Adore

Chapter 42

-=+Audrey's POV+=-

"Audrey!" My mom yelled up the stairs.

"What?" I groaned as I rolled over in bed to check the time on my phone.

"Wake up and come down stairs, now! Mr. Styles and his family are going to be over in thirty minutes to help set up and start cooking."

"It's like 9:30 in the morning. We don't need to start dinner," I replied.

"Dinner is at 5:30 tonight. Let's go, Audrey," she sternly finished.

I hear her footsteps echo through the house as she walks away. I turned back to my phone's screen, looking back at the notifications I had previously ignored. One being a text from Harry, letting me know that if I wasn't awake when he got to my house, he'd dump cold water on my head. The next few were text messages from a handful of random people wishing me a "Merry Christmas Eve" as if we were still in high school. 

I threw my covers off of me after forcing myself to only spend five minutes on my phone. I needed to take a shower but I didn't have the time. I knew if I wasn't downstairs waiting for Harry, he would barge up here and the last thing I needed was him walking in on me with just a towel.

I pulled out a pair of yoga pants and a red Christmas sweater. It wasn't the most appropriate thing to wear but I wasn't planning on wearing it all day. In green, woven letters, the sweater read "MERRY FUCKIN XMAS" with Blink-182 sprawled arcoss the top of it. Walking into my bathroom, I grabbed two hair ties, throwing my hair into a bun then pulling it back with a headband, think enough to cover my ears and keep my head warm. It wasn't very ideal to have my hair up in the middle of winter here but I couldn't care less.

Before making my way down the stairs, I slid on my slippers assuming the hardwood floors on the bottom floor would be cold. I pulled my sweater sleeves down to cover my hands. I followed the smell of fresh baked cookies into my kitchen where my aunt had just pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven.

"Audrey Price," my mom said rather harshly placing her hands on her hips. "We have guests over and you put on that sweater? Of all sweaters!"

"Relax, I'm changing later," I rolled my eyes.

"I like it," my aunt shrugged, sharing her two cents.

"See mom, even Aunt Penny likes it," I bug my eyes out at her.

"Tyler has that exact one," she continued on about her son who was currently staying behind a closed door somewhere in the house.

Tyler was my cousin. He was a couple months younger than me and everytime we ever had family get togethers, I spent a lot of my time with him. Even when we weren't together, we managed to keep in touch time to time. He was always giving me music to listen to and I'd say about half of my iTunes library was from him. He was also in a band, somewhat popular in his home town and other parts of Canada.

"Is he up?" I asked.

"He should be. He might be asleep still. He was up late talking to his girlfriend," she rolled her eyes. "Do you have a cookie rack for these?" 

I turned away to grab it for her. "Littler Tyke has a girlfriend? When did this happen?"

"A few months ago. I figured he would've told you of all people."

"I've been preoccupied," I shrugged, realizing I was so consumed in my own life that I forgot to reply to Tyler's last facebook message.

"Oh?" Aunt Penny seemed intrigued. "College?"

"Kind of," I hesitated.

"Boys?"

"I guess you could say that."