Forever & Always

10: Katie's Birthday (Part I)

Edited: 30/06/2022

"I hate waking up at this time?" I mumbled, searching for the cancel button.

"Stupid tradition" I groaned, dragging myself out of the bed and towards the bathroom.

As I excited as I was, I continued to curse under my breath as I turn on the shower. I let the hot water run over my body, ensuring that I soaked up every ounce of heat before getting out and getting dressed into some tracksuit pants and a singlet.

Katie and I made it a tradition to wake up and be at each other's houses' first thing in the morning. I have no idea why we do not just stay over each other's houses the night before but this way is a little more interesting at least. It is kind of like a surprise as the birthday girl will never know when you will turn up, they could turn up at one A.M. or five A.M. We tried to get Noah involved in the tradition but, he requires his beauty sleep and still, to this day, thinks we are mad for continuing the tradition for this long.

After I had grabbed all of Katie's presents, I made my way into Caleb's bedroom. I shook his sleeping figure just enough to wake him up.

"Bianca?" he asked. "What time is it?" he groaned, rubbing his eyes, and looking around the bedroom.

His hands landed on my waist as he moved into a sitting position however he quickly let them drop.

"It is really early; I am sorry for waking you but I just wanted to tell you that I am going over to Katie's"

"Okay, I will see you tonight." Even in the dark, his well-defined stomach muscles were glistening in the moonlight.

"So, you are definitely coming to the party then?" I asked

"I would not miss it for the world princess." He reached up, wrapping his arms around my torso and burying his head in my torso.

"Bye princess" he mumbled, kissing me cheek before instantly falling back to sleep.

My hand reached up and touched my cheek where his lips were seconds ago before heading out of the house and towards my car.

The drive to Katie's was shorter from Julie's than mine which I was thankful for on this extremely early morning.

I parked my car out the front of Katie's house and pulled my phone out to send a message to Sam.

To Sam: Hey, I am here. Can you please let me in?

A few seconds later, I heard the door unlock and swing open revealing Sam in his tracksuit pants.

"Every year, like clockwork" he smiled, bringing me in for a hug before softly kissing my cheek.

"I did not want to wake anyone" I whispered, wrapping my arms around his waist.

"Yeah, I figured that" he chuckled softly.

Looking up from our hug, I lent up and pecked him on the cheek, "hey" I smiled.

"Hey peanut" Sam said kissing me on the head.

Sam has known me my entire life. Mike and Sam used to babysit me and then when I went into kindergarten, Sam introduced me to Katie. Sam is my second brother and he treats me as if I am his younger sister.

He is twenty-three years old and he has chestnut brown hair, brown eyes, and tanned skin. He is easily over 6ft which means my 5′ 8" frame is tiny against him. He had invented the nickname peanut almost five years ago, I constantly asked him why he called me peanut and he would always respond with 'you are tiny'.