AJR 4th Sibling Short Stories

3. Adventure

Ryan's POV

"Ryan Joshua Met."

I looked up from my computer to see Skylar standing in the doorway of my room. I was surprised to see her standing there, and started to wonder why she was there. I realized that I was probably visibly anxious and worried from working so hard, but needed to get back to working on our new song, so I pushed those feelings down, decided to ignore her and look back at my pro-tools session.

"Nonono," she started, "You are clearly too stressed to do anymore work on that right now. Which is why I'm here."

"First of all," I began, feeling my anxiety resurface, "How dare you call me out like that, and second, i'm going to ignore you and finish because this song needs to get done by the end of the week so that we can release it on time."

Skylar stared at me in silence for a minute before letting out a long sigh.

"Ry, it is Tuesday, you are literally 80% done with the song, you will be fine."

She had a point, I was getting in my head about this and letting it stress me out. Why was she so good at reading me? Regardless, I saved the file, closed my computer, and looked up at my younger sister.

"Ok," I said quietly, "you're right."

"I'm sorry what did you say?" She teased.

"You are right" I said a bit louder.

"Ugh, there must be something in my ear, could you speak up?"

"You are right!" I practically yelled.

While laughing, Skylar walked over to me and grabbed my arm. A sly grin grew on her face so I knew she was up to something.

"Where are Jack and Adam?" She whispered as she pulled me into the kitchen.

"Uhh, I think Jack is in his room watching a movie, and Adam is out getting groceries, why do you need to know?"

"For my brilliant plan. Now, In order for this to work, you need to do exactly as I say."

I nodded in agreement, so, very quietly, she began relaying the plan.

"Alright, you sir, have been very stressed out these past few days, so you and I are going on an adventure! What I need you to do is pack a bag with water and food. I don't care what food. just pack something that you like and that I tolerate at the very least. While you do that, I'll grab our subway passes and cash in case we take a bus. The most important part is to not alert Jack that we are going, so don't drop anything. Also be fast, we need to get out of the building before Adam gets back so he doesn't see us."

With that, she left the kitchen and walked right into Jack's room. I almost ran in to get her, but stopped once I heard very obvious cover-up small talk. I left her to distract Jack while she grabbed the subway passes from the drawer in his desk that we leave them in, and went back to my room to grab my backpack to fill up.

Once back in the kitchen, I grabbed our water bottles from the cabinet and began to fill them up. When I was done, I grabbed some random snacks from our pantry and shoved them into the bag with the water bottles. I listened in to Jacks room to see if Skylar had acquired the passes yet.

"Found th- it! Found IT. I found the hard drive Ryan was looking for! Now I can go rub it in his face that I found it before he did!" Skylar fake gloated.

"Congratulations!" Jack laughed. "But be nice, he is under quite a bit of stress due to the deadline for the song."

I took this as my cue to walk away from the door, as to not reveal my presence when it opened as Skylar left. I walked back to my room and put my shoes on and grab my phone.