Welcome to Ohio

Nine

On Christmas Day, I woke up early, so as mom and dad were about to come wake Noah and I, dad saw me coming down, so he asked me to wake Noah, and I did, so we went down and opened gifts and enjoyed our time together with the family.

-

"I don't even wanna-wanna come down here. It's a madhouse." Dad says as he comes down to the basement. It's in the middle of reconstruction to be turned into a home gym, and I've been helping put it all together. It's been cold and snowy out, and I'm more of a warm weather kind of person, so I've been hiding in the warm house with Cora, and sleeping on the couch because it's so hot upstairs.

-

"No, dad." I say as dad follows me up the stairs, it's been a while since Chase fixed the return duct with cardboard, kudos to him for that still.

"Jules, come on."

"No, you know I don't like Yousef, either he says in a hotel, or I do."

"You aren't old enough to get a hotel room."

"Yeah, but my girlfriend just turned 18."

"I swear, if you go stay in a hotel room with Alex-"

"I swear, if you bring Yousef into the same house as me."

"Julie. It's his birthday."

"Look at my face and tell me if you think I care. The President could tell him to stay here for all I care, and I still would tell Trump to shove it up his and try to fit Yousef up there with it, though there might not be enough room because his head is so far up there already."

"Julie." Dad says, laughing. "Don't talk like that."

"When you tell me not to do something while you're laughing, it just makes me want to do that exact thing more."

"Yousef has already made arrangements to stay here with us."

"Then I'm calling Alex."

"Why don't you like Fousey?" Dad asks.

"He's ugly, he's annoying, he laughs like a dying donkey for crying out loud, and when he talks it's like nails on a chalk board." I say, shuddering at the thought of nails on a chalk board.

"What'd he ever do to you?"

"Nothing, I just don't like the dude."

-

"Julie, you are staying in this house while Fousey is here!" Dad commands, following me up the stairs, and I turn to him as I get into my room. I had already called Alex, and she agreed to stay with me until Yousef leaves, her parents didn't like me, which was fine, because I didn't like her parents either.

"No, I'm not!" I counter, slamming my door shut and locking it.

-
Roman
-

"That was harsh." Brit says, coming over to me.

"I just don't want something to happen to her while she's away."

"So I guess it's a bad time to say that she's thinking of going to UCLA for college?"

"Los Angeles?! Julie Marie Atwood!"

"Roman Bernard Atwood!" Julie shouts from the other side of the door and I sigh as Brit snorts from beside me. "What do you want?" Julie asks, opening the door, a duffle bag hanging from her shoulder.

"Why didn't you tell me you were looking at colleges?"

"Because I'm 16 now, dad, you should expect that I'm going to be looking at colleges."