks, working out every muscle, then he moves into handsprings, then cartwheels then tucks, walking on his hands backwards, forwards, then he's standing, stretching his arms out and rolling backwards in the most elegant way I've ever seen! Just backwards roll and up and standing in one fluid motion, over and over. And then leaping forward onto his hands and flipping backwards, in more flawless one move motions. Backflips and forward flips in a succession. Two handed and one handed. Both in place and across the padded floor. He makes me dizzy.

He takes his time. Over an hour. He really gets limbered up. And I am about to find out why as he pulls out one of those insane running backflips and then flipping back to his front in one go! He moves so fast I almost can't see what he's doing. It's really incredible.

Finally, he removes his hoodie, now quite sweaty, and underneath is a tight tank top. He's ready.

I watch him cycle through the vault first. Getting his hands super dusty in chalk.

Shawn takes a breath and then sprints towards the vault, throwing himself onto the top of it he does some kind of 540 twist in the air and then lands. Back to the running start and then all over again. Over and over, sprinting towards that vault equipment and launching himself impossibly high in the air. Flying, in some kind of death defying spin and then landing. Not all his landings are perfect. Far from it. But the landings aren't really what I am here for anyways. Even though I know that makes or breaks his score in competitions. I'm here to see what that amazing body is capable of.

Next, I watch Shawn on the pommel horse, his arms look impossibly ripped as he works himself over and around that simple piece of equipment. At points doing hand stands, his legs stretched right into the splits and then swinging down impossibly fast, making me worry about that beautiful unit between his legs but he never sacks himself. Thank goodness! I cringe, wondering if it ever happened and how often.

The way he dismounts, nothing short of glorious.

After the pommel horse I watch my lover stride over to begin some floor exercises. I don't know why but I love watching him dusting his feet and hands in that white chalk. There's just something nostalgic about how I used to watch my brother and him do those motions since I could remember.

Shawn stands and takes a big breath, then he's sprinting across the padded floor and he leaps, impossibly high and spins almost stationary in the air, landing perfectly as keeps running. I clap like crazy and Shawn pauses, looks over his shoulder at me and winks. And then he's sprinting and back flipping, about 7 times in a row and then back flipping the other way and then spinning in the air and landing as he performs a tumble and another back flip and then he's on his hands, doing incredible spread leg moves like on the pommel horse but he's on the floor. If memory serves I think they are called flaires.

His form, the way he stands arms straight in between transitioning into moves, it just looks so strong and capable and perfect.

Lastly he sprints fast and then executes some kind of insane triple spin in the air lands, backflips and executes it again! Landing perfectly with his feet together and arms outstretched.

Holy shit that was beautiful!

Shawn immediately moves over to the parallel bars and dusts his hands once again. The fluid movement within which he leaps, grasps the bars flips his legs basically against his face and then up and over the bars, laying them in a splits makes me shake my head. The human body is an incredible thing when it is honed to perfection like his. It's amazing. I can't imagine being able to do the things he does. But then I remember, Shawn's been in gymnastics since he was 4. My entire lifetime!

Watching him pull out these insane one handed, upside down spins on the bars is mesmerizing. He swings from one end of the bars to exact opposite side and then seems to huck himself up far above and spin elegantly catching himself on his way down and then swinging back up and over. God I could watch this all day!

He spends a good deal of time on the bars. And I think I fall in love with him even more, just watching him. He's incredible.

Eventually he dismounts and grips his knees and breathes for a few moments. Then he's standing and walking over to me.

I've just watched Shawn roll through every piece of equipment in the practice space as smooth as silk. Every move seems effortless. It's absolutely intense what he is capable of! Every piece of equipment except my personal favourite, the rings, is covered in chalk dust.

"Having fun?" he asks, trying to dust the chalk off his hands.

I nod, vigorously, eyes wide.

"I want to get up on the rings for you baby but, there's no one here to supply the lift for me to grab them."

My face falls, O how I wanted to see him on those rings again. Shitty.

And then someone comes strolling through the doors. Shawn's old coach who trained him for the Olympics!

"Well shit. Hello Shawn! I didn't know you were back in town already!" Shawn and his coach give each other one of those from the side bro hugs.

"Hey Coach Eleany! How are you?" Shawn's beautiful smile.

"O can't complain can't complain. I see you still insist on that lions mane." Coach laughs, gesturing to Shawn's hair, ponytailed tightly at the base of his neck, thickly braided, folded twice and fastened around the entire thing with several elastic bands.

"Yea, well, you never would have allowed it when I was on the team." Shawn retorts, crossing his arms in that calm, sure way of his.

"Hell no I wouldn't have. I still don't understand how you get anything done with it." Coach is shaking his head.

"It's all what you get used to Coach." Shawn affirms, giving one nod.

Then Mr. Eleany sees me, over on the side, sipping my coffee.

"Feline? Feline Jaxton?" Coach Eleany smiles, surprised to see me here.

He remembers me! I used to come to every practice of Patrick's and Shawn's. Every single one! I wanted to be a supportive sister for Pat. He was my best friend after all. Him and Shawn.

Patrick's gotten out of the gymnastics game entirely. Preferring boards of every kind and his weight sets. He became sponsored recently even! DC, which is how I got my shoes. California surf boards, and also O'Neil.

I get up, placing my coffee down on the floor and walk over to the men.

"Hi Mr. Eleany." I smile as he leans in and gives me a hug.

After Coach Eleany releases me, Shawn comes beside me and takes my hand gently, with his, all covered in chalk.

"Shawn?" Mr. Eleany has a wry smile. "Well, it's about damn time you two!" he laughs.

"God was it that obvious?" Shawn's nervously rubbing his shoulder. Chuckling.

"Too obvious." Mr. Eleany states, smiling.

We have a good laugh at that.

"I was just about to leave but, well, you're here and Feline really wants to see me on the rings. Whaddya say Coach?"

"Let's get you up there." Coach drops his bag and they walk over to the middle of the practice space, where those rings are. High up in the air.

Shawn dusts his hands and spits on them and then dusts them some more and spits on them again. A thing I had seen him and my brother do countless times. He's swinging his arms as he approaches the rings.

Then he stands under them perfectly straight. He leaps as his coach hoists him up and he grasps the rings in both his powerful hands.

I wish I knew all the names to the moves that gymnasts use when they are on their equipment. I would sound a lot cooler when I try to describe what he does. You'd think I would, after all the years I watched Pat and Shawn, here, at practice. I suppose my mind was on other things.

Shawn's powerful body flies through the air and then is still. Upside down, and still. He draws his legs out in front of him slowly, perfectly straight, pointing his toes, showing just how powerful he really is as he drops back down and up. Down and up and around. Over and over, making me dizzy. And then he's turning and turning, holding incredible poses, in between rotations: backwards, forwards, upside down, right side up, at one point he's a blur and then upside down in that move I now know the term of, arms outstretched. The Maltese Cross. He holds it for several seconds. And from there his epic spinning dismount blows my mind!

I stand as he perfectly plants both his feet on the ground, no stumbling whatsoever, then he straightens, arms outstretched in victory.

"YEA!" I yell as Shawn punches the air triumphantly.

"Shit yea even!" Shawn shouts as I scream and clap like crazy. Even Coach Eleany's eyes are practically bulging. He gives several slow claps. And he was not prone to be an overly praise giving man.

Shawn comes over to me and hoists me up onto his shoulder.

"Like that?!" he says excitedly.

"AGAIN!" I cry.

He chuckles and lets me down from his shoulder, planting a kiss on my lips on the way down.

"That's enough excitement for you today." he announces, and then he leans in, and whispers in my ear. "We'll have to wash your panties again."

I can feel my cheeks turn fire red.

We're back on Shawn's bike and headed to my place. The sun is up now and shining. It's probably 7 in the morning when we come into the house. All is quiet. Mom and Dad like to sleep in on the weekends.

I head to the kitchen and start to prepare an epic breakfast for my Olympic medallist.

He sits on one of the stools at the island, peeling an orange and watching me fry him ham, eggs over easy, sausages and warming up some of the crepes from yesterday that were still left over. I slice 2 whole avocados onto Shawn's plate, sprinkling them with pink rock salt and lemon juice. Then I lay 4 large pieces of ham, 4 eggs over easy, and 6 breakfast sausages on the plate next to the avocado. A plate of neatly folded crepes with coconut whip cream and Mom's stewed nectarines that somehow avoided being devoured by Pat last night, I assemble on a smaller plate. In a bowl I throw fresh blueberries, raspberries and I slice up a mango and several strawberries. I slide all three dishes over to Shawn.

"You're beautiful." he says leaning his face on his palm, who's elbow is propped up on the quartz island, flecked with myka. He glances down at what I made him and then back up at me. "Thank you baby."

I stand there awkwardly and try not to look at the ground. "You're welcome." I manage to get out.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and takes a picture of what I just prepared as I'm pouring him fresh squeezed apple juice from our juicer.

I laugh. "What are you doing?"

"It's laid out so nice. I dunno. Don't you like pictures of pretty food?" he shows me a folder on his phone, they're all images of meals he's enjoyed. He uses only a couple of different filters, making all the dishes have this coherent vibe that is instantly appealing.

"These are really good Shawn. You should start a curated Instagram!" I smile.

"O yea?" he gives me a kiss on my cheek as I come over beside him. My own plate substantially smaller in portion. "This is amazing. Just what I need. Seriously, thanks so much!"

He dives in.

"Yea! Lots of people like that kind of thing. I'll show you later." I tell him as he nods at me, over a mouthful of fruit. I hear a creak and look up at the top of the stairs, Patrick starts to descend.

"I knew I smelled something good!" he smiles, coming into the kitchen.

"I made you some." I tell him, gesturing towards the crepes I gave the same treatment to as Shawn's and mine. And then the plate of meat and eggs and lastly a bowl of berries and ataulfo mango chunks. "I knew your nose would wake you up."

"You're sweet Cat. Thanks." Patrick grins. "Best sister ever."

"I was wondering what you were doing with that third meal." Shawn chuckles.

"Hey Shawn." Pat comes over and Shawn and he bump fists.

Patrick regards us for a minute, then flashes that stunning Jaxton smile, the one he inherited from Dad, before he comes over to sit on the other side of me and digs in.

After breakfast Pat and Shawn waste no time changing into board shorts. I get a sweet kiss and a hug from my lover before he heads out to the back of the seldom used carriage house where they kept their boards.

Shawn never took his home. What was the point? The beach was here. His house was built into the granite formations on the cliff wall completely opposite Cayucos Pier and Estero Bay, way into town. Close to where my dad went and climbed the rock faces on his days off.

I head upstairs and turn on my computer tower I built all myself. Top of the line. Only a few months old now. The RGB controller I got for my fans is pretty fun. I love the soft glow it gives off in the dark. My old beast still lays on the floor beside the desk. I really should turn it into a server or something.

"Hey guys." I say as I log in to Call of Duty.

"Shit, it's Black Cat! Where have you been doll?" feisty1's voice comes through first. And then a succession of my friends, all wondering where I was.

"Well it was my birthday and..." all kinds of voices shouting happy birthday to me. I won't lie, it felt really good to hear. Several ask me how old I am now.

"18." I say.

"Oooooo shit! You're just a kid!" capYurAss laughs, his voice always sounds reassuring. Fatherly. He was by far the oldest of our group. In his 50's. "Here I was thinking you were in your 20's at least."

"Nope." I chuckle. "Fooled you!" I laugh.

"Ready to frag some bitches B.C.?" Fang5 asks. Her voice always sounds so husky. Sexy. Like she smokes three packs a day but still looks 20. "You n me and cappy, triangle formation."

"You guys don't even know." I grin.

"Lock n load, ladies, lock n load." feisty1 grinds out, I can hear his chuckle.

I actually managed to get up at some point this morning, telling the guys I'll be back in 30, and washed my face, did my skin care, brushed and flossed. I combed out my crazy spiral curls, now almost grown past my ass and used leave in conditioning oils in my hair and coiled all of it in a bun on the crown of my head.

I also changed clothes: a simple Calvin Klein lightly lined, triangle bralette and matching low hipster panties in the same microfibre material. Black. Super slippery and soft. Shawn will like this.

Over the Calvin's I had on an old, faded black Skinny Puppy Too Dark Park t shirt that I had modified myself into a slashed tank top that hugged my body. I had found the shirt among Aunt Lacey's stuff that she had left behind in the house when she passed away. Turns out she was big into Industrial music in the late 80's and early 90's and spent a fair amount of time in Vancouver, B.C. Canada getting to know the members of Skinny Puppy and several other local acts from the area like Frontline Assembly. I had read her diaries countless times throughout the years, all those glossy pictures of her and her friends and bands she had seen, taped into the pages. Aunt Lacey all in black, dyed black hair spiked and backcombed to perfection, and her lips, black like tar with extravagant eyeliner wings framing her eyes. In later photos she had a little nose ring. She was so adorable.