After a few more turns around this maze of a house, Xavier and I step into a dinning room where most of the boys are sitting down.
"Oh, Janetta. You came to join us." Sara exclaims and everyones head pops up.
"Uh, yeah. Thanks." I say and I sit down next to Spencer who is rubbing the extra chair next to him.
"It's no problem honey, so do you like your room?" She asks me.
"Oh yes, it's absolutely wonderful. Thank you. How did you know that blue was my favorite color?" I ask, because I really think that was a coincidence.
"Well, your parents might have told us some things." She say smiling. I sit down and finally after 2 minutes of waiting and more talk of my room, Scott comes in.
"Sorry, there was some business. That needed to be taking care of." He said, but I didn't miss the slip up.
"Is everything ok, dad?" Aaron questioned
"Yes, everything's fine. Now let's eat." Scott says scooping up a big pot of noodles.
"After prayers, remember!" Robert says, but it was more like a shout.
"Oh, how could I forget!" Sara says and giggled. "Who would like to say prayers?" She asks
"I will." Chris says and we all bow our heads.
"Dear lord, thank you for this delicious food you have presented to us. Thank you for safely bringing Janetta to us. Amen." Chris says and we all reply an amen before looking up.
By the time I reach for some spaghetti it's half gone, dang these boys are hungry. Finally I get my hands on the pot of noodles and scoop up a heaping pile of them. I pass the pot on to Spencer and receive the meat sauce pot. I pour some on before passing it down. Finally I finish my plate of spaghetti, and some breadsticks, and before I know it I was stuffed.
"Are you alright Janetta?" Sara asks.
"Yes, I'm fine. Just stuffed." I say patting my stomach.
"But that was only round one." Kyle says scooping up another heaping pile of noodles onto his plate.
"Round one?!? There's more!" I say, my eyes almost popping out of my head.
"Oh course there's more!" Dylan says chomping down on a breadstick.
"Well, I'm going to have to decline this time." I say leaning back in my chair and put my hands up in defense.
"Ok, but your going to miss out." Gavin says slurping up noodles.
"I highly doubt it." I say, passing the pot around to Spencer skipping myself.
"Well, if your done. You can come help me with dessert in the kitchen." Sara says grabbing her dishes and heading into the kitchen. I stand up, grab my dishes and head to the kitchen.
"So, what are we making for dessert?" I ask putting dirty dishes into the industrial sized looking dishwasher.
"I'm thinking brownies, what do you think?" She asks looking at me.
"I think brownies are a great idea!" I say closing the dishwasher door.
"Ooh, and do have any chocolate frosting and snickers?" I ask remembering a secret recipe my mom thought me.
"I think we do. They should be in the pantry, over there." Sara says pointing to the pantry as she cracks open two eggs and put them in a big mixing bowl. I walk over to the wooden doors and pull them both open. I look on each shelve starting from the bottom then to the next shelve, then next. I look around and spot chocolate frosting, I look to the next shelve to see 8 snickers bars. Perfect.
"Yep." I say closing the doors and walking over to the counter.
"So what are you going to do with them?" Sara asks mixing all of the ingredients in her giant mixing bowl.
"Well, my mom thought me a recipe with brownies that are called Snicker Brownies." I say putting everything down on the counter.
"Ok, well it sounds delicious. What do we need to do?" Sara asks pouring the mix into a baking pan.
"Well first, is anyone allergic to nuts, caramel, or anything?" I ask
"Nope, my boys are fine." Sara says and slides the pan into the oven.
"Ok, well after the brownies are done. We let them cool, and cut up the snicker bars into small chunks. After the brownies are cooled off, we frost them with the chocolate. Finally, we sprinkle the snicker chunks onto the brownies and then enjoy 'em!" I say smiling.
"That sounds wonderful!" Sara exclaims. Then we hear a shouting and moaning coming from the dining room. Sara and I walk into the Dining room to see Mr. Meyer standing up with his fists raised with his face covered with meat sauce. I look around the table and there is noodles and meat sauce everywhere. Some of the boys look sick, some have their heads down in shame, others look pissed.
"Haha, still can't bet your old man!?!" Mr. Meyer says before looking at us and lowering his arms.
"What's going on around here?" Sara asks using her motherly voice and putting a hand on her hip.
"Well mom..."
"Don't, well mom, me." She says her voice very powerful. "Who won?" Her voice changing into curiosity instead of powerful in a matter of seconds.
"Dad,...Of course." Hunter mumbles and points to a very happy Mr. Meyer, who is now doing some type of victory dance.
"That's my husband!" She says and walks over to Scott wiping off all the sauce with a napkin then giving him a kiss on the check.
I walk over to the table and start cleaning up all of the empty dishes from each of the boys. After walking to and from the dining room to the kitchen putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher. The boys are leaning back in their seats watching us women cleaning up.
"I hope you helped your mom before I came here." I say wiping up meat sauce from the table then looking at the boys with a raised eyebrow.
"Nope."
"Not really."
"Nah."
"No can do."
"Not really our thing." Were the answers that I got.
"That wasn't a question. Get up, grab a wash cloth, and start cleaning up this mess. That you made." I firmly say and point an accusing finger at each of them. I've never seen 14 boys stand up faster, then they rush over to the kitchen coming back with wash clothes in hand and start wiping off the table.
"It was meant for, everyone." I say firmly and the rest of them slowly stand up and trudge to the kitchen. "Or no desert!" I shout and quickly all 17 boys are wiping up their mess from the table.
I look over to Sara and Scott and smile.
"I've NEVER got them to do that and help me clean off the table." Sara says her jaw hanging to the floor.
"It's true, how did you do that?!?" Scott exclaims still in shock of my actions.
"I guess having another girl around here might change some things. Or it's the no dessert threat." I say shrugging my shoulders going back to cleaning up the mess. I hear the timer ding and rush over to the kitchen to check the brownies. Sara poked a toothpick into the center and it came out clean. These will be perfect. I pulled the pan out of the oven and let them cool on the counter.
After 10 more minutes of cleaning up the table and dishes the brownies are cool enough so Sara cut the Snickers and I frosted the brownies. After we finished she sprinkled the snickers on.
After showing off our delicious creation we cut up the brownies and started passing them around.
"Wow, these are really good mom." Mason says
"Why thanks, but it was Janetta's idea with the snickers." Sara says pointing her head to me.
"That's why the taste even better." I heard Mason whisper to himself which causes a light blush to form on my cheeks.
"Well, they're really good and chocolatey
J" Spencer adds liking his chocolately fingers.
"Well, I'm glad you guys like them." I respond.
" I think we've all had our fill on food. Boy, can you take Janetta upstairs and show her around. I'll clean up here." Sara says
"Well, I think dinner is over. Thank you Janetta for the help, the dessert was fantastic. But I must really get back to work. So Aaron, Chris, Brendon. Can you come to my office. Boys take Janetta upstairs and play Xbox or board games, like your mother said. Just have fun upstairs." Scott says in a demanding tone. The boys all nod and scatter.
"Come on." Spencer says tugging at my jeans and I take his hand before him leading me around the house and into the basement until we stop in front of the game room.
"Let's go." Spencer says and runs into the huge FROG room. In the left back corner is a small bar with a granite counter top, wooden stools, and even a small sink and refrigerator. Towards the front where we came in on the left wall is a huge screen hung on the wall with a bright cherry red leather couch that's shaped like an L facing the screen. Also there is a nice stereo system playing sounds of machine gun bullets and sniper sounds. On the back wall there are pictures of sports jerseys all lined up from Peyton Manning's Denver Broncos and many football jerseys too. In the middle of the room there is a pool table and to my right there is a Ping Pong table with racquets and a white ball. Also on the right was a nice wooden Fuzeball table.
"Janetta, come on. Sit down, we even saved you s seat." Xavier said and patted down on the leather. I sat down and got comfortable before an arm was slung around my shoulders and Spencer laid down across on Kyle, Ian, Gavin, Dylan, and Robert his head resting gently on my lap. I ruffle his blonde hair and look up to the screen. Xavier and a few other boys are all pounding the Xbox controllers their fingers moving like lightning. they were playing Halo 4 and it looks like Gavin, Luke and Nick are tied as they concentrate on the game. I giggle and keep watching, and watching and watching when finally Kyle interrupted me.
"Janetta, I challenge you to an arm wrestling match!" Kyle stated with determination in his eyes.
"Your on!" I say and stand up walking over to the counter opposite of Kyle. Little does he know I am champ at arm wrestling because of all the training for football.
"Ok I want a clean fair fight." Hunter announced like a ref standing over us. "Ready, 3....2.....1" Hunter says and throws his hand down signaling for us to start.
Kyle automatically uses force pushing my hand slightly to the right. I smirk and push my right hand the opposite way moving us back to the middle. He grins and soon all of the boys are over here rooting for at least one of us. I see a small bead of sweat on Kyle's forehead slowly running down his face, I though running backs were suppose to be strong armed people running through the middle of a pileup. I slowly release my grip leaning my hand to the right. Right before my hand touched the table I put a strong amount of strength into my arm slamming Kyle's hand onto the table.
"Janetta wins!" Hunter shouts excitedly pumping his hand in the air.
"NO FAIR!!! Let's go again!" Kyle says putting his opposite hand on the table. I place my opposite hand on the table as well. Sadly for Kyle he lost 9 out of 10 times we arm wrestled, no matter how many times we switched hands I would win. Except for the 7th time when he cheated and started before Hunter said start.
"Ok fine. She wins." Kyle mumbles and puts his head down in shame. I wink to him and walk back to the couch where Nick, Gavin, Chris and Luke have resumed their Halo game. I sat down and snuggled in between the boys watching the virtual soldiers shoot each other and run around. I watch as Nick tried to capture the flag but got shot by a very happy Luke. I kept watching and watching until my eyelids gave up and started to close.
"Are you getting sleepy, J." Patrick asked and I nod yawning.
"Well I'm heading to my room, night guys." I say and get up only to realize a sleeping Spencer and Robert blocked my way. I carefully push Robert to lean against Nick and I pick up Spencer and carry him bridal style into his room which Hunter lead me too. I put Spencer down in his race car bed and followed Hunter to my room.
"I swear no matter how many times I come upstairs I'll never remember where my room is." I whisper to Hunter. A small chuckle escaped his lips as he opens my door and I walk in.
"Thanks again Gavin." I say waving smirking.
"I'm Hunter, remember!" He whispers back viciously and points to his hair. It's the only thing that makes them different is that Gavin has longer hair Hunter has short brown hair.
"I knew that, it's fun making you guys mad. Good night!" I say with a wink and close the door in his face before he says something egotistically back. I walk into my closest and change into a sports bra and sweatpants.
What?
They're comfortable.
I brush my teeth in the bathroom then open up the sheets to my bed and climb in making myself comfortable. I close my eyes and let sleep envelop me like a cloud. With only a single thought floating in my head.
Why are there so many boys in this place?