Family for the Holidays

Chapter 9

I was buried deep in the comfort of my bed my breathing deep and relaxed, my eyelids heavy and my head still in dreamland. So when the knocking started it jolted me and I fell with an even louder thud that had my door flying open and two heads popped in. As they took in my messy form splayed out on the floor their laughter echoed in my small room. I half heartedly tossed a throw pillow in their direction but it did no harm, it didn’t even pause their laughter.

Ignoring the idiots I began feeling around my mounds of blankets and pillows until I found my phone. Checking the time I realized I had five minutes to be ready for church.

“Shoot! Why didn’t anyone wake me up?!” I shouted as I tried desperately to free myself for my blanket prison finally rolling free and running into my closet tossing on the first dress I saw before going back out to my room hopping around as I frantically searched for my other boot. My brothers laughter had me freezing something was up.

“You look like the princess diaries before picture” Leo laughed

“Make all the boy moose go-" Nick made a super obnoxious and loud noise that hurt my eardrums while they laughed even harder.

“Mom and dad sent out a text, no church and leave them alone"

“Then why the heck are you bothering me at seven forty-fivein the morning?!”

“Why else?” Leo asked in a duh tone

“Ya'll want food.” I dead panned and then fell backward onto my bed with a groan.

“Breakfast burritos?”

“Fine, now get out and I’ll meet you down there.” They fled my room and slammed my door painfully loud.

When I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror I realized they were right about my appearance. As I brushed out my bird’s nest hair I hoped I wouldn’t break my brush. My mascara must not have washed out last night as now it added to the dark circles around my eyes. Face and breath fresh and clean I checked myself in the mirror again only to frown as I realized I had pulled my dress on backwards.

After feeding the devils and putting Troy’s in the microwave for him later on I retreated to my room with toast and jam.

My four friends from high school and I have a group message we don’t get a lot of time to talk during our school year so we use it as a one stop way to keep in touch. Taylor had sent a message telling everyone to be ready for video chat at nine.
“Hey my girls, did we all get through the holiday?” Taylor asked, her dark brown coiled hair bouncing as she always struggled to sit still.

“Barely!” Alley shouted, startling Jess who appeared to be falling back to sleep, “My cousin finally came out, so to get the heat off him I lied and said I dropped out of college. After that he was getting dating advice from Aunt Sophie while my Grandmother and mama chased me around the house with wooden spoons” dark strands fell from her messy bun as she gestured wildly going her story, hazel eyes wide.

“Look on the bright side, you ran off all that food!” if she could she would have reached through the phone and smacked me.

“Riley, how did introducing Brad to the family go?” Taylor tried to saved me.

“Well…. I thought it was going fine until he and my dad got to talking and now they seem to have a better relationship than I do with either. Then mom starts pointing out their similarities. I’m dating my dad guys! Like no joke its disturbing.”

Ally snorted “I told you!”

For a few minutes the two of them squabbled until Jess snapped biting both their heads off resulting in soft apologies and then silence. I held back my chuckle as I watched her massage her head further tangling her purple and white hair laying in a messy nest on her pillow as she glared at the camera.

“And how was your holiday sunshine?” Taylor dared to tease deepening the glare.

“Well excuse me for not being Lucy and having freaking blue birds fly in to help me in the mornings!”

“Oh please! Only thing in my room this morning were two annoying pests asking for breakfast and before that I looked like medusa.”

“Bull crap you always look fresh out of a Disney movie.”

“Ha! Yeah Leo said it was Princess diaries before her make over.” They all got a laugh out of this while I just rolled my eyes. “How was your Thanksgiving, did you kill anyone?”

“Sadly no, though my cousin Chad was one burp in my face away from me shoving a corn cob down his throat. So it was pretty much like every year, my mom got a bit tipsy and named the Turkey then cried as she ate it. Dad and I placed bets on which nephew would break something this year.”

“who won?”

“He did, though I think he interfered, someone gave Danny a whiffle bat.”

“Mine was loud and eventful, all four sisters under one roof. I think my dad is going to hibernate for the rest of winter to recuperate.” Taylor added.

“how was your celebrations Lu?”

“Same old chaos.” I shrugged absentmindedly

“Oh really, so nothing new?” Ally stressed the word ‘nothing’ her perfect eyebrows daring me to lie to her face.

“No…. Why are you asking?”

“I think she’s asking about these…erm hunks.” 

Taylor sent a few screenshots of a Facebook post with photos of the boys playing football a red circle around Nick’s buddies. Then another around Samuel with a line drawn to demonstrate my line of sight as I stood on the sidelines. I checked the profile of the person who posted the collage, Beatrice Hall.

“Secrets are bad, love.” Ally taunted

“I thought we had an unspoken rule about guys!”

“Its nothing, Nick just invited Emt friends. And.. um.. I invited one of my own.”

“And where did you find this perfect man?” Jess asked apparently now wide awake.

“Doing charity work”

“oh was he saving puppies”

“Close. You should see him with the kids its swoon worthy.” I admitted

“So how long have you been keeping him from us."

“Ops?"

“Oh no honey that’s not gonna work, Christmas break you owe us big time.” Taylor scolded

The rest of the conversation was just us trying to organize a get together with our schedules. You do what you can to make it work for the ones who matter.

Laying on my bed listening to music I alternated between scrolling through my phone and reading, not realizing how much time had gone by until I received a message from Nick asking for a bag of chips.

Here I was in my room, upstairs, and he was texting from downstairs asking me for chips.

Brothers.

Not two seconds and he had sent the gif of a puppy saying please.

“Why do I do these things?” I asked myself as I got up and went downstairs stopping to see if anyone else wanted anything from the kitchen then returning to the entertainment room with an armload of snacks and peanut butter crackers for myself. The rest of the day went by lazily and too soon I was laying in bed at seven o’clock my stomach twisting at the thought of returning to school tomorrow.

My phone alerted me to a message and I was reluctant to check it fearing it might be the boys asking me to do something else. But instead I found a text from Samuel and the smile that appeared on my face hurt. Suddenly the butterflies in my stomach were no longer bad but made me giddy.

“So I slept in until 1PM, then spent the day laying on my couch groaning in pain. Your family football game is no joke. Please tell me your brothers were the same.”

“Well I did spend my day fetching things for them so I imagine that’s the reason.”
“Hang on… you’re telling me if I had come over you would have done everything for me? Unfair.”

“I wouldn’t say everything but I was in a particularly good mood so basically”

“Tell your mom thanks for the leftovers, they probably won’t last another day.”

“Do you start any classes tomorrow?”

“Nope, thankfully not until Tuesday since I have work tonight and I’m going to be dead by morning.”

“Well that’s good for you, unfortunately I have two classes with an hour between them so I’ll be bored”

“What’s your schedule on Tuesday? Maybe I can coincidentally bump into you”

“10am calculous, labs at 11 then I’m free 12-1, which is when I’ve got historical literature.”

“Hmm…. I might be able to squeeze you in."

“Well don’t make any changes for me.” I hoped he got my sarcasm so I sent a silly face just to be sure.

“Hey I’d do anything to see your cherry face!”

Despite feeling incredibly embarrassed for blushing I went ahead and sent the blushing emoticon. Darn boy got me.

“Oh come on, can I get a real picture of you? Please?”

“No way.”

“you’re no fun.”

“I’m plenty of fun you just suck it out of me.”

“Ouch! You are grumpy maybe I should let you go to sleep.” When had it become nine o’clock “besides I’ve really got to get to work now.”

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Author here! This was a bit rushed and short. I'm sorry. But I wanted to get it out while I had the confidence to post something. Please be niece.