Surviving the McLane Boys ('On Hold Still...')

Chapter 1 - Meet the Boys

Lily, my 12 year old, Justin Bieber crazy sister calmly eats her cereal while reading her latest magazine featuring JB in it…

“Don’t ignore me Lily!”

She turns and bats her eyelashes at me “I was hungry, Jay and Grae were too so I tried making some bacon– as you can see it didn’t work… neither did the toast…” she looks pointedly at the toaster which looks like it imploded.

Joy. There’s a fork in it. It’s a wonder she survived.

 “So I made myself some cereal.” She continues, “The twins didn’t want cereal so they tried making their own breakfast… and, well, we ended up with this,” she gestures around the rest of kitchen with her left hand.

I glare at the twins as they slap each other high-fives.

“Meow!”

I slowly look up at the ceiling to find our cat, Snowball, hanging onto one of the wings of the fan. I do a double take.

“Oh My God!” I shriek. “What have you guys been doing?!” I grab a chair and climb on to it, reaching for Snowball stretching my hand up as much as I can. He’s out of reach. I stand on my tippy-toes on my left foot and try to reach again, while my other leg goes out to the side.

I’d make a pretty good ballerina, I think to myself. As I make for another swipe at the fan. I’m dangerously close to the edge of the chair. Lily’s reading again, the twins are cracking up on the floor. None of them make a move to help me.

I love my siblings.  Can’t live without them.

I feel my singlet riding up past my naval, my fingers can just reach the fan now. Snowball is making the rescue job harder by hissing and swiping at me with his claws. 

I hear a horn toot outside our house.

“Lily!” I hear Melissa call, “Come on you and Jo are going to be late for your game!” Lily grabs her bags and dashes out of the house to her best friend’s car. Not even bothering to say goodbye over her shoulder.

Yep, love you too Lil.

 Another car toots.

“Boys, we gotta scadadal you’re late for practice!,” I can just imagine Sarah leaning out the window her ponytail bobbing up and down as she nods her head to her deafening country music. I can only imagine the music because I’m already deaf from it.

“Have fun sis,” Grae says as he and Jae run to their room for their stuff. Snowball scratches the side of my hand. Did I mention that I love my cat too?

This is just not my morning… I groan to myself as Snowball decides that biting is more effective than scratching.

“Good morning every- wow…”  

I look towards the kitchen doorway,

And there goes the rest of my day...

Standing in the doorway is our super-hot 16 year old neighbor. He gapes at me and I gape back at him. His sandy brown hair is full of cow-licks and his deep blue eyes are wide with surprise. He’s wearing skinny jeans and with a v-neck t-shirt and a leather jacket on top. He looks gorgeous.

“Morning Jake!” the twins say in unison as they run out the door with their bags. I’ve got a hold on the fan now.

“Morning guys… and uh Hailey…” He turns to stare up at me… ruffled just-woke-up me… My hair’s mussed, despite the numerous times I brushed it and I’m wearing a singlet and pj bottoms which seem to have the sole mission of exposing my legs and stomach. I’m standing on my tippy-toes, on a chair, trying to reach an agro cat while one of the hottest guys at my school is staring up at me.