Third Time's The Charm (Brax.)

[Jalen August]

Jalen had a small pile of papers in the passenger seat next to her as she made her way to the University of Vermont. Some good tunes were playing from her speakers, and she was enjoying life as much as she could. Things were strange, and it felt like she was in an in between stage. She didn't necessarily need a boy in her life, but life certainly was lonely without one. She just couldn't make up her mind about who she wanted to date, and she didn't want to keep hurting people who were interested in her.

Turning her little red Yaris into the Visitor parking lot, the blonde gathered all of her papers, took one last look in the rear view mirror to make sure her eyeliner hadn't smudged, and trudged out into the cold, more than happy to reach the main office. She was wearing a sweater and a jacket to give some warmth to her body, but that didn't seem to be helping much. The secretary that took her application papers said there was a little coffee shop on campus if she needed to warm up, and Jalen headed that way as soon as everything was signed.

Classes must have just ended here, because the line up was long, but the blonde didn't mind. She had some time to kill, and waiting for a good cup of hot chocolate seemed worth it at this point. Jalen wasn't ready to brave the chilly air once more. She unzipped her black coat and grey sweater to reveal a pretty blue blouse underneath. She was digging around in the inside pockets for her wallet, and once she had that in hand, she moved up in line, not noticing the stray paper that had fallen out of her pocket and onto the floor.

It was then that she felt eyes on the back of her neck, like someone was watching her. Jay turned for a moment, her dark eyes falling on a pair that were none too familiar. Oh great she thought to herself, looking back at the menu, as though trying to decide what to order. Maybe Braxton hadn't seen her... One could only hope.

[Braxton Carson]

Braxton was in the middle of retelling the story of he tag-teamed the cheerleaders' captain's best friend last week along with her boyfriend last week, when a fellow K-Sig brother made Brax aware of a blonde in the cafeteria line. It was a ritual for them now. Whenever a new hot prey fell into their view, they all stopped what they were doing to give a careful and descriptive analysis of the target, which would end in a very objective "hotness grade" from zero to ten. It was a tradition among his brothers that Brax had happily accepted and encouraged, specially if said target was blonde, as in this case.

They had to be, very seriously, discussing and criticizing her for a couple of minutes before Braxton realized he actually knew her. Telling his boys he was going to go and talk to her, Brax stood up and walked up to her and motioned a thumbs up back to his brothers before she noticed he was behind her.

"Hey Jale." He said as she gave him his back. "What brings such a pretty girls to my domains?" Insert half-smile. "You didn't brought your nosy bodyguard today did you?"

[Jalen August]

He was talking to her now, and Jalen died a little bit inside. "Really? I had no idea you owned the school!" She said, pulling off the part of ditzy blonde quite well. "No, no bodyguard today, just me myself and I, dropping off some application papers," she said. It was her turn to order, and she had no problem ignoring Brax to give the barista her drink order. A simple coffee with cream and sugar would suffice, and it strangely reminded her of the first time she even ran into Brax at high school.

She went to the seperate counter to wait for her drink, Braxton of course, following not too close behind. Feeling more eyes on her, she glanced over at a group of similar looking guys, who kept glancing at her and then talking amongst themselves, and she raised an eyebrow. "Those guys remind me of high school girls," she said cleverly, her dark eyes meeting with Braxton's. She didn't really like this guy, but he didn't seem to get the hint, so she would play it cool, and maybe play dirty if she needed to.

She took her coffee and sipped at it, her brown eyes looking over at him over the white cup. She could hear everything those guys were saying about her, and while most of the things said weren't very polite, at least as was a definite ten out of ten. "You know those guys?" She asked him, looking back at the gaggle of 'girls'.

[Braxton Carson]

"Of course I own it." Braxton said with overconfidence. "Everything you see," He motioned at the whole cafeteria with his right hand. "and beyond, it's only mine." He smiled before, not subtly at all, checking her out once again. "Don't worry, I'm not selfish, I can share." Wink, wink, half-smile. "What's mine's yours."

Thank god she was alone. Not like he was afraid of fighting some puny Hammel kid, of course not, specially with all his brothers' support a couple of meters away, he just wasn't really in the mood for violent confrontation. Some days you want to punch people, some days you don't. Easy, no? Hopefully Jalen wouldn't go all black canary on him this time. She can't, right? It's against Hammel laws to use powers in public. Brax was relieved of not falling to the ground like a little girl because his ears hurt again in front of the whole cafeteria.

"Don't mind them, then." Braxton followed Jalen while ignoring which guys she was referring to initially. After she continued talking about them, however, he couldn't help but notice it was his friends she was talking about. "Oh, them? Oh, please. They are K-Sig. We are K-Sig." Braxton made an attempt of a proud face before continuing. "If you're planning on coming here, you should be learning this things already. K-Sig rules on campus baby, you don't know the advantages of having friends there." He took a step closer towards the blonde, making sure their bodies were about an inch apart at least for just a second, while staring at her eyes. "Or friend. Or more than friend. I'm a top gun there, you can't be in UVM and have me on your badside. It'd be your grave."

[Jalen August]

“Wow how generous of you,” Jalen said with a roll of her eyes, but she was still smiling – that should be good news to the older boy. He was being a complete big shot about nothing, and even if he did own the University, which he didn’t, it was nothing spectacular. He would probably be better of pretending he had a nice car, that would earn him more brownie points with the blonde.

The girl cocked an eyebrow upwards, “I don’t really care about you and your club,” she stared at him with a smirk on her face, mere inches from his, “and as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t any way I can be on your bad side, I’m pretty sure I make you weak in the knees.” Okay, she was milking this, but it was funny, throwing his stupid lines back at him. “Surely with all the women you get around here,” Jalen was being generous, “I’ll just become another face in the crowd.”

Her dark eyes spotted one of the guy’s from Kellogg’s, or whatever Braxton’s group was called, get up and pick up a piece of notebook paper off the floor, and Jalen felt her face flush. He read it over, laughed, and then brought it back to the group and that’s when Jalen sidestepped Brax, approaching the group. “That would be mine,” she said, snatching the paper away which had fallen while she was in line. Evidently it had only been a childish ploy to get her to come over here.

“Who’s your friend?” One of them asked Braxton, who was apparently “top dog”. Jalen folded up the paper and put it in her purse, ready to walk away.

[Braxton Carson]

"It's not a club!" Braxton initially exclaimed. "It's a fraternity... One that every guy wants to be in, and every girl wants to sleep with."

That last part didn't probably make sense, but Braxton didn't quite care. Jalen's next statement was a completely true one. She knew it, Braxton knew it, every guy that knew Braxton knew it as well, and most girls he hooked up with also knew it. It was a well known fact that Braxton hopped among girls' beds and that each new one was going to be forgotten as quick as the past one. Why was she saying that out loud, then? Does she care? Most girls don't. He just shrugged it off. She'll end up falling for his charms at some point, they all do.

Out of the sudden, Jalen was walking towards his boys and snatching some piece of paper she claimed to be hers. Huh? When Larry asked about her, it all made sense. Of course... So instead of answering him, Braxton placed his left hand open, palm facing up, in front of him and his right fist on top of it. Larry did the same and both counted to three. Brax pulled a fist, rock, while Larry pulled two fingers, scissors.

"Classic." Braxton smirked as everybody laughed, booed, and slightly patted the other brother

"Sorry, I can't hit on you for the next twenty-four hours." Larry said to Jalen with a playful smile.

"Means you're all mine for today." Braxton finally said. "What you feel like doing, babe?"

[Jalen August]

Jalen’s eyes searched his from side to side. “Every girl you say?” She thought about it for a moment, “I’m sure there are exceptions,” she said with a small smirk. “You know, the lesbians and the taken girls, or the ones who just aren’t that into you.” He just wasn’t going to win with her, so why did he keep trying to so damn hard? Was it that whole, can’t always get what you want? Or maybe because he knew he wouldn’t get her he tried all the harder? Really, sometimes boys could be such big babies.

The game didn’t help her opinion of them.

The blonde smiled back at the guy who lost. Apparently they had played over her. “Aw come on, no best two out of three?” She asked, which made the guys in the group laugh as she stared at Braxton. She wasn’t going to be some unannounced prize, not if she could help it. “See you in twenty four hours then,” she said to Larry, who smiled excitedly. She didn’t actually mean it, she just liked to see him squirm.

“I feel like getting away from these goons,” she said, which made the guys laugh even more. Apparently they didn’t even know when they were being insulted. Idiots, the lot of them. Jalen walked away, assuming that Braxton would follow. She didn’t want to talk in front of them all, really. “What’s something you don’t normally do with a girl?” She asked then, a sly grin on her face. This meant that the older boy would have to think outside of the box, and she wasn’t about to ask him what he wanted to do directly because he would just say something about sex, which was all that he seemed to be concerned with.

Once they were almost outside of the mall, Jalen turned to face him, and nearly made the boy collide with her. “If we’re going out right now, I’m going to lay down some ground rules,” she said, a smile on her face at the thought of what would become of this day. “One, I don’t care if you hit on me, I’m an expert with flirting and I don’t need lessons, I’m not responding, and two, you’re not getting into bed with me, or having sex with me of any kind, ever, so if you can’t deal with that, then you can go back to your Kellogg’s boys and play with them.” Who really knew what they did with each other anyway? They probably had a good circle jerk every once in a while, something which made the blonde smile more.

“You get one day, let’s see if you screw it up or not,” she challenged, her arms crossed in front of her.

[Braxton Carson]

"What? What do you mean the girls that aren't into me? That sentence hold no sense at all." It may have sounded as a joke, and it sort of was, but deep down, Braxton actually did agree wit it. "Lesbians, takens, overconfident blonde black-canary-like metahumans girls, they're all into me."

After he won the little game over the blonde, Brax was tempted to say that she wasn't worth be played thrice to decide and she actually probably deserved it by they way she had been treating him. She was even flirting with other guys in front of him? Highly unacceptable. Calling his brothers goons? Totally mean. But hey, if there was anything Braxton was, was a gentleman, so he gave the girl one more chance, something she clearly didn't seem to appreciate, considering the rather strange question she asked next.

"Huh?" He actually couldn't even think of an answer for that and didn't feel like giving it too much thought as she continued talking. "Rules? What is this, Hammel?"

This girl had to be bordering crazy, but Braxton abstained himself from doing anything but raising an eyebrow, until she said what was probably the worst thing he had ever heard in her whole life.

"What?" No sex? Oh pff, this isn't even worth it.

[/b] "You know, good luck doing... whatever you were doing." Brax made the fakest smile he could. "I'll go hang with my Kellogg friends." He had no idea why she was calling them Kellogs, though. Probably because Tim looks like Tony the tiger? God this girl's nuts. "Have a good day."

Goodbye second chance.