just dive in [reed bishop spin-off] ✔️

five

— f i v e —

"WHAT ARE YOU eating, Oli?" Lexie chirped, propping her elbows on the table and leaning so far forward that he couldn't look at his breakfast without seeing her huge green eyes staring up at him. "Can I have some? Is it nice?"

"It's just toast, Lex," Oliver sighed. "Mum asked if you wanted toast or cereal and you said cereal."

"But I don't want cereal! I want what you're having!"

"Just eat your Cheerios," Oliver said, shrugging at the chastising look his mum shot him. "What? She only wants the toast because I'm eating it, mum. I could swallow a lizard and she'd ask for one too."

Lexie wrinkled her nose. "Yuck! No I wouldn't. Lizards are gross."

"She wants to copy you because she looks up to you," his mum said, handing him a cup of tea. Oliver didn't mind coffee, but only milky and sweetened with lots of sugar. He'd pick tea over coffee any day. "It's sweet."

"Maybe," Oliver said grudgingly. "And annoying."

That earned him another chastising look. "You're her big brother, Oliver."

He sighed again and handed his last piece of toast over to Lexie. "Yay," she beamed, nibbling the edge before pushing her cereal towards Oliver. "Here, Oli. You can have mine."

"Thanks." He looked down at the soggy bowl of cereal and couldn't help smiling at the hopeful expression Lexie watched him with. He put a spoonful in his mouth to appease her. "Wow. So yummy."

Lexie looked proud. "I know!"

"So," his dad said, bustling around the kitchen as he got ready to leave for work. "How does it feel to be back at Woodway, Oliver? Looking forward to starting your second week?"

"It's...interesting," Oliver replied, which wasn't entirely untrue. "But it's still school, so I can't say I'll ever be looking forward to it."

Again, not entirely untrue. He certainly wasn't looking forward to the actual education part, with teachers and homework and lessons which dragged. But it was the first time he'd be seeing Adam and Reed since their fragile reconciliation at Juniper's.  He used the term fragile because after he hadn't spoken to either of them over the weekend and he was wondering whether anything would be different when they saw each other at school. After all, he had blocked their numbers. They'd probably have to work their way back up to that.

A loud honk from outside the house dragged Oliver's attention away from his thoughts. "Who on earth would be blasting their horn so early in the morning?" his mum wondered with a frown, peering out of the window. "It's just...oh, isn't that your friend?"

Oliver's head snapped up. "What?"

"Adam," she mused, confirming what he suspected. "Isn't that Adam?"

Oliver jumped up to join his mum by the window and sure enough, parked outside the house in a rather messy manner with half the car on the pavement, was Adam's car. He rolled down the window when he spotted Oliver and gave another sharp honk.

"Jesus," Oliver groaned. "He's going to piss off the neighbours. I'll go tell him to shut up."

His mother gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before he could bolt. "Have a good day at school!"

Oliver was already heading towards the door but Lexie beat him to it. With his half-eaten piece of toast in one hand, she jumped down from her chair and had yanked open the front door before Oliver could even think about hauling her back. Oliver groaned again, grabbing his bag off the floor and having no choice but to ditch his untouched tea to hurry after her out of the house before she could do something stupid.