Jim's Niece | Friday Night Dinner

31•8•18

Friday 31st August

"So you have a sister, Emma?" Jackie makes polite conversation over the dinner table as the rest of us sit in awkward silence.
"Yeah, we are nothing alike though. I want to kill her most of the time".
"Wish I had girls" Jackie looks disapprovingly at her two sons as they both smile back.

All of a sudden, Adams phone starts beeping frantically and the suspense was killing me.

Was it work? Was it Jonny? Did he have another girlfriend? Boyfriend? Before anyone could even bring it up, he abruptly excuses himself and storms out.

"Bye then.." Emma laughs as she watches him go. I quickly motion for Jonny to go find out what it wrong with him and try to carry the conversation on.
"So what do you do for a living?" I question, a polite smile covering my face.
"Is it in physics? You look like you would be interested in physics." Martin cuts in. We are really going to have to find him someone to talk about magnets with, I don't think I could take that one for the team any longer.
"Umm Rosie?" Jonny and Adam both call out from the kitchen.
"Sorry, I'll be right back" I again smile and stumble out of the dining room.

"What?" I exclaim.
"Close the door, then come over here" Adam replies, looking painfully worried.
"Did you kill someone?".
"Yes and now I'm going to show you pictures." He sneers "just look".
"Oh my, who's that?" I laugh.
Jonny was now leaning on the counter, laughing hysterically and eating anything that had been left out.
"That's Adam's other girlfriend... Emma's sister".
"You slut!" I quietly squeal.
"It's not what you think!" He defends, now holding his head in one of his hands.
"I've only met her once and she's all of a sudden sending me naked pictures... what do I do?". Realising that Adam has a genuine problem, I get into teacher mode and think.
"Umm... block her number and delete the messages? No you can't do that." Without thinking I start pacing, wracking my brain for a solution.
"Date them both?" Jonny winks.
"Well that's just not gonna work... is it?" the terror in Adam's eyes even somehow makes Jonny apologise.
"Is Emma a nice person?" I ask.
"Yeah, obviously".
"Then you might just have to tell her".

"Tell her what?" Jackie questions, now fully suspecting something.
"You've been gone twenty minutes".
"Sorry" we all say, looking down in shame.
"Adam's being slutty" Jonny faux concern makes me laugh but a quick death stare from Adam immediately makes me stop.
"Not intentionally slutty" I add in, trying to defend him.
"What did you do?" Jackie was now in full on mum mode and it was a bit scary.
"I didn't do anything!" Adam was holding his hands up in protest " it's Emma's sister".
"She keeps sending 'provocative' pictures of herself" Jonny manages to keep a neutral face but turns around straight after talking.
"What a shame, Emma's such a lovely girl" she looks genuinely upset for Adam.

"Instead of moping, we need to find a solution" I felt like I was helping, I wasn't, but I felt like I was.
"Back in a sec" Jonny says in unison with the ring of the doorbell as the three of us start thinking of ideas.
"Rosie?" He shouts from the hallway.
"Yeah?"
"There's someone at the door for you". Me? Someone at the door for me? Pushing through the utter confusion, I make my way to the door to find my uncle and Wilson waiting.

"Jim? You okay? Did you set the house on fire again?"Concern is lacing my voice as Jonny stands next to me, holding the door open.
"No" Jim looks down, flinches at Wilson then carries on "you have a visitor".
A tall blond man comes out of the shadows. His perfectly ironed suit glittered in the evening moon as he smirks at me.
"Long time no see" he articulates, striding towards the door.
"What are you doing here?" I could taste his arrogance in the air... along with the excessive amount of hairspray he wears.
"Can't a brother visit his sister?".
"That's your brother" Jonny looks relived as he relaxes slightly.
"I'm Jonny, you must be..." he trails off reaching a hand out.
"Luke" a fake smile crosses his face but is gone in an instant. Jonny reluctantly draws his hand back in realising that Luke wasn't going to shake it.
"Oh hello Jackie, you look nice" Jim says in his usual pervy tone. My head turns and it suddenly occurs to me that everyone is stood behind me.
"Everyone. Luke. Luke. Everyone" I gesture, not inviting my brother in.
"You not gonna invite me in?" He shoves past Jim into the house.
"It's not my house" I reply in a low tone.
"Never stopped you before" he winks at Jonny and slaps him on the back. Jonny winces but tries not to show it, hiding his pain with a hollow chuckle.
"Nice house" Luke was now examining the whole house, touching everything along the way.
"Yeah, but why are you here?"
"No reason, who's that?" he draws out each word to emphasise his interest. Turning around I notice an extremely red, giggling Emma facing in Luke's direction.
"I'm Emma" she pushes past Adam (with a fair amount of force) to greet Luke. Slowly we all inch away towards the kitchen.

"Maybe you don't have to tell her" I whisper to Adam "she might sleep with that knob before you have to".
"Well I didn't plan on sleeping with him so yeah, my girlfriend will beat me to it" Adam hisses.
"Why are we all crowded in the doorway?" A confused Martin asks, now topless.
"Long story" we all say in unison as we turn to watch the drama unravel in the hallway.
"I love your... fringe" Luke says seductively as he strokes Emma's cheek.
"We can laugh at that right?" I add, suppressing any joy I'm feeling.
"Emma is pushing Luke's shoulder, he's touching her hair... they're now snogging"
"Oh pusface, you should be a commentator on the radio, you're skills are brilliant!" Jonny gives Adam a thumbs up before leaning on the counter to laugh.
"It could be worse, you could have been eaten by ants" Martins drops in.
"I wish you'd be eaten by ants" Jackie mumbles moving out to the living room with a slightly disappointed Adam and a constantly confused Martin following.

I move over to stand next to Jonny, a fully grown man, who's eaten a whole crumble while it was still in the tray during the three minutes of us watching two animals in the wild.
"That pretty impressive" I smirk, eyeing up the empty dish.
"Oh why thank you sir shitface" he replies with a polite curtsy.
"Do I really always look depressed?" I ask with a light tone in my voice.
"Yeah. But I like it" Jonny replies, smiling at me.
Distracting myself from the heartfelt compliment that my heart couldn't handle, I carry on "You know they've been kissing for ages, probably broken a world record by now". I could still see them eating each other's faces in the corner of my eye.
"I bet we could beat them" Jonny might have well as held a sign up that said "please have sex with me" he was trying (and failing) so hard at flirting.
"You know, I bet we could!" I shake my fists in the air like Hitler when he was making some sort of racist speak. "Fuck it" He grabs my face and kisses me.
"We are so much better than them" I add pulling away from Jonny.
"Oh definitely" he humours me, pulling our faces back together.