It's been a year since Clay, otherwise known as Porkchop, planned the graduation event in Newport Beach. The event where a handsome Tyler Hamilton caught Clay off guard by kissing him. Clay, up until that day, had never kissed a boy before.
At 24 ye...
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"OH my god, what are you doing? MOM! Look at what Tyler is doing! Come look at the screen! Tyler, seriously, what are you doing? Oh my god, I'm going to go into cardiac arrest," Ethan said over FaceTime. Being overdramatic as usual.
I rolled my eyes. "You're getting worked up over nothing–"
"Nothing? This isn't nothing! You're not doing it right, why are you mixing with your hands?"
My mom appeared on screen, her eyes widening. "Oh my. Why are you mixing with your hands?" And then she disappeared.
"You see? I'm not getting worked up over nothing, my dear brother, I'm getting worked up because you are mixing the pumpkin pie with your hands, and people are going to be eating that with their mouths tonight!" Ethan exclaimed. "I mean, they might, if you can actually pull this off."
I glared at him. "Shut up. It's just pumpkin pie, it's not the end of the world–"
"It's not just pumpkin pie, it's the pumpkin pie, and you are in charge of it! Pumpkin pie is the heart of Thanksgiving!" Ethan said. He got really passionate every year when it was time for Thanksgiving. He'd been making the pumpkin pie for years now, since he could actually control his motor functioning and read a recipe.
"What, are you the next hotshot of the family? The pumpkin pie hotshot?" I said.
Ethan grinned. "Yes! I like the sound of that. I have to text that to Jesse. ALEXA! ALEXA TEXT JESSE CAMPBELL!"
I could hear the Amazon Alexa speaking robotically back to Ethan: "What would you like to say to JESSE CAMPBELL?"
"TYLER SAYS THAT I'M THE NEXT HOTSHOT OF THE FAMILY. THE PUMPKIN PIE HOTSHOT. SO I GUESS I'M TAKING YOUR PLACE. OLD MAN," Ethan said, then paused and told Alexa to send the message, which she did. He looked at me through the camera, super proud of himself. "I added the 'old man' because I've been doing that lately. He's almost 22, you know? That's old. That's practically over the hill."
"That's not practically over the hill. Over the hill is practically what dad is," I said.
"I heard that!" I could hear my dad yell from some other room in the house. It didn't matter if I was only actually calling Ethan, somehow, my parents found their ways to hear everything and be a part of the FaceTime. Which, secretly, I loved. But I had to still act like the slightly snarly older brother, so that's what I was doing.
Ethan whispered, "He is kind of old. But he's lightening up on the dietitian stuff lately. Last night, we had ice cream for dinner."
I raised my eyebrows. "Seriously? Ice cream for dinner?"
"Okay, well, he actually made us try this new tuna-salad stuffed avocado, which he learned about at work or something. But he said if we didn't like it, then mom could drive us all to Sonic to get milkshakes. So, of course, we tried it," Ethan actually leaned in closer to the camera at this point to be even quieter, "and really, I think mom and I both liked it, but we wanted milkshakes so bad that we lied. It's like we were both in on the same joke."
