My Life In Code

1. Take Off That Silly Hat And Kiss Me Already!

Chapter 1

Take Off That Silly Hat And Kiss Me Already!

In the five months, three weeks, and five days that I hadn’t seen Max, my days were filled with…well, not that much.  Phone calls, emails, and video chatting just didn’t do the trick when it came to not missing him. 

But now Dad, Brielle, and I were flying in our jet to England for his graduation from Oxford.  I was currently lounging back in the wide, leather seat with my headphones on and sipping on my Sprite. 

And yeah, I said our jet. 

After we found Blackbeard’s treasure last September, Dad finally broke down and bought one after my years of badgering him to do it.  And since we came into some more money from our finder’s fee, he got one of the best money could buy.  Of course, we split our earnings with Max, who splurged a little on himself by buying the Aston Martin he’d apparently always wanted, though he was responsible with the rest of his money.  He didn’t know what he could do when his bank account had that many digits, though.  He wasn’t used to it yet. 

I apparently was the only one of the two of us who found it funny that I already had the same Aston Martin sitting in our garage at home.  He’d been mad at me since I didn’t tell him about it when we had gone to our house in Boston before we went to North Carolina.  I think it made him feel better when I told him that his was the newer model and mine was practically out of date.  He’d rolled his eyes and kissed me after that.

Not much had changed since we found Blackbeard’s treasure in September.  Max had stayed with us all through Christmas and into the New Year.  He had to leave just a few days after the beginning of the year because he was starting his last semester at Oxford. 

I was going back to school, too.  Well, they were online classes that I was doing at home, but still.  I was working on my master’s degree in history.  The work wasn’t hard, just a lot of writing.  I got to focus a lot more since we hadn’t really traveling that much and were staying at home in Boston. 

There had been another piece of major news had been given to us by Brielle on Christmas when we were all opening presents.  When I’d opened mine from her, I literally screamed when I saw the little light green onesie that had ‘I love my big sister’ on it. 

That’s right.  I was going to be a big sister.

Finally. 

She had been a little over two months along at Christmas and was now almost thirty-two weeks.  She looked absolutely gorgeous pregnant, too.  Dad couldn’t stop smiling whenever he looked at her, which was almost always.  Whenever he was around her, he would always put a hand on her stomach and the baby would kick.  It happened whenever I did it, too.  At least I knew my little sister loved me already.

Yep, it was going to be a girl.  Brielle’s ultrasound appointment where we were going to find out what it was had been on my birthday, so it was the perfect present.  She and Dad hadn’t decided on any names yet.  Or maybe they had and just hadn’t told me. 

But now my nerves were getting to me as we neared London.  My stomach was in knots and my feet wouldn’t stop moving to the beat of the music that I was listening to.  Not seeing Max in person in over five months was absolute torture.  I felt someone sit down in the seat beside me and I looked over at Brielle, who was smiling down at me.

“Yeah?” I asked, sitting back up.

She laughed and rubbed her hand over her stomach.  “Nothing,” she said.  “We’re just about to land, though, so you have to buckle up now.”