{f i r e for a heart}

Charlie wasn’t going to fall for it. Not this time. Not when her nudity was at stake. “Seemed like you were pretty anxious to get naked the other day on this couch,” he pointed out as he took another sip from his whisky. If he didn’t have a stomach full of whisky, he wouldn’t have been able to be that forward with her. He was kind of thankful he was on his way to tipsy.

Liv looked over at him, doing her best to hold back the laugh she felt threatening to bubble out of her. “But did I actually get naked?” She asked with a smirk as she got up from the couch. The idea she had in her head probably wouldn’t be something she’d even consider if she didn’t have almost half a bottle of wine in her. She stood in front of him, blocking the TV, as she pulled of her sweatshirt and tossed it at him, leaving her in just a tank top. “Technically, I don’t have a shirt on right now.”

He watched her as she moved around her space. Her fingers making quick work over the keyboard of her laptop. He wasn’t surprised to see that she was still tinkering with the things. His brow was still slightly furrowed when his gaze fell squarely on hers. She seemed to be surveying him.

Tyler nodded tentatively. He knew better than anyone that one false word could be like misstepping over a barely concealed landmine. Explosive and irreversible. They were all like that he supposed, fire always dancing at the edge of a pool of gasoline. “I see. So college wasn’t able to keep you as busy as you would like?” 

This whole situation felt weird. Having her brother in a space where she thought she wouldn’t never actually see him in didn’t sit right, it almost felt like her privacy was being invaded by him just being in her kitchen. But instead of freaking out and telling him to leave, which she had most certainly done before, she decided to let him stay. For now at least. 

Liv couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his comment “All of my classes were at least three years behind where I was and it got to the point where I was doing all of my homework for the semester in just about two weeks.” She knew she didn’t owe him any sort of explanation but after the very impersonal email she did owe him something “I also just needed to get out of Boston, you of all people should understand that/”

Charlie noticed she took his glass. It made him strangely happy. He had no idea why, but he wouldn’t mind sharing all his drinks with her. He smirked when she mentioned herself in a bubble bath. “Would you be naked you know in that bath with the bubbles?” he asked as he picked up the glass and took a sip.

Liv looked at him over her shoulder, she knew exactly the type of answer he was looking for. And she wasn’t going to give it so him that easily. Reaching forward, she grabbed her glass of wine and took a sip before answering him. “No, I don’t really like being naked. Didn’t I tell you I was a never nude?”

Charlie picked up his whisky and took a long sip. “Sounds like a challenge to me Red,” he stated with his best poker face. He wasn’t gonna deny that he liked the way she looked when she was getting annoyed with him. “Could be a spaghetti bath if you play your cards right,” he added unable to hide his smile any longer.

Liv reached out and took the glass from him, taking a sip of the whisky as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “A spaghetti bath?” She questioned, an amused look on her face as she set the glass back down on the table “that sounds messy, I’d very much prefer a bath with a lot of bubbles and something chocolaty but that’s just me.”

Charlie started laughing. That was a good one. ‘Cause him being here and being him wasn’t weird already. They had this weird thing going and neither seemed to want to address it at all. Charlie wasn’t drunk enough to touch it right now. “Not as weird as me taking a bubble bath in your shower,” he disagreed with a smirk. He put his arm over the back of the couch before sliding it onto her shoulder. It felt more natural there.

Liv shifted in her seat slightly in an effort to turn her body and face him, his arm staying on her shoulder as she moved. “I swear if you go and flood my bathroom trying to turn my shower into a tub we’re gonna be in a fight and you’re gonna have to clean it up.”

Sitting underneath the warm sun on the beach was an excellent excuse to break out the cute short shorts and bikini tops whilst on a lounger. “Trust me, you’re gonna thank me, you look like a damn ghost dude.” Jude replied as she slipped out of her flip flops and pulled out her tanning oil from her back pack and sat down. “You want some, or some sun screen? I have both.” She smiled, though she was never known to burn under the sun anyway. Maybe the tops of her ears got a little red but she was never bothered enough to lather up. She squeezed the bottle down on one hand, rubbed them together and ran her hands down her tan arms. “Anyway, your computer screen must be hard on your eyes, you deserve a day off.”

As much as Liv loved the warm weather and summer in general, the sun and her weren’t really friends. Which was very obvious with just one look at her almost ghost like complexion. “Dude, if I went without sunscreen for even twenty minutes I would need to be taken to the hospital for third degree burns” She said with a laugh as she happily accepted the sunscreen and began applying it to her legs. Growing up she always assumed she was part albino or something with how see-through pale she was. “I’m glad you were able to twist my arm enough to convince me to come because I would honestly spend all day behind my laptop if I could. Hell, I’ve done it for a few weeks before.”