Work Text:
Colt Seavers is many things: an outstanding stuntman, a gifted linguist, a loyal friend, and an amazing partner to Jody.
Above all, though, he is one thing: an unbelievable pain in the neck.
That's simply a fact. After all, he's my brother, and brothers are supposed to annoy each other. Until now, though, I'd always thought I was at least safe from him at work.
I was wrong.
I'd been so excited to show my students today's experiment about sound waves creating patterns, and I'd just turned around to write the explanation on the board when I heard a fit of girls' giggling coming from the front row.
When I turn around with a frown, Maddy quickly hides her phone under the desk, and she, Maya, and Francisca look back at me with that familiar innocent "Oops, you caught us, aren't we hilarious?" expression.
I silently count to three while putting on my resigned teacher face.
"Guys, if this keeps up, I'm going to have to start saying things like, 'Would you like to share it with the rest of the class?' or 'I didn't know science was so funny.' Please don't force me to become that teacher."
The girls exchange a look, clearly trying to suppress another fit of laughter.
"Sorryyyy," Maddy says with a grin.
I raise an eyebrow in mock sternness and turn back around.
For a little while, everything goes smoothly.
Then I hear giggling and whispering behind me again.
Usually, my students are more attentive, but some days are just more difficult than others. It's the last two periods of the day, everyone's looking forward to the weekend, and it's been a long time since their last break. In my experience, they're especially giddy around this time, which is why I try to do as many experiments as possible during these lessons.
Usually, it works.
I turn back to my students and see that Maddy has her whole body turned around toward Linda behind her, whispering and giggling with her. The moment she realizes I've seen her, she whips back around and politely folds her hands in front of her.
Jeremy, from the back row, speaks up.
"Can you guys shut up and be quiet?" he says, clearly annoyed.
"You shut up," Maddy laughs, and although the comeback isn't exactly original, her two friends giggle while Jeremy rolls his eyes.
I raise my hands in a calming gesture before the situation can escalate. "Okay, let's settle down. Maddy, you leave me no other choice. Share it with the rest of the class."
Maddy rolls her eyes and groans, but I know she's only pretending. "Nohooo, please don't make me!"
"I warned you."
With mock seriousness, I tilt my head, fold my hands in front of me, and look at her beneath raised eyebrows.
She sighs. "Okaaay. Maya wants to know—"
"Maddy!" Maya blurts out in horror, turning beet red. "You started it!"
"We want to know... do you have a brother?"
I blink in confusion.
I'd expected a lot of things. This wasn't one of them.
A few students giggle, but I also notice several of them rolling their eyes.
"Seriously?" James calls from beside Jeremy. "You guys are so embarrassing. Get a grip."
I just snort. "Well, if that's all... yes, I do have a brother." I let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Phew! Thankfully that's off my chest. Let's try to focus now."
I turn to face the board again.
"Not so fast!" Julia says slyly. "What's your brother's name?"
I realize my mistake immediately.
Never answer personal questions, because nine times out of ten you'll regret it.
Laughing nervously, I gesture toward the board behind me.
"Interesting question. But an even more interesting question is why sound waves can create certain patterns. The explanation is—"
Something comes flying toward me, and I catch it.
"You caught the beanbag! Now you have to answer!" Olivia exclaims.
She's usually the reasonable one in class. This is when I realize I've lost.
I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath.
"If I tell you, do you promise you'll drop it and focus on the lesson?"
"Yes!" several voices call out at once.
"Fine. His name is Colt Seavers. No idea what you're planning to do with that information, but hopefully it was worth the sacrifice, Olivia."
I demonstratively show her as I put the knitted beanbag into my desk drawer.
She won The Beanbag Is Lava during the last lesson and the beanbag would have been her prize for the week. Well, not anymore.
At the moment, though, she still looks pretty pleased with herself. I suppose taking away her prize for the week at the end of said week is not going to leave much of an impact.
"Why does he have a different last name than you?" Rekha asks.
"Hey, did you forget?" I tap the board. "Sound waves. You promised."
"Fine," Rekha grumbles.
I turn back to the board.
At last, class can continue as normal.
Then, all of a sudden, I hear what sounds like a muffled, shocked shriek. It's not very loud, but piercing, followed immediately by an "OH MY GOD!"
I flinch, and apparently so do a few of the other students, because several of them groan in annoyance, Jeremy rolls his eyes, and practically spits out: "For god's sake, Maddy!"
The girl in question is staring at her phone with a mixture of shock and barely contained excitement.
To my great concern, however, the students who seem confused by the squeal are in the minority.
Most of the class is openly interested.
Julia, an incredibly curious, incredibly confident girl with big glasses and a permanent grin on her face, jumps out of her chair and shouts, "Whatwhatwhat?!" as she hurries over to Maddy and shamelessly peers at her phone.
Sometimes she reminds me of a cross between a caffeinated squirrel and a Labrador.
Her jaw drops and she covers her mouth with her hands for a moment, bursting out laughing.
"Nice!", she exclaims, her grin growing even wider as her eyes light up.
I spread my arms helplessly, wondering what the hell is going on, searching the other students' faces for an answer, but the initial annoyance on most of them is gradually giving way to growing curiosity.
Julia's seatmate, Farah, exclaims, "Let me see!"
I drop into the chair behind me. "Oh, don't mind me, I'm not even here," I grumble.
Farah's eyes grow just as wide as Maddy passes her phone to Maya, who then hands it to Farah.
"Oh my God... you have a twin brother?"
And that's when it finally dawns on me what I've just done.
They've found Colt's social media.
"What? Where did you find him?" Jeremy asks.
Traitor.
"On Instagram!"
Subtly, I pull out my own phone and send Colt a message.
"Set your Instagram account to private. Right now!"
Less than ten seconds later, he's read the message and replies with a single question mark.
Meanwhile, my students' voices chatter excitedly over one another.
"Yooooo!" Tommy shouts. "That's insane! Did he seriously fly through a car window?!"
"Have you seen this one? Look at the car flipping over! He's inside it," Trey says to Jeremy, who just replies "Whoa!" with widening eyes.
"He didn't actually jump off that skyscraper, did he?!" Maya asks.
"How come your brother is so cool, Mr. Grace?" Fred calls.
"Is he, like, a stuntman or something?" Rekha chimes in.
"Dude, he knows Tom Ryder! Can he get me an autograph?" Louis hoots.
"He's actually really good-looking," Farah says appreciatively, earning a chorus of shocked laughter from her friends.
"You can't just say that out loud, Farah, he looks exactly like Mr. Grace, who is standing right there!" Julia cackles.
At that point, I pull out my phone again.
"Colt, my students found your Instagram and they're in the process of starting a fanclub for you! PLEASE set your account to private or I'll never know peace again!!"
Out loud, I say, "Okay, that's enough! Guys, come on... we had a deal. This isn't cool! Hey... my hand is up!"
At last, the kids settle down. I take a deep breath and fold my hands in front of my chest.
"Alright, you had your fun, but there are boundaries we have to respect, okay? I get that none of you are in the mood for class anymore, but my private life should stay private. Let's just get through the rest of the lesson, and maybe we can do something easier next week."
I think that's a fair offer.
And my students seem to reluctantly agree.
Satisfied, I nod and turn back toward the board.
Julia ruins my plan.
"How come you're a teacher and your brother's a stuntman?" she asks, her eyes bright with fascination, wearing her usual grin. She looks like she genuinely can't wrap her head around what she's just learned.
The class laughs as I dramatically bury my face in my hands and groan.
"You guys are killing me. What did I just say?" I grumble.
"You can't just tell us you have an identical twin who literally sets himself on fire for a living and expect us to just move on!" Olivia says, sounding just as fascinated and incredulous.
"To be fair, I didn't actually tell you. Now can we please get ba—"
"Can't he come visit us here at school sometime?" Rekha asks, immediately earning enthusiastic agreement from the rest of the class.
Good Lord.
I was exaggerating when I texted Colt, but it seems my brother has actually gained himself a little fanclub.
I never should've texted him.
All I've done is feed his already oversized ego.
"If you all work properly from now on, I'll see what I can do," I say reluctantly. "Maybe he can come by toward the end of the school year, when we don't have as much material left to cover."
They'll have forgotten all about it by then anyway, I think to myself, feeling rather pleased with my plan.
The students agree with varying degrees of grumbling.
I don't know whether they can tell that I'm bluffing, but oh well. For another ten minutes, everything goes smoothly. Then Maddy suddenly lets out an excited squeal.
I close my eyes in resignation, take a deep breath, and count to ten.
By the time I'm done, Maddy has shown her phone to Maya and Francisca, who both clap their hands over their mouths and burst into loud laughter.
I have a very bad feeling when I hear my phone receive a message and see that Colt has sent me a simple:
":)"
Uh-oh.
"What is it?!" Julia calls, jumping to her feet again.
"He posted something new!" Maddy shrieks, absolutely delighted.
"Awwww!" Julia squeals. "Is that you and your brother as kids?!"
You know those true crime documentaries that talk about how unbelievable and terrible it is when siblings murder each other? It doesn't seem that unbelievable or terrible to me right now.
I make a decision and quickly send Jody a message.
Three replies from her arrive almost immediately afterward.
Several students pull out their phones again and eagerly start looking for the latest discovery on Instagram.
"There's another post!" Jeremy says. "'Throwback to the night my idiot brother got so drunk he faceplanted right in front of everyone,'" he reads aloud, finding it harder not to laugh with every word.
"How old were you?!" Farah asks.
By now, I've buried my face in my hands again. "Twenty," I say miserably.
"Damn, you used to be cool?!" Tommy asks.
“Drinking isn't cool.” Ah, why am I even still trying? I lift my head from my hands and dial Colt's number. “Go ahead, keep enjoying yourselves. I just need to step outside for a minute and yell at my brother. Excuse me. COLT!”
“Did they like the pictures?”
I can hear the grin in his voice. Or maybe it's just the fact that he can barely get a full sentence out without giggling like a little kid who's just pulled off an extraordinarily good prank.
I close the door behind me, my students' laughter following me out into the hallway.
“Yes, Colt, they liked the pictures. I'm sure you can hear them making fun of me all the way over there! Now would you please delete them?”
“What do I get out of it?”
“Are you serious? He's serious. I can't believe this.”
“I actually did you a favor by polishing up your image. I think I deserve something in return.”
I close my eyes. “What do you want?”
“When we meet up again, you pay for all my cups of coffee, then we'll call it even,” Colt says.
“No.”
“Then the pictures are staying right where they... hang on, Jody just texted me.”
I grin and wait. Normally it drives me crazy that Colt immediately drops any conversation the second Jody texts him. But this time I happily listen to the silence as Colt realizes what's happened.
“You ratted me out to Jody?!”
“Has she uploaded the video yet?” I ask. “Why don't you check out her Instagram?”
I wait. It's fascinating how diverse silence can sound. A moment ago it sounded confused. Now it sounds horrified.
Jody promised that, to "get revenge" for me, she'd immediately upload a compilation of Colt's mistakes and bloopers to her account. All nicely edited together with goofy music playing over it.
There are definite advantages to getting along so well with your sister-in-law.
“Treason,” Colt mutters. “That's treason.”
“Don't like the taste of your own medicine?”
He sighs, then lets out a pained groan.
Drama queen.
“Okay. Five cups of coffee will do. And a beer.”
“Colt.”
“Ugh, at least send me those lemon candies I like.”
Now I let out an amused snort. “You still eat those?”
“What's wrong with that?”
“They're old-people candy, Colt. And no, I'm not doing that either.”
He lets out another frustrated groan that changes into an "Okay".
“Fine! I'll delete them, alright?”
“Good.”
He's quiet for a moment before asking, “How long have you two been in cahoots together?”
“Ever since you introduced her to me, Colt. I thought you knew that.”
I picture the horrified look on his face.
“Hopefully your little prank was worth it,” I say. “I have to get back to class now.”
Without waiting for a reply, I hang up and head back into the classroom in a much better mood. My students have calmed down a bit by now and are staring at me with wide, expectant eyes.
“Did you ask him if he'd come visit our school?” Maya asks, her cheeks flushed.
"No. And now I don't want to hear another word about my brother. We still have work to—”
At that exact moment, the bell rings and the students start packing up.
“Get me an autograph, okay?” Maddy calls as she leaves the classroom.
When I'm standing alone in the classroom, I realize I'm frozen with my arms spread wide, my mouth agape and my eyes wide open, simply unable to believe that the entire lesson is already over... and that I've completely wasted it.
And who says the next lesson will be any better?
This is all Colt's fault. Someday, he is going to pay for this.
I remember that one time I visited the set and Tom Ryder flirted with me just to get under my brother's skin, and suddenly my mind fills with endless possibilities.
"I was thinking I'd come visit you during the holidays," I text Colt.
"I'd love that. Even if you are a traitor," Colt replies, and I have to suppress a devilish grin.