#Nelle's Christmas Prompts 2022
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Wrap It Up
December 25, 2022
Prompt - Merry Christmas
Notes - Merry Christmas! I hope you have an amazing day and that you get to spend it with the people you love <3 This is a little bit of a Christmas Eve birthday thing for Mick mixed with a Christmas Day prompt, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.
High-pitched shots were fired, the screeching sound piercing through the silence and forcing a select few to crouch behind piles of rubble and barely constructed walls to stay out of sight. Brave blue eyes scanned the room from a little hole made in a crumbling turret wall, spotting a blue chest plate glowing from behind a nearby ramp. The person’s chest heaved with uneasy breath as they tried to hide from their assailants, but a flash of green caught the onlooker’s attention and her grip on her weapon tightened. Peering over the turret wall, Carrie’s intense, focused eyes stared down the barrel of her gun as she took a long, deep breath and slowly let it out. Her aim landed on the enemy’s green chest plate, the sighting laser on top of her gun beaming a direct path to the center of the plate. Without a moment of hesitation, her well-manicured finger tugged on the trigger, a high-pitched sound echoing as her shot landed on the person’s chest, turning their chest plate light red and deactivating their weapon.
An aggravated noise that sounded a lot like it came from Lela split the air as the raven-haired girl stalked her way away from the teenager and ran for cover. Royce’s curly head of brown hair whipped around so he could see his rescuer, giving the blonde a thumbs-up as thanks before grabbing his laser gun from where he had dropped it and ducking into the nearest structure. Crouching back behind the wall, Carrie glanced at the teammate who had been guiding her throughout the entire game, Vivien’s proud smile and cheerful nod telling the blonde she had done the right thing. Hearing another myriad of shots on the other side of the room, Vivien pulled Carrie close and whispered that she was going to split off and try to make the other team think she had the flag.
Carrie nodded and watched Vivien slide down the inside of the turret before making her way over the top of the turret to a bridge, running across it in a daring attempt to gain ground on the other team and hide the neon flag in her back pocket. The laser tag teams had been decided on the way to the arcade for Mick’s birthday - Carrie, Vivien, Royce, Brady, and Mick had decided to be on the blue team while Bentley, Miles, Mack, Lela, and Butchy found themselves on the green team. The person in charge of the laser tag arena had given the two team captains - Butchy and Mick - the two flags for their teams before telling them that, to win the game, they needed to sneak into the other team’s hideout and raise the flag on their pole. Mick had handed the flag off to Royce who was timed out by Bentley, the younger brother showing no remorse as he cackled and snatched the flag away. In return, Bentley was shot by Vivien who stole the flag back and ran, hiding out in the turret with Carrie where she handed the flag off to the blonde. With her duty to protect the flag in the back pocket of her jeans keeping her on edge, Carrie glanced around the room from her hiding spot and was sure that, if she ran through the back side of the arena, she could reach the glowing flagpole on the back wall without getting caught. All they would need was to find Miles and take the other team’s flag from him.
As she rounded the edge of the wall she was hiding behind, a firm grip on her wrist jolted her back into the area she had just vacated. Carrie’s head whirled around to meet Miles’ determined stare. Pulling her towards him and using his momentum to swing her around, Miles pressed Carrie’s back firmly against the fake brick wall at the back of the arena; one hand pressing into the wall next to her head and the other on her hip, effectively pinning her in place. Carrie looked up at Miles with wide, disbelieving eyes as he looked down at her with a cocky smirk she would have loved to wipe off of him, a thick, competitive air settling between them.
While it was wonderful to see Miles’ competitive side, his drive to win kicking into overdrive, Carrie was sure that the sheer adrenaline rush that came from the risk of getting caught by the members of her team seemed to have rushed to his head. Miles glanced down at her briefly and noticed that she still had a few imaginary rounds in the gun loosely grasped in her right hand that she had seemingly forgotten about as he stared at her intensely.
"Tell me," Miles rumbled, their increasing closeness and the dark tone in his voice unknowingly causing Carrie’s skin to break out in goosebumps, "where are you hiding that flag?"
Carrie could feel the heat trying to flood her face as Miles leaned even further into her personal space, but she tried her best to hide it. Deciding to use Miles’ tactic against him, Carrie’s eyelids slid halfway closed, offering him something akin to a seductive smirk in the neon glow that radiated from their chest plates. "I don't divulge my secrets to the enemy," she said in mock seriousness, lowering her voice to a murmur, "I guess you'll just have to search me for it if you want it so badly."
An amused chuckle made its way up Miles’ throat at her words. She was playing with him now and he knew it, but he wasn’t willing to back down. Miles knew the enemy team’s flagpole was only a few yards away and that all he had to do was find where the flag was on her body and make a break for it, but he could care less at that moment. He was far too distracted having the beautiful blonde wedged between himself and the wall. His eyes wandered from Carrie’s, searching her for the bright flag she had hidden as he asked, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“That depends,” Carrie smirked, “are you going to grow a pair and search me, or am I just going to have to take your precious flag and run?”
With a smirk, Miles kept his eyes locked on Carrie as he spoke, "It seems you leave me little choice." With that, he found himself completely unable to resist pressing his lips against hers; relishing in her small gasp of surprise as he did so. As they came up for air, Miles’ left hand moved from the wall to the back of Carrie’s neck to anchor himself as they sank right back into another kiss. His right hand rested tentatively on her hip before sliding it around to the small of her back, pulling her to him. It was there that something soft grazed against the side of his hand. Lowering his hand to investigate, Miles realized that it was the blue flag that he was supposed to take from her. It had been tucked into the pocket of her bell-bottom jeans in an attempt to keep it hidden, but the soft fabric couldn’t entirely fit inside the small pocket. This made him smile against her mouth, splitting their kiss for a moment.
"I hate to inform you," Miles murmured in a confident breath, "but I believe you just lost."
In the span of a few seconds, all of Miles’ confidence was eradicated as Carrie completely ignored his statement, instead uttering what sounded like, “Shut up,” before she lifted her hand and entangled it in his hair, pulling him back down to her and crashing her mouth on his once more. Miles found himself stunned, his eyes widened in surprise before relaxing against his girlfriend and letting her do whatever she wanted. Their mouths pressed together as firmly as they could, eliciting an unexpected, almost embarrassing moan from Miles as Carrie pressed forward into him; pushing herself off of the wall as her mouth moved slowly against his. After a while, they came up for air as though they hadn’t breathed in a century and it was then that Miles noticed they had switched places, Carrie pressing him against the dark back corner of the arena.
Carrie's hand slowly released Miles’ hair and glided across his chest before dragging down to his waist and around to the small of his back, mirroring what he had done to her. However, where he had stopped at the small of her back, her hand continued to trail downwards; eventually sliding into the back pocket of the denim jeans he wore. Miles was so intoxicated by his girlfriend, her lips, and her actions, that he didn’t seem to notice her fingers locating the folded fabric in his back pocket as she parted their lips and smirked up at him.
"Actually, hotshot," she breathed smugly, "it's you who just lost…"
Before Miles could stop his head from swimming and make sense of her words, Carrie pulled her hands from his back pockets - flag and all - and used her fully recharged laser gun to take Miles out of the game for the next fifteen seconds. The piercingly shrill sound of his armor being tagged and turning red dragged Miles back to the present as Carrie darted away from him, laughing violently as she ran. Suddenly, it all made sense; she had been playing with him as a distraction… a beautiful and very effective distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.
With an amused smirk appearing on his face, Miles pushed off the wall and gave chase. "Carrie!" Miles called, running as fast as his feet would carry him, hoping to capture her before she reached the flagpole in their base. However, Carrie was already too far ahead and, as Miles rounded the doorway into their base, Carrie clipped the two flags to the pole and screamed out her victory for all of her team to hear. Miles groaned in defeat as the rest of the blue team emerged, cheering victoriously from their scattered positions in the arena. They had won.
The rest of Mick’s birthday was spent in the bowling alley and arcade the laser tag place was located in, something she had specifically asked to do despite the many offers from her local friends to go out drinking or partying now that she was twenty-one. She simply wanted to be with family and have fun, not get drunk in public and lose all of her perfectly intact inhibitions. After completely annihilating Miles in a game of pool and beating Butchy at darts despite having no clue how to play properly, Mick chose to bowl with her family, splitting the group in half once again - this time girls versus boys - and sitting at the lanes next to each other as they registered their names in the screens overhead.
A few rounds went by, some players bowling seriously while others added some silliness or dramatic flair to their turns at the end of the lane. After rolling an eight, Vivien made her way back to her seat next to Mick and shook her head with a smile, “Y’know, I don’t think anyone can do a seven-ten split the right way.”
“Not even professional bowlers?” Mick questioned with an eyebrow raised.
“Nah,” Vivien shook her head. “They probably have someone behind the scenes knocking them over with a stick or something.”
Mick shook her head with a smile, “I think you just suck at bowling.”
“I mean, yeah,” Vivien agreed, “but that’s beside the point.”
The two shared a laugh before turning to watch Carrie as she swung her sky-blue ball down the lane toward the pins at the other end. With her first roll earning her a six, Carrie went back for another ball as a new song came over the speakers that made her turn to the girls in the booth with her signature, electric smile. “This is that TikTok song we danced to the other day, isn’t it?”
As Ariana Grande began singing her song ‘Santa Tell Me’, Lela nodded, “It was stuck in my head for hours after that.”
“That’s because someone made us redo it until she thought we got it right,” Mick claimed, sending a smirk Vivien’s way as she elbowed the girl’s side.
Vivien rolled her eyes, “What can I say? I’m a perfectionist.”
The night progressed as everyone took turns bowling, but as everyone split off to play games around the arcade, Mick’s thoughts wandered from the loud games and chatter of people as they walked. She was glad that everyone was enjoying themselves - some were battling in a game of Connect 4 basketball, a few were playing Skee-Ball in a line against the wall, and a couple were enjoying a virtual reality game that Mick couldn’t bear trying - it would only result in her getting a migraine anyway. As she wandered through the arcade, she found Royce watching Vivien play a claw machine in the hopes of getting a Care Bear. The young couple was adorable to the birthday girl, reminding her of herself and Butchy when they were younger.
Back when she and Butchy were still early in their relationship, they spent nearly every day together and Butchy treated her like his entire world revolved around her. Mick smiled as she found the look of pure love and contentment on Royce’s face while he watched Vivien play games and emphatically talk about something she had an interest in, her hands waving around animatedly. It was clear to any onlooker that the boy’s world revolved around his girlfriend and Mick was glad that they had such a close bond after only a year together. The very next day would be the young pair’s first anniversary and their first official Christmas as a couple. Naturally, Mick couldn’t be happier for them, but the idea made her think back to her first Christmas with Butchy.
She had woken up on Christmas morning to a cold bed and searched the house only to find Butchy sitting on the floor in front of the tree. He had been dragged out of bed by Miles and Lela, wrapped in wrapping paper and strings with a bow taped to his mouth and a note secured to his shirt. The morning was spent with Butchy recalling how he had ended up in the living room, tied up and cold, but he wasn’t upset about it since it seemed to make Mick, Miles, and Lela happy. They still joked about that to this day, bringing up the idea of doing it to others anytime the holiday began creeping up around the corner. Now, Christmas was right around the corner once again and there was only one new couple they could tease with the idea.
A smile tugged at Mick’s lips as her gaze wandered to the younger couple who were now celebrating Vivien’s victory at the claw machine. They were prime targets and didn’t even know it. Mick’s chocolate eyes flitted from Royce and Vivien to Butchy who was complaining to a laughing Miles about losing a game of Connect-4 basketball to his sister. Mick chuckled and fondly shook her head at the smug smirk on Lela’s face as she taunted her brother mercilessly. Mick had a feeling the trio would be willing to work with her if they knew the idea she had come up with. Miles and Lela hadn’t done something like it in years while Mick was sure Butchy would love to get the chance to recreate his Christmas kidnapping without ending up on the floor with numb legs and a sore backside. Heck, maybe her parents and Carrie would like to get in on it too! Why not make it a family affair? They might have fun with it too.
Mick glanced between the trio and the young couple as a mischievous, plotting smirk formed on her face. Now, all she needed was the right time and a few accomplices.
Tired emerald eyes flitted open, slowly adjusting to the dark, early morning sky that still lingered outside the window across from Vivien’s bed. Vivien let out a long, tired yawn, a shiver running down her spine as the cold air hit her skin, the thin, black, Hellfire Club shirt she wore providing little warmth. Grabbing a hoodie from the floor next to her bed and tugging it over her head, Vivien searched her blankets for her cell phone and the earbuds she always fell asleep with before checking the temperature. The wind that pounded against her window chilled the air to a frigid negative eleven and the forecast said it would only get up to a measly seventeen. With a groan of complaint, the seventeen-year-old slid further down her mattress, hugging the purple Care Bear she had won the day before to her chest and hauling her blankets up to her chin. The longer she could stay in the warmth of her blankets, the better.
After tucking her earbuds back in her ears, Vivien found a documentary about the Titanic on her phone and tried to relax, hoping to get at least another hour of rest before one of her siblings came running in, begging her to get up. Thankfully, her family had delivered their Christmas presents to almost everyone after Vivien’s return from Mick’s birthday celebration, so they didn’t have to go anywhere until they decided to stop by the Birch cabin after lunch, but Vivien would be making the trip to the cabin after opening gifts so that she could give her boyfriend and his family their presents. As Vivien’s mind drifted away from the sunken vessel on her phone to the boy down the street, a smile formed on her face and she paused the documentary long enough to send Royce a text wishing him a good morning and a merry Christmas before turning onto her other side and resuming the film she had begun watching.
By the time Abby came thundering down the hall, slamming Vivien’s door open with a chaotic smile, Vivien was untying the braids their mom had done for her the night before. Without warning, Abby flung a fluffy robe at her older sister and said, “Merry Christmas, bitch!”
Vivien laughed, pushing the robe aside and running her fingers through her hair to loosen the waves left behind by the braids, “Merry Christmas, dipshit.”
“Are you going to get your ass downstairs for presents or do I have to drag you there by the hair?”
Vivien glanced at the clock and sighed, “Is Olly up yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Mom and Dad?”
“Of course.”
“Then give me a few minutes and I’ll be down,” Vivien claimed. “I need to throw on some Christmas-y pajamas and fix my hair.”
Abby’s eyebrow raised as she leaned against the doorframe, “Why?”
“Mom always posts pictures of us with our gifts,” Vivien stated as she wrapped the robe around her. “I don’t want to end up on Facebook or Instagram looking like I just came out of a year of hibernation.”
“Well, you do look like shit,” Abby teased as Vivien pushed herself off of the bed.
Vivien scoffed, taking a look at her sister before saying, “Says the one with yesterday’s makeup smeared all over her face.”
A smirk tugged at Vivien’s lips as Abby’s teasing front evaporated and she stormed into the room, pushing Vivien out of the way so she could take a look at herself in her sister’s bathroom mirror. Smudged eyeliner and eyeshadow puddled around hazel eyes and remnants of pale rouge streaked with lines of lipstick and crusted drool made Abby deflate entirely as Vivien stepped up behind her with a smirk. “I look like a clown and a raccoon had a sick love child,” Abby whined.
“You’re a clown-coon now, Abs,” Vivien said as she leaned against the doorframe and patted her sister’s shoulder with a grin. “It’s a good look for you.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
Abby took another look at herself and groaned before glancing at Vivien’s reflection. “Can I use whatever’s left of your cleanser stuff from the competitions? I don’t think I have enough to get all of this off.”
“Take it,” Vivien shrugged. “I don’t need it.”
Reaching for the little container on Vivien’s bathroom counter, Abby sighed, “You’re a lifesaver.”
Vivien chuckled, an eyebrow raising as she pestered, “I thought I was a bitch.”
“You are,” Abby claimed as she passed her sister on the way out of the older girl’s room. “But so am I.”
Vivien watched her sister sashay down the hall with the container of cleanser in hand and, with a smile, she called out, “You don’t hear me arguing that, do you?” As Abby pushed her bedroom door open, she turned to her sister, kissed her middle finger, and held it out to Vivien as she disappeared into the peach-colored room with her initials on the door. As soon as Abby’s door was shut, Vivien closed hers and headed back to her bathroom to make sure she looked presentable enough for the myriad of pictures their mother would be taking of them opening presents.
After about a half hour of trying to get everyone gathered in the living room around the tree, Chelsea O’Brian finally allowed her children to begin opening the neatly wrapped presents that she had meticulously arranged around the base of the tree. Her husband, Damien, wasn't nearly as picky, sitting with his kids on the floor and tearing open presents with the joy of a child. Once everything was opened and the scraps of wrapping paper were thrown into the trash bag they kept on hand, the family brought their gifts to their rooms or wherever else they belonged before returning to the living room to talk and spend time with each other. After lunch came and went, Vivien stood from the couch and asked her parents if she could run down the street to bring her boyfriend and his family their gifts. Although Chelsea looked ready to argue that they could all go over later on, Damien smiled and told his oldest daughter to go ahead and that they would meet her there after.
Vivien was quick to hug both of her parents, thanking them before taking off for the stairs so she could grab what she needed to bring. Hobbling her way downstairs with the mountain of neatly-wrapped presents in her arms, Vivien grabbed her coat from the alcove by the door, yelled to her parents that she would see them soon, and headed out the door into the frigid December air. Unlocking her car was no easy task with her arms full, but after opening the trunk and setting everything inside, Vivien was glad to feel the air from the heaters beginning to warm as she put the car in drive and pulled out of her family’s driveway. Normally, she would walk to the Birch cabin, but with so many gifts for everyone and the temperature barely gracing the double digits, Vivien would gladly take her Hyundai Kona instead.
Pulling to a stop at the top of the driveway, Vivien beamed with excitement as the front door opened and Bentley came running out, pulling his coat on as he skidded to the end of the walkway. Vivien pocketed her car keys as Bentley rounded the car, the two falling into a hug as Bentley began rattling off some of the gifts he had already received. As Vivien opened the trunk of her car and the pair began filling their arms with presents, Vivien asked, “Where’s Rolls?”
“I was wondering how long it would take for you to ask,” Bentley chuckled. “He’s inside.”
Vivien sent Bentley a curious stare, but the blond simply smiled and ignored her silent question. As Bentley helped close the trunk and began leading the way to the house, Vivien began to wonder just what was going on. Her boyfriend almost always came out to greet her if he saw her car pulling in the driveway and, since Bentley had rushed out to help her, she knew Royce had probably seen her coming as well. It wasn’t like she needed him to come out and help her - she could have gotten it all on her own if need be - but it just wasn’t like Royce to not at least say hello. Bentley pushed the front door open, glancing back at Vivien with a smirk as she followed him into the house. As they entered the living room, Vivien set her stack of presents on the counter near the end of the short hall and greeted the family who were now watching her with smiles. To the brunette’s confusion, however, Royce wasn’t among them.
Vivien eyed them curiously, a small smile forming dimples on either side of her mouth as she watched them begin heading toward the kitchen. “Where are you guys going?” she asked, gesturing to the stack of gifts she and Bentley had brought from her car. “I’ve got your presents.”
Miles chuckled as he passed the teenager, “You’ve got some from us too, kiddo.”
“What?” she asked, an eyebrow raising as her gaze followed Miles into the kitchen.
A solid hand found Vivien’s shoulder, encouraging her to look to her right with bewildered emerald eyes. Vivien’s gaze narrowed at the smirk on Butchy’s face - they were up to something. The man patted her shoulder and said, “You can put the presents under the tree, piccola.”
As Lela and Carrie followed the others into the kitchen, they stopped and hugged Vivien, but said nothing more to her other than a quick, “Merry Christmas,” as they went. Feeling completely lost as to what on earth was going on, Vivien watched as the family went about the kitchen as though nothing had happened. Vivien squinted at them, the round lenses of her glasses adding a glare of light that resembled something akin to a cartoon villain, but as she slowly turned toward the living room to move her presents under the tree, she realized what they were doing.
Under the artificial tree, sitting on a cushion that had been pulled from the couch, was Royce. He was looking none too pleased with his situation - wrapping paper locking his upper arms to his body, strings of ribbon wrapping his wrists together, and a giant, sparkly bow sitting atop his curls. On his shirt, an envelope was secured with a few strips of glittery tape, Vivien’s name scrawled on the front in purple ink. Although Royce was faintly grinning from his spot by the fake pine tree, Vivien could tell by the look in his eyes that he wanted nothing more than to be free of his festive prison.
As she approached her boyfriend, Vivien spoke, a laugh underlying her every word, “What happened to you?”
“My family happened,” Royce claimed with a roll of his eyes. “It’s a tradition, I guess.”
Kneeling on the floor in front of Royce, Vivien inspected the strings keeping him restrained and shook her head, “It’s a tradition to tie up your loved ones and make them sit under the tree until their significant other comes to release them?”
“Something like that,” Royce chuckled.
As Vivien began tearing the wrapping paper from Royce’s arms, Mick yelled from the kitchen, “Read the note first!”
Vivien glanced at the kitchen before turning back to Royce who shrugged as best as he could. With a sigh, Vivien pulled the envelope from Royce’s shirt and carefully opened it, finding a Christmas card inside. Among the signatures of those who were standing in the archway of the kitchen, eagerly awaiting the girl’s reaction, was a short note. “Our gift may not come with instructions, but we hope you’ll take the time to figure him out, ” Vivien read aloud. “We all love you. Merry Christmas.” Turning toward the archway with a fond smile, Vivien chuckled, “I love you guys too.”
As the others began going back to simply hiding in the kitchen, Vivien turned to Royce who was watching her with a hesitant smile. “I have a gift for you,” he muttered. “Well, I have more than one, but there’s one in particular that I want to give you first.”
“That’s so funny,” Vivien laughed as she peeled away at Royce’s confinement. “I have the same for you.”
“Really?” Royce asked. When Vivien nodded and headed for the pile of gifts she had brought, Royce pried the bow from his hair with a smile. Once she returned with his presents, Royce stopped her from handing him one and placed the bow on her head. “You’re the only gift I need.”
Vivien snorted as she beamed up at Royce, “That was so fucking cheesy.”
“I know,” he chuckled as he pulled a long, thin box from under the tree. “It still made you smile.”
“You make me smile all the time,” Vivien stated easily.
Royce smirked, nudging Vivien’s shoulder as he teased, “Who’s the cheesy one now?”
“We get it - you’re both love-sick morons!” Bentley yelled from the kitchen. “Can you two just open the presents and get it over with?”
A shared laugh came from the young couple at the blond’s words, but they were quick to exchange gifts - a long, thin box extending from both teenagers. The pair shared confused grins as they handed each other near-identical, velvet boxes that they both had chosen not to wrap. At Vivien’s mild insistence, Royce opened his gift first, caramel eyes widening as he found a braided, leather bracelet with two round beads and a silver plate in the middle. The beads were purple and orange - amethyst and citrine - and the silver plate read a very simple, but loving message, “From now until forever,” with their initials in a tiny heart underneath it.
Vivien watched in nervous anticipation as Royce silently examined the bracelet. She attempted a grin as he glanced her way, but instead of saying something about the gift, he simply said, “Open yours.”
With a sinking feeling that Royce didn’t care for his present, Vivien plastered a smile on her face and nodded, taking a quick breath in and allowing her gaze to fall on the velvet box in her hands. Unsteady hands gripped the box and pried it open, but as soon as Vivien’s gaze landed on the delicate bracelet inside, all negative emotions drifted away and she was filled with a warmth that seeped into every inch of her skin. The bracelet was very similar to the one she had gotten for Royce. The metal chain was delicate compared to his leather one and the two tiny rocks were the same amethyst and citrine crystals she had picked to symbolize their relationship, but where his new bracelet had a plate with a message on it, hers had their initials etched into the stones. They had mirrored each other’s gifts without knowing.
“We match,” Vivien breathed, meeting Royce’s smile with one of her own.
Royce nodded, offering to help Vivien attach her bracelet as he said, “I guess great minds think alike.”
“I guess so,” Vivien chuckled, her gaze flicking from Royce’s smile to the bracelet he wound around her wrist.
Once her bracelet was secure, she helped Royce with his, the two of them staring at each other with so much love and care that they didn’t seem to notice everyone else slowly filing back into the room and taking up places on the couch. After a while of simply sitting and enjoying each other’s presence, the pair slid away from each other and began handing out gifts to the others. Wrapping paper filled the living room once more, littering the living room in glitter, snowmen, and holographic shreds. After the presents were opened and gratitude was shown, everyone in the house turned their attention to the television where a Christmas movie marathon was playing. As the credits for The Polar Express began rolling on the TV screen, Vivien wrapped an arm around the brothers on either side of her and pulled them close as she wished them a merry Christmas. Bentley wished his best friend the same as he leaned his head on her shoulder, but Royce was the one to kiss Vivien’s cheek and softly say, “Merry Christmas.”
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2023 Reading Challenge - COMPLETE
Master Post
01. A book you meant to reas in 2022 - Il filo infinito
02. A book you bought fron an Indipendent Bookstore - Il purgatorio dell'angelo
03. A book about a vacation - Fuga dal Natale (Skipping Christmas)
04. A book by a first time author - Mrs. March
05. A book with mythical creatures - American Gods
06. A book about a forbidden romance - La torre in fiamme (The Warlord Chronicles)
07. A book with "Girl" in the title - Quelle belle ragazze (Pretty Girls)
08. A celebrity memoir - Friends, amanti e la Cosa Terribile (Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing)
09. A book with a color in the title - The Nightmare of Black Island
10. A romance with a fat lead - Certe ragazze (Certain Girls)
11. A book about or set in Hollywood - Dalia Nera (The Black Dahlia)
12. A book published in Spring 2023 - Oscura e Celeste
13. A book published the year you were born - L'amore ai tempi del colera (Love in the Time of Cholera)
14. A modern retelling of a Classic - Il Mistero di Penelope (Ithaca, The Songs of Penelope)
15. A book with a song lyric as its title - Anime di vetro
16. A book where the main character's name is in the title - In fondo al tuo cuore
17. A book with a love triangle - Il cuore di Derfel (The Warlord Chronicles)
18. A book that was banned or challenged in any state in 2022 - Aristotle e Dante scoprono i Segreti dell'Universo (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe)
19. A book that fulfills your favorite prompt from a past challenge - Il tradimento (The Warlord Chronicles)
20. A book becoming a Tv serier or a movie in 2023 - Rondini d'inverno
21. A book set in the decade you were born - I Goonies (The Goonies)
22. A book with a queer lead - Aristotle e Dante si immergono nelle Acque del Mondo (Aristotle and Dante Dive in the Waters of the World)
23. A book with a map - Il Re d'Inverno (The Winter King, The Warlord Chronicles)
24. A book with a rabbit on the cover - Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?
25. A book with only text on the cover - L'estate che sciolse ogni cosa (The Summer That Melted Evrything)
26. The shortest book (by pages) on your TBR list - Vipera
27. A #BookTok recommendation - Caminito
28. A book you bought secondhand - Il pianto dell'alba
29. A book your friend recommended - Duma Key
30. A book that's on a celebrity Book Club List - Fuorilegge (Outlawed)
31. A book about a family - Soledad
32. A book released during the second half of 2023 - Ten Days of Christmas
33. A book about an athlete/sport - Serenata senza nome
34. A historical fiction book - La spada perduta (The Warlord Chronicles)
35. A book about divorce - Quello che non ti ho mai detto (Everything I Never Told You)
36. A book you think your best friend would like - Touched by an Angel
37. A book you should have read in High School - Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)
38. A book you read more than 10 years ago - Il giorno prima della felicità
39. A book you wish you could read for the first time again - Canto di Natale (A Christmas Carol)
40. A book by an author with the same initials as you - Il paradiso degli orchi (The Scapegoat)
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Under The Surface
December 19, 2022
Prompt - No Pressure
Notes - The final and longest installment of this trilogy, coming in at 21 pages! I had a lot of fun with this, but I didn’t finish it until last night because the ending was giving me trouble. Also, I know I mention it being 2023 in this, but I gave up trying to make it take place in the future after I started writing my novel version of this story, so we’re in modern times now, lmao.
Cars and minivans lined the parking lot of the Myrtle Beach Sports Center, people young and old alike filling the area as they waited for the doors to open. The Snowflake Championship was a very selective competition, few skaters would have gotten an acceptance letter, but Vivien severely underestimated just how many people would be attending in support of someone they knew even if they hadn’t been accepted themselves. As the Birch family’s rental van rolled into an empty space at the back of the lot, Vivien got a good look around at the other skaters she would be going up against and felt a wave of anxiety hit her. She wasn’t used to this. The championships she usually competed in were local - other small-town skate companies duking it out for a shoddily made trophy to put in their glass cases by the check-in desks. This was unlike anything she had ever seen before.
The doors of the van opened and everyone began exiting the vehicle, shoving things they had taken from the old Murphy house back into the van since they wouldn’t be needing them. Vivien slowly made her way onto the tarmac, looking around at the other cars in the area until she spotted Riven leaning against a sports car that had probably cost his dad quite a bit to rent. He was on the phone with someone while his dad talked with someone else from their rink just a few feet away. A hand on Vivien’s arm distracted her from her skating partner and brought her attention to Carrie as the blonde held out the black bag that contained Vivien’s costumes for the competition. After thanking the older girl and turning toward the building across the lot, Vivien froze, a sense of dread settling in her chest as she spotted a familiar, raven-haired girl talking with her entourage by the front door - her friend and skating rival from Maine, Naomi Sato.
Naomi Sato was the ideal figure skater in the eyes of many. She skated only to classical music, her jumps always landed flawlessly, she just barely scraped five feet tall, and she had the body type of a toothpick. On the other hand, Vivien preferred skating to whatever she felt made her movements come alive, she excelled in spins while her jumps were more to fill in elements than they were to impress anyone, she towered over most of her competition despite being five-foot-eight, and she was the first to admit she had curves, but at least she liked that about herself. Naomi had multiple gold medals under her belt and had plans of going to the Olympics whereas Vivien was perfectly fine without having the spotlight on her skates and a heavy Olympic medal around her neck. The girls had known each other for a while and considered themselves friends, texting on Instagram and leaving comments on each other’s TikToks all the time, but Vivien knew that if Naomi was competing, she wouldn’t have much of a chance at seeing a gold medal at all, let alone having one to bring home.
A hand on Vivien’s arm brought her out of her thoughts and, as she took in Bentley’s concerned eyes, she shook her head and sent him a smile, “I’m fine, Beemer.”
“You don’t look fine,” he replied.
“Gee, thanks,” Vivien said sarcastically.
Bentley rolled his eyes as he sighed, “You know what I mean, Viv.”
“I do,” Vivien nodded, allowing Bentley to lead her away from the vehicle they’d arrived in. “I’m still going to say that I’m fine.”
Bentley turned to Vivien, stopping the girl mid-step. “So you’re lying to me?”
Vivien sighed, “I’m not lying. It’s just some pre-comp jitters. It happens all the time and I’m used to it at this point.”
Steel blue eyes searched Vivien’s emerald ones in search of any trace of a lie but found none. With a sigh, Bentley relented and turned back in the direction of the building, “Alright, but I’m keeping an eye on you.”
“You and everyone else once this all hits Youtube,” Vivien breathed, hauling her bag further onto her shoulder as she began walking once again.
A large group of skaters and their coaches were waiting by the doors, ready to be allowed inside to practice before the competition, but they would have more than enough time to get on the ice before the weekend. Just as the group inched their way under the building’s extended awning, a sharp squeal made everyone freeze, “Vivien!”
Turning toward the voice seemed to have been a mistake as a head of pin-straight, jet-black hair slammed into Vivien’s chest, nearly sending both girls to the ground from the sheer force the shorter skater exuded. Vivien’s arms came around the girl with a laugh as they swayed from one side to the other, “Naomi, it’s so good to see you.”
“You too!” Naomi exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were coming to this competition.”
“I didn’t know you were either,” Vivien explained with a smile as the two separated. “You here to snatch another gold for Knox Academy?”
Knox Ice Academy was a skating company in Rockport, Maine that was renowned for producing professional skaters. From their three-year-old beginners to their oldest, pro-level skaters, they had trainers and choreographers that outranked many other skating companies in New England. Naomi and most of her friends had skated there since they were little and had been loyal to the company since they were first strapped into a pair of little skates. To Vivien’s confusion, however, the raven-haired girl shook her head with a heavy sigh, “I left Knox over the summer after it was discovered that they were putting drugs in some of the workout drinks.”
“Holy shit,” Vivien gasped. “That’s insane!”
“Oh yeah,” Naomi breathed. “Thankfully, I was one of the few who tested negative, but they’re under investigation now, so I moved to Limelight in Dover-Foxcroft.”
“That’s a long drive from Rockport, isn’t it?”
“Two hours,” Naomi sighed. “Thankfully, we’re moving soon, so the commute won’t be too bad.” There was a brief pause as the girls nodded, but Naomi’s dark, almost black eyes widened as she excitedly slapped Vivien’s arm with a squeaky giggle. “That reminds me, I have someone you need to meet!”
“Okay, yeah,” Vivien chuckled before watching the girl take off to the gaggle of skaters she had been talking with earlier. “Ow,” she muttered, rubbing her arm until she saw Naomi turn back toward her and approach with a curly-haired girl trailing behind her.
“Vivien O’Brian,” Naomi began with a bright smile, gesturing to the girl she had pulled next to her, “this is Lexi Warren.”
While Naomi rambled on about how Lexi was a skater that had taken her in when she first started training at her new rink, Vivien was trying to think of a way to tell the excited girl that she already knew Lexi. She’d known Lexi for a long time. Lexi had been a skater at Vivien’s Purple Finch rink for years before her family moved north. They had been close since they were both very young, spending as much time together as possible and even taking time out of their already busy schedules for each other. Their relationship practically dissolved a few weeks before Lexi left for Maine, but very few people knew why.
“-so I thought the two of you would be good friends,” Naomi finished, clearly not noticing the stare the other two girls shared.
Vivien tore her gaze from Lexi’s and smiled at Naomi, “We actually used to skate together when we were kids. We were good friends back then.”
Lexi scoffed, her arms crossing over her chest, “Is that what we were?”
“Lex,” Vivien sighed, “can we not do this right now?”
“Why not?” Lexi pressed. “I don’t see a reason why we can’t.”
A fire ignited in Vivien’s eyes as she readied herself to list all of the reasons she could think of, but a hand on her back stopped her. “There you are, Pip,” Riven said with a faint smirk. “You ready to go inside?”
“Yeah,” she huffed, allowing Riven to pull her toward the doors that had opened at some point during the conversation. Making sure the rest of the people she arrived with were following them, Vivien took in a deep breath, turned to Naomi, and said, “See you inside.”
The bewildered girl raised a hand and waved as Riven led her friend into the building and away from the conversation. Naomi turned to Lexi with an eyebrow raised, “What was that all about?”
Undeterred, Lexi rolled her eyes and tugged her bag further up her arm, “I’ll tell you later. Let’s just go.” Lexi took off, leaving Naomi standing by herself in the middle of the walkway. Naomi watched as a few other skaters joined the line of people filing into the building before heading inside with a sigh. She’d find out what was going on one way or another.
Almost as soon as they entered the building, Vivien split off from the group she had arrived with, telling her boyfriend and his family to wait in the stands for her family to arrive while she and Riven went to get changed into their practice clothes and hit the ice. Royce’s concern for his girlfriend only grew as he watched Riven put an arm around Vivien’s shoulders and guide her toward the other side of the building where most of the other skaters were gathering; whoever the girls outside were, they made Vivien uncomfortable. He wanted to know why so that he could help her deal with it the way she helped him deal with everything. Royce watched Vivien leave, rooted to the padded floor until Miles pried him away and moved him toward the bleachers.
“Any idea what that was all about?” Bentley asked as he and Royce found seats near the middle of the ice and claimed them for themselves.
Royce slowly shook his head, “Not a clue.”
“Maybe she’ll tell you later,” Lela offered from her seat behind the brothers. “You three tell each other everything, after all.”
“Yeah,” Royce agreed with a shrug. However, as he glanced over at where Vivien had disappeared with her mountainous skating partner, an unnerving pit began to form in his stomach, and all of a sudden, he wasn’t so sure of his own words. Taking a deep breath, Royce apprehensively muttered, “Yeah.”
After having changed into the matching outfits they usually wore on the ice during practice, Riven pulled Vivien down one of the halls, past a basketball gymnasium, and into an empty locker room. Once they were alone, he asked, “What was that about?”
Vivien was quick to fire back, “What was what about?”
Riven’s gaze was firm as he growled, “Don’t give me that shit, Vivien. You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to talk about it.”
“You need to.”
“Still don’t want to.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Riven sighed, “Vivien, I know you and Lexi didn’t end on the greatest of terms-”
A scoff left Vivien as she dropped onto a nearby bench, “That’s putting it lightly.”
“-but it would be best if we just ignored her while we’re here.” Riven watched Vivien’s expression as her gaze fell to the floor. Riven crouched in front of his partner and took her hands in his. “I don’t mean to upset you, Pip, but at least try to think of the positives.”
“What positives?” Vivien choked out as she met Riven’s gaze. “I was hoping I’d never see her again. Now she’s here as a competitor and it terrifies me.”
“Lexi never skates with a partner,” Riven tried reassuringly. “We don’t have to worry about her there.”
“No,” Vivien agreed, “but I still have to worry about her when it comes to the singles. With her and Naomi working together, I’m off of the podium before I’ve even stepped on the ice.”
Riven’s chuckle delivered a direct, but painfully honest statement, “Lexi hasn’t seen a podium since she broke her leg. The chances of her landing any of her jumps properly are slim to none.”
“She could still mess with my head,” Vivien insisted. “Or my single programs.”
Riven’s grip moved to Vivien’s arms as he sent her an adamantly firm stare, “Don’t let her. If you think she’s messing with you, tell me, tell your boyfriend, tell someone.”
“I’ll tell you,” Vivien breathed, her gaze falling again before returning to Riven’s. “I’ll tell you, but I can’t tell Royce and neither can you.”
Riven’s eyebrows furrowed as he questioned, “Why not?”
Vivien glanced toward the door anxiously before turning back to Riven and muttering, “He doesn’t know about me and Lexi.”
“You never told him?” Riven asked, his eyes widening incredulously.
“It never came up!” Vivien exclaimed softly. “He knows I dated someone before and I know he did too, but I never told him who I dated.”
“He deserves to know, Viv.”
“I know he does.”
“Then tell him,” Riven pleaded. “Rip off the bandage before someone else does.”
Vivien froze, her gaze locking with Riven’s hazel eyes. “What do you mean?”
Riven sighed, “Think about it, Pip. I’m not the only one here who knows that you and Lexi dated. The chances of Lexi telling Royce or him finding out from someone else she told are high.”
As she thought over Riven’s words, Vivien let out a prolonged groan, her fingers twisting knots in her hair as she ran her hands over her scalp. “I’m fucked.”
“And not in a good way,” Riven chuckled.
“Riven,” Vivien barked, “this is serious!”
“I know!” Riven yelped, backing away and raising his hands in surrender. At Vivien’s whine of frustration, Riven sighed, “How about this: if you don’t tell Royce before we do our free skate program tomorrow afternoon, I’ll tell him for you.”
Green eyes widened in horror, a fleeting glance at the clock making them sink in fear. “That only gives me a little over a day to come up with something to tell him.”
“That should be more than enough time,” Riven said with a shrug. “You’re taking this all too seriously. It’s twenty-twenty-three, not nineteen-fifty-two; your past dating life shouldn’t matter.”
Vivien sighed, rubbing the sweat from her palms on her pants, “His family is old-fashioned and he values his family over everything. Our relationship could end over this.”
The auburn-haired male shook his head, “From what you’ve told me, you two have been together through a lot together; I highly doubt that your relationship would fall apart because of something that happened years ago.”
Although she still seemed hesitant to agree that Riven was right, Vivien slowly nodded, “I guess you’re right.”
“Of course, I am,” Riven teased. Once Vivien let out a soft laugh and shook her head, Riven smirked and added, “So, do we have a deal?”
It took Vivien a while to think about her answer. She knew she would have to tell Royce about everything sooner or later, but she had been hoping to keep it as far on the “later” side as she could. Even though she wanted nothing more than to tell Riven she wasn’t up for the challenge, she knew she couldn’t turn him away. Besides, Riven wasn’t one to be pushy or rude, so Vivien knew that, even if she didn’t meet the deadline he had set for her, he would be gentle in telling Royce the same thing she had confided in him so many years prior. Finding nothing but sincerity and warmth in Riven’s eyes, Vivien sighed, “We have a deal.”
“That’s my girl,” Riven beamed. Pushing himself to his feet again, Riven offered Vivien a hand and asked, “You ready to go practice now?”
Vivien placed her hand in Riven’s, a small smile appearing on her face as she agreed, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Good,” Riven said as he hauled Vivien off of the bench she had perched herself on. “Let’s get some time on the ice before our short program and your solo.”
Vivien laughed, allowing Riven to drag her toward the door and through the hallways. As they neared the ice and made their way to the padded area lining the outside of the rink, Vivien spared a wave at her family and friends. As though the surging, crashing ocean waves had been let loose inside her stomach, the seventeen-year-old felt a wave of anxiety-riddled nausea flood her system once she spotted Royce beaming at her with enough love and adoration in his eyes to make Aphrodite sick. After sending a small grin in his direction, Vivien turned her back to her boyfriend and swallowed thickly as she gripped Riven’s hand just a fraction tighter. How on earth was she going to make it through their routines if she could barely think of anything other than her promise with Riven and the looming threat of Lexi sending her relationship with Royce down the drain over something that had happened ages ago?
The brunette was pulled from her thoughts as Riven returned her tight squeeze. Upon turning to her partner, Vivien felt little relief at his supposedly calming smile. He muttered something to her that she just couldn’t make out over the ringing in her ears, but his laugh was heard above the screeching noise. After asking him to repeat himself, Vivien let out a strained breath as Riven said, “Deep breaths, Pip. You’ll be fine, I promise.”
As she spared a look over her shoulder at Royce, she realized Riven was probably right. Sending him a smile and a wave, Vivien felt relieved to see him grinning right back at her. As Royce’s hand lifted into the air, Vivien caught a pair of golden eyes that distracted her. The glimmering glare Lexi’s eyes held as she watched Royce wave fondly back at Vivien made green-eyed brunette feel at least a hundred times worse than she had mere moments before. She had just unintentionally redirected Lexi’s anger toward her, onto Royce, the one person she wanted to protect from this mess. Looking back at Royce, Vivien found his head tipped to the side and an eyebrow raised as he glanced between her and Lexi. Once he discovered Vivien was watching him, he sent her a confused shrug and she shook her head in return, waving her free hand to show her brushing off the interaction before sending him a smile and turning back toward the ice. As she watched some of the junior skaters practice, Vivien took in a deep breath and sighed. What had she just gotten herself into?
No other skating competition had ever gone by so fast, in Vivien’s opinion. Her solo short program had gone by so quickly that she was sure the person in control of the music had put Florence and The Machine’s “Lover To Lover” on three times its normal speed and she had still managed to find a spot in the top three for the day. Then, the short program she shared with Riven had flown by, literally in a few spots, and by the time they were in the ever-so-aptly named “kiss and cry” seat, awaiting their scores, Vivien’s anxiety had been replaced with adrenaline. A score of 75.19 had been given to the pair, setting them in the highest place for the short program, sliding the teams from Georgia and New York into second and third place for the time being. As soon as they were allowed to return to their families for a brief intermission, Vivien found Royce and Bentley attached to her sides.
“That was amazing,” Bentley commended into Vivien’s shoulder before allowing Royce to fill his space.
“I knew you could do it,” Royce muttered, his breath fluttering a few baby hairs that curled at the nape of Vivien’s neck, sending a shiver down her spine. “You two were incredible.”
“I’m just glad I landed that throw,” she breathed as they parted, his hand sliding down her arm to lace their fingers together. “I still have my individual free program and our free skate tomorrow both of which would’ve been insanely difficult with an injured leg.”
“You feel alright, though?” Royce asked.
Vivien nodded, but before she could voice her answer, a voice from behind her cut in, “I sure hope she is.” Vivien turned to find Naomi and Lexi approaching them, Naomi’s arms outstretched for a hug as she scurried over. “I want a fair fight tomorrow.”
With a chuckle, Vivien brought the shorter girl in for a hug, “And a fair fight you shall get.”
“Good,” Naomi smiled as she backed away. Looking around at the group that now had their eyes locked on her, the raven-haired girl smiled nervously and waved. “Hello, people I don’t know.”
Vivien gestured to everyone as she said, “Naomi, this is my boyfriend and his family. Guys, this is Naomi Sato, one of my biggest rivals in the individual skate competitions.”
“Ah, well, I hope to see you all tomorrow,” Naomi greeted with a small bow toward the group. Turning to Vivien, she placed a hand on the brunette’s arm and beamed, “And I will see you on the ice!”
“That you will,” Vivien smiled as her hand searched blindly for Royce’s, latching onto his warm fingers as soon as she grazed them, a faint electric shock telling her she had found the right person.
As Naomi waved goodbye and headed for the people who were off to the side, waiting for her, Lexi remained, staring blankly at Vivien and her entourage. “Vivien.”
Vivien's posture turned rigid as she raised her head just enough for it to be noticed. “Lexi.”
Lexi’s arms crossed over her chest, “Didn’t know you were dating again.”
Royce’s grip on Vivien’s hand tightened for a second as he leaned over his girlfriend’s shoulder from the bleacher behind her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “We’ve been together for almost a year now” Royce proudly stated.
A look of disgust flashed across Lexi’s features, but it was quickly replaced with a clearly forced, saccharine smile. “Lucky. I bet you two are madly in love by now.”
Carrie, who had noticed the girl’s expression in the split-second it had been present, settled a glare on the opposing skater as she stepped off of the bleachers next to Vivien and snipped, “They are.”
Lexi’s gaze flickered to Carrie before searching the group on the bleachers behind the happy couple, finding matching glares coming from some of Royce and Vivien’s family members. With a scoff, Lexi said, “And they need their little guard dogs to prove that?”
Miles quickly wrapped an arm around Carrie’s middle, barely preventing her from launching at the curly-haired skater. As Bentley called Lexi a few colorful French words he had unintentionally learned from Miles, Riven marched over from where he and his dad had been walking, making his way between Lexi and Vivien with a scowl. “Leave,” he ordered, the darkness in his tone like a shadow looming from a skyscraper to the ants below.
“I don’t see why I should,” Lexi hissed, clearly undeterred by Riven’s intimidating demeanor. “I’m just conversing with an old friend.”
“Good to know you still consider harassment a way of having a conversation,” Vivien scoffed.
“Shut it, O’Brian,” Lexi snapped.
“You first, Warren.”
“Enough!” Riven snapped. In the silence that settled around them, Riven took in a deep breath to calm himself and said, “We’re meant to act like professionals here. Settle it on the ice tomorrow like any professional skater would.”
Without more than a roll of her eyes and a scoff, Lexi turned on her heel and headed for the door. As soon as the girl was out of sight, Vivien took in a deep, shaky breath and allowed herself to relax at least a little. Royce’s grip on his girlfriend tightened as he stepped off of the bleachers and pulled her into a hug. “What was that all about?” he questioned softly.
“Who was that?” Bentley asked. Instead of answering, Vivien wrapped an arm around her boyfriend and Bentley as the young blond joined them in an attempt at comforting his friend.
Riven shook his head at Vivien’s silence and sighed, “Lexi Warren. She was once a close friend of ours and a skater Vivien grew up with. She moved away a few years ago and…” Riven glanced in the direction Lexi had left in. “Well, let’s just say it wasn’t the nicest of endings.”
The hotel everyone was staying at was within walking distance from the sports center and had beautifully made rooms, but after Abby tossed her suitcase on one of the two beds in the room and jumped into the shower before her older sister could do more than look into the room, Vivien didn’t have the desire to stay for long. At first, she thought of going down to the pool and sinking into the hot tub for a while, but the idea of running into Lexi or Royce or both of them was enough to deter her. She didn’t want confrontation and she certainly wasn’t ready to tell Royce about her past just yet.
As she slid bobby pins out of her hair and tossed them onto the dresser she wouldn’t even bother using during her stay, Vivien came to the conclusion that she needed advice on how to handle everything. She instantly ruled out going to her parents and Mick’s parents since they already knew her situation and would probably tell her the same thing Riven had - to tell Royce and save herself the stress. Mick and Butchy were a close second, but after remembering that the couple had decided to go to the beach for a while, she ruled them out as well. She needed advice now and the only people in the hotel who could give her that were Carrie and Miles. After brushing out her hair and grabbing a few elastics, the seventeen-year-old left the room she shared with her sister and headed down the hallway to where she knew Miles and Carrie were staying. It didn’t take long for Carrie to open the door, allowing Vivien inside once the younger girl held up her elastics with a hopeful grin.
Perching herself on the end of the bed, Vivien sighed, “You know, I actually need a little help with something important and it’s not just about needing one of you to braid my hair.”
Miles, who had been flicking through the TV channels to find something entertaining, stopped what he was doing to take a look at the girl and ask, “What’s wrong, kiddo?”
“I’ve never really told a lot of people before,” Vivien chuckled nervously, allowing Carrie to split her hair down the middle of her head. “Can we keep this between us for now?”
As Miles wheeled the desk chair over so he could see Vivien while she talked, he nodded, “Of course.”
Carrie took the elastics from Vivien and set them aside, telling the girl, “You can tell us anything.”
Vivien nodded, taking in a deep breath before asking, “You know that girl that was harassing us earlier?” While Carrie scoffed, Miles rolled his eyes and nodded. “Well, I think I know why she’s bothering us.”
“You do?” Carrie asked, threading her fingers through Vivien’s hair as she began braiding it.
“Think she’s doing it to mess with your head?” Miles asked. “Mess with you so that you’ll screw up your skating - that kind of thing?”
“I think that’s part of it,” Vivien said, trying not to move her head as she shrugged. “But I think it has more to do with the fact that she was my girlfriend a few years ago.”
Vivien tried to gauge their reaction, but as Miles eyed her silently and Carrie’s hands stilled against her scalp, she had a sinking feeling she should have kept her mouth shut and never told them in the first place. The nerves that had begun building since she entered the room only seemed to grow as the silence in the room took over and nobody said a word. Miles watched the teenager, seeing her expression change ever so minutely and a panic settle in her eyes as the room remained silent. She looked like a scared baby deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle - wide-eyed and ready to run. Miles was almost sure she would’ve taken off if Carrie didn’t have a firm grasp on her hair. It didn’t take much for Miles’ brotherly instincts to kick in and the desire to help the child in front of him hit him full-force. He reached a hand out and Vivien hesitantly took hold of it as he lightly redirected the topic and slowly asked, “So, when Riven said that things didn’t end well with her…?”
Vivien looked away, tracing the design on the carpet with her eyes. “I broke up with her before she moved away and she didn’t take it nicely.”
“How did she take it?” Carrie asked softly.
“She went into a rage,” Vivien breathed. “She threw my skates at me, screamed a lot, and slapped me around a bit before Riven came into the room and pulled her away. She had to be escorted out of the skating rink.”
Miles’ grip tightened on Vivien’s hand as he wheeled his chair closer to the teenager. “Is that why you looked so tense when she was around?”
Vivien nodded, “Looking back on it now, she wasn’t the best person to be around, but we had dated since I was eleven and I thought that’s how all relationships were.”
Carrie’s hands began moving once again, threading Vivien’s hair into a braid on one side as she said, “Well, I’m glad you’ve gotten out of that mindset.”
“I think we all are,” Miles agreed.
Vivien hummed her agreement. “You know, we had been together for two years and I never once felt loved.”
“How come?” Carrie questioned.
“I don’t know. I guess it just felt like she was telling me what to do and how to feel all the time.” After a pause, a small smile appeared on Vivien’s face as she said, “Being with Royce is so different. It feels so surreal.”
“In a good way, I hope,” Miles chuckled.
Vivien laughed, “Yeah. It feels sort of like what Mick told me her relationship with Butchy was like in the beginning.”
Miles smiled, “Just wait until you realize you’ve fallen in love.”
“I already did,” Vivien confided, a fond look in her eyes that Miles didn’t need to work hard to decipher. “I fell in love with him a long time ago.”
Miles glanced over Vivien at Carrie, finding his girlfriend’s signature smile beaming back at him. There was a glint in her sapphire eyes that told Miles that she knew something he didn’t, but he wasn’t about to ask her what it was while Vivien was present. “Have you told Royce this?” he asked.
“No,” Vivien replied quickly, trying her best not to shake her head and disrupt Carrie’s quick fingers as they moved further away from her scalp. “He doesn’t know about any of it. Not me loving him, not me dating Lexi, nothing.”
“You should tell him,” Carrie suggested. “If not about loving him, then at least about the whole Lexi ordeal. I’m sure he would appreciate knowing.”
“I know,” Vivien sighed. “I want to tell him, but I’m just not sure how he would react to me having dated a girl before.”
Miles nodded thoughtfully, squeezing Vivien’s hand reassuringly before saying, “I don’t think it would matter all that much to him. It’s a part of who you are and he cares about you more than anything. I bet, if anything, he’d be grateful that you felt confident enough in your relationship to tell him something you hardly tell anyone.”
As Vivien felt Carrie tie off one braid and move to the other side of her head, she began thinking about Miles’ words. He had a good point. She knew Royce cared about her just as much as she cared about him. He showed her how much he cared about her every chance he got. The chances of him turning her away just because of who she had liked in the past were slim to none. The only thing holding her back from telling him anything was fear and she would just have to find a way to overcome that. She could do that for Royce. He deserved to know. Giving Miles’ hand a tight squeeze, Vivien smiled his way and said, “I guess you’re right.”
Vivien awoke the next morning with sore legs, a mild headache, and the desire to down a bottle of Tylenol and crash like the Titanic meeting the iceberg. With the stress of seeing Lexi for the first time in years, the waking nightmares of breaking a limb or forgetting her entire routine on the ice, and trying to come up with a plan to tell Royce about her previous relationship before Riven did, she had gotten little sleep. Knowing she had two routines that needed to be rehearsed later in the day, Vivien slipped out of the hotel bed and crept over to the suitcase she had left on the floor by the dresser, pulling out her practice outfit and heading for the bathroom to change without the risk of waking her sister who snored noisily in the next bed over.
Once she was changed and had her sneakers laced, Vivien grabbed her skates and her room key, wrote out a quick note that she put on the nightstand between the beds she and her sister slept on, and slipped out of the room unnoticed. The hotel was only about a five-minute walk from the sports center and, as she passed the room she knew Riven and his dad were sharing, Vivien knew at least one of them would be up already, waiting anxiously for the other to get up so they could head to the rink for practice. However, Vivien wasn’t about to tell Riven she was already awake. She wanted time to herself on the ice - time to think and relax before everyone else showed up and the hectic parts of the day could begin. With her keycard tucked into her wallet and her skates dangling around her neck, Vivien waved goodbye to the person sitting at the front desk and headed down the street toward the sports center.
The walk was quiet apart from the soft music playing from Vivien’s earbuds and it wasn’t long until Vivien was pulling open the doors of the sports center, the warmth from the building’s heat system taking the chill out of her skin as she made her way inside. As opposed to what she had done the day prior, Vivien set her skates aside and stretched the way her ancient ballet teacher would have vaguely praised her for. Once she felt ready, Vivien sat on the nearest bench and laced up her skates, only ditching her blade guards before stepping onto the ice. With her phone securely zipped in her pocket and her earbuds tucked into her ears, Vivien allowed her playlist to control her movements, gliding across the ice to some of her favorite songs.
As the music changed, so did Vivien’s energy on the ice. Once her playlist switched to a new song once again, I Hear A Symphony by Cody Fry, Vivien allowed the familiar tune to take over. She had watched Riven perform the song many times in practices, so often that she could probably do most of it in her sleep if given the chance, but she couldn’t perform it herself due to a cantilever that Riven had perfected over the years that Vivien could never get to look the way his did. The song was one of Riven’s more lyrical-style performances, a style Vivien loved to use for her free skate programs. However, as she glided to a stop and listened to the song fade out, Vivien heard someone clapping in the supposedly empty skating rink.
Eventually, she found Lexi leaning against the wall, clapping sarcastically. Vivien sighed as she pulled an earbud from her ear, “What do you want?”
“I was coming to get in some early skate time, but I guess you got here first,” Lexi claimed. “Was that your program for the free program?”
“No,” Vivien said, preferring to keep the conversation as brief as possible as she headed back to the gate she had entered through.
“Well, it must have meant something to you if you made it look that passionate,” Lexi pressed as she stalked her way toward Vivien.
“It’s an old program Riven used to do, that’s all,” Vivien insisted as she sat down and began taking her skates off.
Lexi laughed as she neared Vivien, taking the brown-and-purple-haired girl’s jaw in her grasp and forcing Vivien to meet her gaze. “And what if I don’t believe you?”
Not one to be pushed around anymore, Vivien wrapped a hand around Lexi’s wrist, the fingernails Carrie had taken the time to paint the day before digging into the skin on the older girl’s arm. Once Lexi had released her, Vivien said, “Believe what you want, just leave me the hell alone.”
Rubbing the crescent-shaped marks out of her wrists, Lexi scoffed, “That’s no way to treat a friend.”
“You made it clear a long time ago that we aren’t friends, Lexi,” Vivien grumbled, sending an empty glare at the older girl. “Why do you feel the need to be such a bitch just because I moved on?”
“I never wanted you to move on,” Lexi argued. “I wanted us to stay together.”
“It never would have worked out!” Vivien exclaimed incredulously.
“You don’t know that!”
“Yes, I do,” Vivien laughed, but it lacked any real humor. “We were awful for each other.”
“Says who?”
“Says anyone who looked at us for more than two minutes,” Vivien claimed as she pulled her sneakers on and laced them. “You were always telling me what to do and who I could or couldn’t hang out with and I got sick of your bullshit.”
A rage burned in Lexi’s golden eyes that nearly made Vivien flinch away, but the younger skater remained defiant. “You would’ve been lost without me telling you what to do all the time.”
As Vivien rose to her feet, she stepped closer to Lexi and lowly snarled, “You moving away was the best thing to happen to me.”
The next thing Vivien knew, her head was snapped to the right, a stinging throb gracing her left cheek as she stared blankly ahead. Her skin burned, her eyes watered so much she worried that her contacts would fall out, and just as though a switch had been flipped deep inside of her, Vivien felt an almost eerie calm pass through her body as the urge to return the gesture to the older girl bubbled inside of her like a pot of water boiling over. It wasn’t the first time Lexi had slapped her, but Vivien decided in that moment that it would certainly be the last. Vivien’s head slowly turned back toward Lexi, dark green eyes piercing through furrowed brows as she unclenched the fist she’d been squeezing and rallied all of her pent-up emotions into the single blow she delivered to the girl’s face.
Lexi’s face didn’t burn nearly as red as Vivien’s did, most likely due to her darker skin, but the shock in her eyes was more than enough to satiate the urge Vivien had to knock the girl flat on her ass. “You fucking slapped me!” Lexi screeched.
“And I would do it again in a heartbeat,” Vivien said so easily that it almost worried her. “However, there are plenty of cameras in here, just like there are in every arena. They’ll all show - very clearly, might I add - that you started this.” Lexi’s eyes flitted around the room, finding multiple cameras pointing in their general direction. Vivien felt a smirk tugging at her lips at the sight, but fought it back in order to remain composed. “Now, if you have nothing better to say, I’ll be leaving.”
Vivien grabbed her skates by the laces and began making her way to the hallway so she could grab something to eat from the vending machines before heading back to the hotel to shower, but Lexi wasn’t done just yet. “I bet your boyfriend just loves being with such a bitchy little freak.”
Despite the spiked bundle of nerves that settled in her stomach, Vivien was determined to act as though Lexi’s words meant nothing as she flipped the girl off over her shoulder and said, “It’s one of the many things he loves about me.”
When Lexi said nothing more, Vivien assumed the girl was done and quickly made her way through the hallways to the front door as soon as she was out of the girl’s sight, forgoing the vending machines as she knew nothing in them would stay down even if she forced herself to eat something small. As soon as the cold morning air hit her face, Vivien felt a shaky breath leave her. Silently making her way back to the hotel, Vivien felt a wave of determination rising within her. With every step she took, the urge to go straight to the room she knew Royce and Bentley were sharing with her brother grew stronger. She was done with the fear and stress Lexi continuously caused her just by existing. After Vivien arrived back at the overly large, ritzy hotel, she made her way through the groups of people at the check-out desk who were only there for the junior skate competitions and wouldn’t need to spend another night once the day was done. Once she finally reached the elevator, she pressed the floor she was staying on. Instead of turning toward her end of the long hall, she turned to the left and made her way to the second-to-last room on the right side of the hallway.
Vivien raised a fist to knock on the door, but it swung open before she got the chance. Much to her surprise, Abby stood in the doorway, her bewildered stare turning relieved as she said, “Mom’s been looking for you.”
“I left you a note telling you I was going to the rink,” Vivien sighed.
Abby rolled her eyes, “I realize that, but you weren’t answering your phone when she called you, so she was just about ready to call in the SWAT team.”
Vivien shook her head - of course, her mother had overreacted. “I turned my ringer off before I hit the ice.”
“Thought so,” Abby said with a smirk. “Olly and I were just getting ready to head over to the rink and drag you back to Mom.”
With a sigh, Vivien glanced into the room past her sister to see if she could spot her boyfriend, “I just need to talk to Royce for a bit before-”
“Don’t you think we should tell Mom that you’re back first?” Abby questioned.
“It’ll only take a few minutes for me to talk with him,” Vivien insisted, trying to step around her sister and into the room. “You two can go tell her and I’ll meet you in their room in a few.”
“No can do, Viv,” Oliver said as he came from a room off to the side that Vivien couldn’t see, presumably the bathroom. “Mom said to bring you to her once we found you and we don’t want to get in trouble.”
Before Vivien got the chance to argue her case, Royce stepped up behind Oliver with a small smile, “Hey, Vivien Leigh.”
Vivien felt herself relax as she smiled back at her boyfriend, “Hey, Rolls. Look, I need to tell you something, and-”
“Vivien Harley!” a voice hollered from the other end of the hall. Vivien deflated as she saw her mom marching down the hall toward them. “Why weren’t you answering your phone?”
Royce chuckled as the siblings moved out into the hallway, collectively shrinking under their mother’s firm stare. Vivien glanced back into the room and Royce held the door open as he suggested, “We can talk later if you want?”
Vivien felt ready to argue that, no, she didn’t want to talk later, she wanted to talk then and there, but after taking a glance back at her mother, she knew that wouldn’t be possible until she was done getting reprimanded. “Yeah,” she reluctantly agreed. “Yeah, that would be great.” Royce nodded and sent his girlfriend a reassuring grin before slowly closing the room door as Chelsea O’Brian closed the distance between herself and her children, ready to tell them off for something or another. Vivien sighed - their conversation would just have to wait for later.
As the day went by, Vivien barely had a second to spend away from her family, her coach, or Riven, let alone have the chance to be alone with her boyfriend. Her practice with Riven was early and closed to the public, so she couldn’t sneak any talk with Royce then and, when she got the chance to leave the rink for the first time, her boyfriend was surrounded by his family and she only had a few moments to say hello to them all and answer their questions as to what had happened with her mother in the morning before she was dragged off to her private practice for her solo short program. With Riven as her choreographer, Vivien was grateful to be able to talk with him while she was practicing, but his topic of the day continued to circle around her relationship which didn’t do anything to keep Vivien's ricocheting nerves at bay.
“Have you talked to him yet?” he asked, skating alongside Vivien as she went through the end of her routine.
“Does it look like I’ve had the chance to?” Vivien sassed in return as she skated into a spin combination.
Riven watched her, reminding her to keep one of her turns tight before sighing, “Do you want me to put an extension on our little deal?”
Once Vivien ended her practice with her finishing pose, she answered, “No, I plan on doing it as soon as we’re out of here.”
“Do you want help?” Riven questioned, watching as the girl cleared her blades of shaved ice and tugged her leg warmers further over her knees.
Vivien stretched her arms over her head and sighed as Riven led her toward the rink gate, “Probably.”
A smirk appeared on Riven’s face as he handed Vivien her blade guards and said, “After you then, Pip.”
Vivien slid her guards into place, replaced her skates with her sneakers, and took a deep breath as she and Riven headed for the hallway. Once they found their way to the gymnasium where every other skater and their family were waiting to be let in, the intercom system called the next skater to practice and Vivien found her way through the masses of people to where her family, Riven’s dad, and Royce’s family were sitting and conversing. Before getting close enough to be pestered by their questions, Vivien glanced at Riven - who seemed almost excited about his role in her plan - and nodded to him, “Go ahead.”
As Royce stood to ask Vivien how her practice went, Riven ducked down in front of the teenager, wrapped an arm around his legs, and hauled him over his shoulder as he stood, earning a noise of shock from Royce who suddenly found himself facing Riven’s glorious backside instead of his girlfriend. “We’ll be back in a bit,” Vivien claimed to those who only watched the interaction in confused amusement.
Royce used his arms as a brace against Riven’s spine as he watched his girlfriend follow Riven back into the hallway. “Where are we going?” he asked warily.
“To talk,” she told him with a small smile. “I’m sick of everything else getting in the way, so I asked Riven to help.”
With a confused nod, Royce chuckled softly, “And I couldn’t walk myself to wherever he’s bringing me?”
“That wasn’t part of my plan,” Vivien claimed, a faintly amused smirk appearing on her lips, “but I admire his enthusiasm, don’t you?”
Royce shook his head, a smile splitting his features, “I guess so.”
Without so much as a word coming from him, Riven pushed open a heavy door and set Royce back on the ground before nodding to himself and leaving the room. Before Vivien could close the door, she thanked Riven for his services and he nodded before heading to the vending machines at the end of the hallway. Vivien twisted the lock on the door into place to prevent any interruptions before glancing around at the locker room Riven had brought them to. She sat on one of the benches and gestured for Royce to join her before sighing, “I bet you’re wondering why I’m doing this.”
“I am,” Royce admitted with a hesitant nod. He took a moment to examine the seriousness on Vivien’s face before asking, “You’re not... you're not breaking up with me, are you?”
“What? No, of course not!” After a pause of hesitance, Vivien asked, “Why? Are you breaking up with me?”
“No, never,” Royce stated firmly. “Besides, you’re the one who brought me here, not the other way around.”
Vivien chuckled airily at the reminder, “Yeah, I guess I did.”
A silence fell over them and Royce watched as Vivien’s fingers mindlessly wove into the laces of her sneakers, twisting them around and tugging on them as she stared blankly into space. Not wanting to let her mind wander into, no doubt, negative territory, Royce took one of her hands in his and softly said, “If it’s too much, we can do it another time.”
Before Vivien could say anything, Riven’s voice came through the door - the older skater presumably leaning against the door, playing bodyguard for them, “No, she can’t!”
With a roll of her eyes, Vivien agreed, “He’s right. It’s something that I actually should have told you a long time ago. I was just worried that it would change things with us.”
“Whatever it is,” Royce began, “just know that nothing - and I mean nothing - could possibly change how I feel about you.”
The sincerity in Royce’s caramel eyes gave Vivien the validation that she was making the right decision. “Well,” she said after taking in a sharp breath, “you know that girl that’s been bothering us? Lexi?” Vivien waited for Royce to nod - a welcome roll of his eyes coming with it - before she said, “She was my girlfriend a few years before I met you.”
Vivien watched Royce’s expression change so quickly that she struggled to define each emotion that flashed across his face. She wondered what was going on inside his head. It was hard to tell how he was feeling or what he was thinking as he processed what he had been told, but Vivien tried her hardest to brace for whatever it was that he was going to tell her - good or bad. However, what came out as his response was nowhere on the list of potential things she thought he would say. “Is that why she acts like that? She’s jealous?”
Vivien took a moment to register what he said before asking, “What?”
Royce shrugged, “I mean, I could understand why she would be. You’re an incredible person and-”
“Woah, woah, wait,” Vivien sputtered, her brain struggling to catch up with Royce’s train of thought. “You’re not even going to react to what I said?”
An eyebrow raised as Royce tilted his head to the side, “What - about you and her being together before we met?” Vivien nodded slowly. A smile formed on Royce’s face once again as he reached up and took Vivien’s face in his hands, leaning closer until their foreheads touched. “I told you that nothing could change the way I feel about you and I meant that. Just because you had a girlfriend before doesn’t mean that you don’t love me now just as much as I love you.”
Vivien’s eyes snapped open at his words. He had never said something like that before - neither of them had. “You love me?” she muttered.
Royce’s eyes fluttered open as he backed away just enough to see her face properly, a shade of pale scarlet flushing his face as he meekly nodded, “I have for a long time now.”
All of the fear and stress Vivien had let build up inside of her washed away in an instant, a bubbling happiness spreading through her veins like liquid gold as she allowed herself to smile like an idiot at the boy sitting in front of her. While Vivien giggled like a spoiled child on Christmas morning, Royce watched her in nervous silence, waiting for her to say something, anything, in response to his words. Vivien didn’t leave him waiting for long and a blissfully idiotic, ridiculously huge smile spread across Royce's face as his girlfriend wrapped her arms around his shoulders, held him close, and softly said, “I love you too.”
Royce’s arms locked around Vivien’s middle, holding her as close as physically possible on the uncomfortable metal bench they were still perched on. It wasn’t the most romantic place they could’ve chosen to confess their love, but they didn’t need someplace over-the-top or romantic. They just needed each other. The pair stayed like that, perfectly content in one another's arms until a solid thump on the door reminded them that they weren’t totally alone.
“You two better not be going at it in there,” Riven warned through the door. “We have to be on the ice within an hour and I’m not covering for either of your asses if we get disqualified for being late.”
Vivien backed away from Royce with a huff, standing and unlocking the door before pulling it open and telling Riven, “Just because you’d do it with someone in a dingy locker room, doesn’t mean we would, you ass.”
“Love you too, Pip,” Riven said with a smirk. “Now, let’s go, lovebirds. If we take any longer, your family will think you two eloped or something.”
As Riven turned and stalked off down the hall, Vivien turned to Royce with a sigh and held out a hand for him to take. “You ready to go?”
“With you?” Royce asked rhetorically as he stood and laced his fingers with Vivien’s. He brought their joined hands up and placed a kiss on the back of her hand before swinging them back down between them. “Always.”
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The Gift
December 13, 2022
Prompt - Shopping
Notes - I really enjoyed this one. I wrote two different versions of it and only felt like this one worked, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it!
People packed like sardines flooded the Mall of New Hampshire as they always did in December. Children and their families lining up to take pictures with Santa Clause, people frantically panic-buying gifts they had forgotten to cross off their lists, and festive music blasting from every possible speaker really made the holiday season come together. Compared to some of the bigger malls in other states, Carrie was sure this was nothing, but as yet another person shoved her as they elbowed their way through the massive crowds, the blonde curled further into her fur-lined, designer coat and kept her mouth shut.
Carrie moved with the sea of people, her gloved hand enclosed in Vivien’s unnaturally warm one as the brunette bobbed and weaved through people. As they passed the unmistakable, overbearing smell of Bath and Body Works, Vivien shoved past a cart selling phone cases and forced them into the line of people heading down a long hallway. The brunette had only just been approved to go back to walking around and improving her mobility without the use of crutches or a brace on her leg - just in time for her upcoming competition - and had used her first breath of freedom to snatch Carrie from the Birch cabin and rush to a mall an hour away from her hometown. Vivien glanced over her shoulder at Carrie and shouted something that the blonde supposed was something reassuring, but Carrie could make out a single word over everybody else and the thumping music coming from Hot Topic. Eventually, the pair reached the food court and ducked into a booth nestled in the corner between a Dunkin Donuts and an Arby’s.
Vivien laughed airily as Carrie huffed, watching the blonde shove her coat and gloves into the space between her and the wall and take in a breath of relief. “I guess I should’ve told you about how crazy this place gets, huh?”
Carrie let out a scoff, “Yeah, a little warning would’ve been nice.”
“Sorry,” Vivien chuckled, showing the older girl that she wasn’t very sorry at all. “Can I buy you a boba as an apology?”
“What’s a boba?” Carrie asked.
A smile, a mischievous smile that told Carrie she was either going to love or hate whatever the girl brought her, appeared on Vivien’s face as the girl patted Carrie’s hand and pushed herself out of the booth. “You’ll see. Strawberry or blueberry?”
“What does that-”
“Just pick one,” Vivien interrupted with a laugh. “I always go for blueberry, but you give me strawberry vibes, so I wanted to ask first. Strawberry or blueberry?”
Carrie's eyebrow raised in confusion. What on earth were 'strawberry vibes'? How did strawberries have vibes? Were 'strawberry vibes' a good thing? Carrie opened and closed her mouth a few times, gesturing confusedly with her hands before dropping her arms back to the table and shutting her mouth with a sigh, “Strawberry, I guess.”
“Okay,” Vivien chirped, her face lighting up with a beaming smile that rivaled Carrie’s as she turned and trotted off for the other side of the food court.
Shaking her head at the girl’s antics, Carrie took the opportunity to glance out at the sea of people swarming the mall for Christmas shopping. Most of the people shopping didn’t even look bothered by the hustle and bustle of the crammed sardine can they were all shoving themselves into. A horde of people with their arms weighed down by extensive amounts of shopping bags entered the food court, exiting through the back door and into the parking garage so they could find a way to put everything in their cars without anything breaking. As soon as the large flood of people had dwindled, a group of teenagers and little kids in matching uniforms with perfectly made ballet buns scurried through the food court in a long chain, piquing Carrie’s interest as they evaded almost everyone else on their way through with their hands linked. Once the kids were through, a flock of adults with their cameras out came in, ready to take pictures and record the kids who were, presumably, putting on some kind of performance somewhere in the mall.
Carrie didn’t get much of a chance to figure out where the group was going since, as soon as the last of the adults passed, Vivien came back to the table with two plastic cups filled with pink and violet liquids. As Vivien handed Carrie a thick straw with a sharp point on the bottom, she said, “You have to stab the plastic in order to drink it.”
“Why?” Carrie questioned as she unwrapped the blue straw she had been given. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to just peel it off and drink it normally?”
Vivien sighed, a small smile appearing as she said, “It’s just for fun. Besides, if we need to go walking through the mall, it keeps the tea from spilling.”
Shrugging as Vivien unwrapped her purple straw and jabbed it into her drink, Carrie held her tube over the middle of the plastic lid and stabbed it through the center of the flower design. While Vivien sucked down a good amount of her drink, Carrie eyed the mysterious, colorful balls flowing through the straw that Vivien didn’t seem to notice. “What are those?”
“What?”
“The things in your drink.”
Vivien laughed as she nudged her glasses further up on her nose, “It’s the boba. These ones are blueberry flavored and they pop in your mouth. You have the strawberry-flavored ones. They’re pink.”
As Vivien went back to drinking her boba tea, Carrie hesitantly lifted hers and took a long, slow sip, waiting until she felt a tiny, glossy orb in her mouth before pulling the straw away. The drink itself wasn’t bad - the consistency was more like strawberry milk than tea, but it still tasted good - Carrie was more concerned about the tiny bubble she could feel rolling around on her tongue. Feeling Vivien’s eyes on her, Carrie looked up and found the brunette staring at her with big, hope-filled eyes that just begged for her to try the mysterious substance. How on earth anyone could say no to the teenager’s pleading, emerald irises, Carrie didn’t know, but she did know that she was now a member of the group of people who couldn’t refuse her.
Allowing the tiny ball to burst against her teeth, Carrie made a face that made Vivien laugh hysterically, covering her mouth with a hand in order to keep her cackling from bubbling to the surface. “There it is!” Vivien giggled. It took Carrie a moment to get over the texture of the leftover bubble skin and focus on the taste, but when she did, it was easy to equate it to a strawberry lipgloss she had used all the time. Once her giggles had dissipated, Vivien pressed, “How is it?”
“Not bad,” Carrie allowed with a small nod. “It felt kind of weird when it popped.”
“Yeah,” Vivien smiled. “My mom hates the popping boba they make here and Abby gets headaches from the tea because she chugs it, so Mick and I are usually the only ones who drink it.”
“I guess you’re just special like that,” Carrie chuckled, taking another sip of the tea that had been bought for her.
“I guess so.”
The table was quiet for a while as the pair relaxed with their drinks, looking around the food court and watching people leave as time went by. Thankfully, it appeared as though more people were leaving as time slowly ticked closer to noon. Vivien continued glancing over Carrie’s shoulder at the rest of the mall, keeping an eye on one shop that Carrie couldn’t see unless she turned around. “You know,” Carrie began, breaking the seal of silence, “I’m surprised you, Royce, and Bentley don’t come here a lot.”
Vivien shrugged as she stirred her boba with her straw, “I wish we could. Even though I have a car of my own now, I guess everyone thinks it’s too far away to just up and leave without supervision. Miles or Mick usually come with us if we go anywhere far out, but sometimes I just want time with my friends, you know?”
Carrie hummed, “I do. Do you want me to take to them?”
“No,” Vivien quickly declined, “that’s okay. I don’t want to hurt their feelings.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t take it too personally.”
There was something in the way Vivien’s eyes met Carrie’s that made the blonde think there was something more to the brunette’s claim, but she didn’t feel like pushing it. She was lucky that Vivien liked her from day one, she didn’t want the girl’s opinion to change over something so simple. Vivien sighed, “I don’t want to risk it.”
“Okay,” Carrie breathed. The pair took a pause of silence to sip at their respective drinks before Carrie spoke again, “So, what are we here for, exactly?”
Licking her lips clean of blueberry tea, Vivien smiled at the change of subject, “I need to pick up a few last-minute presents for Rolls.”
It had taken a while for Carrie to register why Vivien had chosen the nickname ‘Rolls’ for her boyfriend. At first, she assumed it was because they both liked bread or perhaps they had met in a bakery. However, after some consideration, she had come to the conclusion that Vivien was nicknaming him after Rolls Royce, the iconic, luxury car company. Her nickname for Bentley was something similar - relating him to a BMW even though his actual name was its own car company. It seemed as though Vivien’s penchant for nicknames was obvious, but her love of vehicles was something you had to find out for yourself.
“What are you going to get him?” Carrie asked, glad to have found a topic the brunette was excited for.
Vivien drummed her fingers on the table with a brilliant smile, “Well, our anniversary is Christmas, so I had an idea a while ago that I should get him something for both.”
"That's a good idea."
"Thanks," Vivien said, swirling her drink around before taking a sip. "I was lost as to what to get him at first because I really love him and he deserves the world."
“Aww,” Carrie beamed, “that’s so sweet! What did you decide on?”
“Well,” Vivien began, practically bouncing in her seat from excitement, “I found a store here in the mall that makes specialty jewelry and I was going to get us a matching set of bracelets. The only problem is that their stuff is a bit pricey, so I had to only buy Royce one. I was able to get it designed and engraved exactly how I wanted it before their Christmas cut-off, though, which I can’t complain about.”
Carrie’s head lilted to the side a fraction, “You already have it?”
Vivien shook her head, “I’m getting it today. I have a competition coming up this weekend that I still have to find out the location for, so I won’t be able to pick it up before the mall closes for Christmas.”
Carrie nodded in understanding, clearing her lips of strawberry tea before asking, “Where is this mysterious store?”
“It’s right across the hall from here,” Vivien answered, vaguely lifting a finger in the direction of the shop. “Things Remembered.”
Carrie leaned around the edge of her seat, peering through the thinning crowd of people at a store with large windows in the front and a large sign with the name of the store scrawled in big letters. Turning back to Vivien with a knowing smirk, Carrie said, “So that’s why you keep looking over there!”
Meekly, Vivien nodded. “I need to go there before they go on lunch at one.”
“What are we waiting for then?” Carrie asked, grabbing her things and her drink before propelling herself out of the booth and encouraging Vivien to follow suit. “Let’s get Royce his present.”
Vivien laughed, grabbing her bag and slinging the strap over her head before getting up from the seat, latching hands with Carrie, and allowing the blonde to drag her toward the store. As soon as the pair entered the store, Vivien split off to talk to one of the cashiers about her pre-ordered item while Carrie looked around at the different jewelry available. Long cases of expensive jewelry and engraved accessories lined the walls. Inside a clear, rotating case at the end of a case full of bracelets sat a collection of charms meant for bracelets and necklaces alike. Flipping through the arrangement of charms, Carrie smiled as she found a golden clapperboard like the ones they used on set all the time. A few cases later, Carrie paused as she came across a charm that made her spare a glance at the girl standing at the counter. A golden skate just like the ones Vivien wore on the ice. As a worker approached the blonde, asking her if she needed help with anything, Carrie smiled and asked if they could help her with her Christmas gifts.
The snipping of scissors tearing through paper and the squeaky pull of a tape roll were the only sounds in Royce and Bentley’s bedroom. Scraps of colorful paper, frayed ends of scrapped strings, and chicken-scratched to-and-from cards littered the otherwise neat floor. Due to it being the weekend and all of the O’Brian family being occupied with practices, appointments, or other things they couldn’t disclose for whatever reason, the boys were able to wrap the gifts they had gotten for Vivien and her siblings without worrying about them coming upstairs or breaking in through their window. Royce and Bentley had gotten most of their gift shopping done while the O’Brian siblings were at school, stashing the presents in the attic to avoid any risk of the trio discovering their gifts before they were wrapped and placed under the tree.
A majority of their presents for their family had been taken care of and hidden in the basement - somewhere most everyone refused to go unless absolutely necessary. The brothers had gotten up early one morning and tackled all the gifts they could manage. Some of the presents looked like they had been handled by a four-year-old who had gotten ahold of some safety scissors and duct tape while others looked as though they had taken it to the store to be wrapped by a professional, but they would be received all the same on Christmas morning.
Bentley had made quick, yet precise work of wrapping a majority of his gifts, but that was mostly due to the fact that Royce was awful at wrapping anything. As Bentley watched his brother struggle multiple times to wrap a single game for Abby’s Playstation, he realized there might have been a reason Royce usually used boxes for gifts instead of wrapping paper. With a shake of his head and a smirk, Bentley held out a hand, wiggling his fingers until the game and plaid wrapping paper was placed in his palm. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, you know,” he sighed as he got to work on the gift.
“Says the perfectionist,” Royce scoffed, watching as Bentley folded and creased the paper with ease, placing tape where it was needed before handing back the gift for Royce to set aside. “Seriously? How?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not complaining,” Bentley shrugged as a smile tugged at his lips.
“I am,” Royce sighed as Bentley rose from the floor and began moving his pile of presents to his side of the room.
Bentley chuckled and shook his head as he hefted the purple and green present for Vivien onto his bed, “Please tell me you’re not wrapping your gift for Vivien. I’d hate to see her have to use a chainsaw to break through eight layers of wrapping paper and enough tape to secure Fort Knox.”
Royce shook his head as he said, “No, I tried and realized that I love her too much to make her cut through my shitty wrap jobs.”
“Are you talking about my skating buddy?” a cheery voice asked from the hallway. Royce turned toward the door to see Carrie nearing their room with two ceramic mugs in hand. She had come back from her shopping day with Vivien about an hour prior, just in time for supper. As soon as Royce nodded, Carrie smiled and said, “I had a feeling. What did you two get her?”
Bentley patted the box he had set on his bed with a grin, “I got her some roller skates since she wants to learn how.”
“That could be a lot of fun,” Carrie commented, holding out a mug to Royce before handing one to Bentley. “I got her this cute bracelet to match with me.” Royce turned to Bentley with wide eyes, seeing the nervous sheen in his brother’s eyes as Carrie continued, “I have one that has a golden clapperboard and she has a golden skate - isn’t that adorable?”
“Uh, yeah,” Bentley tried with a small grin.
“You bought her a bracelet?” Royce asked in a breath.
Carrie hummed as she nodded, “Yeah, I thought it would be cute. Why?"
Royce scrambled to his feet and rushed to the door, sliding it shut and turning back to Carrie before telling her, “You can’t tell anyone what I'm about to show you or tell you.”
“Not even Miles,” Bentley added.
One of Carrie’s perfectly trimmed eyebrows arched as she placed a hand on Royce and Bentley’s shoulders and asked, “It's not a matter of life or death is it? Because, if it is, I’ll have to tell him.” Royce shook his head, feeling a mild appreciation that she had at least asked beforehand. Carrie nodded and took a deep breath, allowing her hands to fall from their shoulders as she said, “Alright then, I won’t tell a soul.”
Royce spared a glance at Bentley, who nodded. With a sigh, Royce headed for Bentley’s desk and wheeled his brother’s chair over to the closet before opening the bi-folding doors, climbing onto the chair, and retrieving his backpack from the highest shelf. Once he was back on the floor again, Royce opened the bag and pulled a long and thin velvet box from inside. Stepping back over to Carrie, Royce took in a deep breath and met Carrie’s gaze. Caramel eyes that were usually directing anger, hatred, or disgust at the blonde showed nothing other than determination and mild fear.
“Carrie,” Royce began, “I know that, normally, I don’t trust you enough to even bother telling you what my middle name is-”
“It’s James,” she told him softly, gently interrupting him. Curious brown eyes flickered up to Carrie’s oceanic blue and Carrie grinned. “Your middle name is James, you like strawberry ice cream with peanut butter cups and green gummy bears, and your favorite color is a very specific shade of sunset orange.”
“How did you know all of that?” Royce questioned quietly.
Carrie smiled at the seventeen-year-old, “My life doesn’t just revolve around my career and Miles. I pay attention to you both, too, you know.”
As Bentley smiled at the older blonde, Royce watched her as though he was just seeing her for the first time and maybe, for once, he was. Maybe he was seeing Carrie as something other than the horned, pointy-tailed image of her that he had created in his head. Maybe there was more to her than he ever allowed himself to see. Shaking himself out of his stupor, Royce took in a quick breath, cleared his throat, and said, “Alright, well, can you promise me that you won’t say anything to anyone about this? It’s sort of a big deal for me since our anniversary is on Christmas and I don’t want our family’s typical chaos to ruin my plans.”
“I can understand that,” Carrie chuckled. Upon realizing that the curly-haired brunette was still watching her expectantly, Carrie added, “Nothing said, seen, or done will leave this room, I promise.”
Royce nodded, grateful for the tacked-on words as he lifted the black case and slowly opened it for Carrie to see. Carrie’s eyes scanned the bracelet, looking over the purple and orange stones with a grin that only broadened once she noticed the tiny etchings of Vivien and Royce’s initials in their respective stones. “Well?” Royce asked. “What do you think?”
Carrie’s gaze flickered up to Royce’s, her signature smile gracing her face as she told him, “She’s going to love it.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
Bentley thumped the back of his hand on Royce’s chest, a smirk present on his face, “See? I told you not to worry about it.”
“Carrie isn't Vivien,” Royce said with a roll of his eyes. “Vivien is who I’m worried about.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Carrie claimed easily. “She loves you.”
"I know, but..." Royce let out a long, exaggerated breath as he closed the bracelet box and tucked it into his back pocket, “but we’ve never said it.”
Carrie wasn’t all that surprised at the news. It seemed as though Royce and Vivien moved at a much slower pace with their relationship than she and Miles had. She and Miles had a crash course into their relationship, quite literally crashing into it at the speed of a bullet train after an extensive build-up of friendship and tension, while Royce and Vivien had taken their time with everything. She wasn’t even sure if the pair had shared their first real kiss yet. The closest Carrie had seen were a few, quick, cheek kisses in passing, so she figured it wouldn’t be out of pocket for them to hold off on that too.
Hoping to quell the boy’s worries in a way that wouldn’t affect her relationship with him or his girlfriend, Carrie placed her hands on her hips and smiled as she said, “I wish I could tell you what Vivien told me today, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
Royce’s attention snapped to Carrie, taking in the older blonde’s smile as Bentley chuckled, “Are there any loopholes that allow you to tell me, but not Royce?”
Carrie contemplated how Vivien had worded the verbal contract she had agreed to before leaning close to Bentley, cupping a hand on the side of her mouth, and whispering to the younger blond. As Bentley’s grin turned into a wide smile and Carrie leaned away with a proud smirk, Royce asked his brother, “Well, what did she say?”
Bentley shook his head as a chuckle fell from his mouth, “I’m not telling you.”
Royce made a noise of disbelief, “Bentley, you tell me everything!”
With his arms crossed over his chest and a teasing smirk on his face, Bentley shrugged, “Usually.”
“You love me too much to keep secrets from me,” Royce tried.
The youngest of the Murphy brothers chuckled, “And it’s because I love you that I’m not telling you this.”
Royce groaned as his brother passed him, turning on his heel to follow him out of the room, “I’ll get it out of you somehow.”
“Doubtful,” Bentley chortled as he headed for the stairs.
Carrie smiled fondly as the boys disappeared into the hallway, shaking her head as Royce’s attempts to pry the information from his baby brother were stone-walled by the younger blond who, in reality, knew nothing for the time being and was just putting on a show. If Carrie was given permission from Vivien, she would tell Bentley what she knew, but until then, he wanted to act as though he knew, just to drive Royce up the wall. Carrie followed the boys out of the room, determined to go to the room she was sharing with Miles so that she could hide the matching bracelets until she found a different holiday to give Vivien hers, but found herself stopped as Royce turned around in front of her. He held out the velvet box and quietly asked her, “Could you put this back for me?”
Despite her initial surprise at the offer, Carrie softly asked, “Top shelf?”
Royce nodded and gave her a small smile, “In my backpack, as far back on the right as you can get it.”
Carrie gave him a smile and nodded, accepting the long, velvet box before telling him, “I got it. Go torment your brother.”
With a laugh, Royce nodded and took off down the stairs, making it about halfway down before turning and coming back up. “Hey, Carrie?” he called through the banister bars, stopping the blonde as she entered the room the brothers shared. “Thank you.”
With a confused tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow, Carrie asked, “What for? I didn’t do anything.”
“You did,” Royce corrected, allowing a small smirk to pull at the corner of his lips. “Whether you realize it or not, you did. So… thanks.”
Even though she was still confused, Carrie tried to mask it as she smiled and said, “You’re welcome, Royce.” Royce gave a sharp nod and a smile before heading back down the stairs, leaving Carrie staring in happy confusion at the spot he had vacated. She couldn’t put her finger on what the teenager could’ve meant, but she wasn’t about to complain - they were beginning to bury whatever hatchet existed between them and Carrie wasn’t willing to dig it back up by pressing the subject. They were moving forward and that was good enough for her.
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Separate Ways
December 7, 2022
Prompt - Skating
Notes - I stayed the night at my great-aunt's house and there was a streetlight shining directly in my face when I laid down, so I spent a lot of time just writing last night. Anyway, if you ignore the commentary in one ear, this is the video I used as a reference for the skating practice.
The faintest smell of something burning filled the air as a pair of glacier-blue eyes flittered open. Although the cabin was practically soundproof and the colder weather had permitted the use of thickly insulated, black-out curtains to keep the rooms warm and dark, nothing the family did could rid the log cabin of Brady’s attempts at cooking. He must have been trying to make breakfast-in-bed for his wife or something because, after his last attempt at french toast, Mack had banished him from going anywhere near the kitchen. Sooner or later, Mack would order take-out from a local restaurant to replace what had to be tossed out while Brady fanned the smoky smell out the window over the sink. Staring blearily at the constellations that had been stuck to his ceiling for over a year now, Bentley grinned - there was rarely a day that started with burned food that didn’t end well.
Bentley wasn’t usually a morning person, but given there was light streaming in from one of the other windows, he suspected Royce was awake already, meaning it wasn’t nearly as early as he thought it was. Fighting every urge to roll over and go back to sleep, the faint scratching of pen on paper kept Bentley wide awake. It wasn’t loud or bothersome - it never was - but knowing his brother was just waiting for him to get up so they could do something together, Bentley let out a long sigh and rolled over, watching Royce scramble to pull the curtains on his side of the room closed.
“Did I wake you?” Royce asked in a hushed voice.
Bentley shook his head against his pillow, a grimace working its way onto his face as he discovered a damp spot where he’d probably drooled at some point. With a groaning complaint, Bentley pushed himself to sit up and pulled a hoodie from the end of his bed over his head so he could have some semblance of warmth other than his blankets and the short-sleeve shirt he was pretty sure Royce had taken from either Butchy or Brady at some point. Having their beds so far apart in the cabin was new, something that only happened because Bentley’s rapid growth spurts resulted in him being unable to sit up on his bottom bunk without slamming his head into a metal bar, but it didn’t stop Bentley from dragging himself out of his blankets and hauling himself across the floor to his brother’s bed.
Royce chuckled as Bentley sat across from him and tugged the other side of the throw blanket over his lap, “You realize you could’ve just brought over one of your million blankets, right?”
Bentley’s icy blue eyes rolled at his brother's words, “That defeats the purpose of coming over here and bothering you.”
Rolling his eyes in return, Royce sighed, “You don’t bother me. If anything, I bother you with all of the writing I do while you’re trying to sleep.”
“It doesn’t. It’s relaxing,” Bentley claimed with a shrug that Royce wanted to believe. He had gotten into journaling not long before Miles left home. It was something he had seen their oldest brother doing that he wanted to do as well, but his scribbling messages to himself only increased once Miles was gone. At first, he knew his early-morning writing sessions woke Bentley up, but eventually, it became more normal and they both grew used to the sound. However, Royce had always been mildly worried that the incessant scratching of his ballpoint pen would aggravate his brother at some point.
A knock on the thick wooden door they had decorated with tinsel and fairy lights took both boys away from the conversation at hand as they both hollered for the person to enter. A head of lightly graying chocolate hair poked around the doorway, a faint smile on the older woman’s face as she spotted the brothers. She looked exhausted and, if the boots pinched between her fingers were anything to go by, she was getting ready to go downtown to pick up breakfast. “You two want anything from Crystal’s?”
Ah, Crystal Springs, the one place in town that was open at the crack of dawn and closed after lunch. The food was only good if the right cook was working, the waitresses liked to talk with their regulars and tended to forget anyone else in their zones, and hardly anyone other than old men or truck drivers would sit in to eat in the early hours, but you were always guaranteed to leave feeling like you had eaten your way through a full buffet, dessert and all.
Once the boys had placed their normal order of chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes with a side of loaded home fries to share, Mack typed everything out on her phone with a nod, thanked them, and left the room, closing the door with a soft click. Bentley turned back to Royce with a grin, “You know, sometimes I think Uncle Brady burns things just so we can eat out.”
“No,” Royce drawled, a sarcastic smirk on his face. “Why would you think that?”
“Cause he burns shit every other day,” a feminine voice answered, making both brothers freeze. Royce glanced at the door, but nobody else had stuck their head inside the room. Bentley squinted toward the darkened side of the room that belonged to him, yet there was nothing, apart from the helper's voice on his phone, that could’ve answered back. A thump on the window next to them caused Royce and Bentley to jump, but the voice coming from outside it made them both let out sighs of relief, “I’m out here, dipshits.”
Tugging either side of the thick curtains aside, the brothers relaxed at the sight of their bespectacled friend. Purple-tipped hair draped over the girl’s coat like a thick curtain, but the coat seemed to be the only thing keeping the girl warm as the nylon track pants she wore may have sported her skate team’s branding, but provided little warmth at all. “What are you doing here?” Royce puffed as he unlatched the lock and shoved the first layer of the window open.
“I’m going to the rink today to practice with Riven and wanted to stop in to steal your clothes,” she replied with a proud grin. “Your aunt was yelling at your uncle when I got here so I figured I’d better find an alternative route.”
“How did you get up here?” Bentley questioned, watching as she slid through the window and onto Royce’s mattress, allowing his brother to push the window shut once more.
“I found a ladder,” Vivien said with a shrug, standing from the bed, kicking her winter boots off, and tossing her coat and duffel bag on the end of Royce’s bed before making her way toward the closet she knew her boyfriend had claimed as his own. “Do you have any sweats I could borrow for practice?”
“Go ahead,” Royce agreed, the fluttering in his chest only intensifying as she sent him a beaming smile and began rifling through his belongings.
“Why didn’t you just wear your own?” Bentley asked, earning him a swift whack to the stomach from his brother.
Vivien either didn’t see the interaction or chose to ignore it as she scoured through the line of shirts and hoodies on the wooden bar in front of her. “My only good pair is in the wash because we had to give Loki an emergency bath last night.” Vivien pulled a hoodie off the rack and a pair of sweat pants as she leaned out of the closet and explained, “He decided to play in the woods and angered a sleeping skunk.” Watching the brothers make matching looks of disgust at the idea, Vivien nodded. “Yeah, our bathroom looked like a crime scene by the time we were done washing all the tomato juice out of his fur.”
“That must’ve smelled wonderful,” Bentley offered, his nose crinkled as though he could smell the long-gone odor of skunk spray and tomatoes.
“That’s one way to put it,” Vivien chuckled as she held the sweatpants against her legs to make sure they were long enough. She was, after all, a whole inch taller than her boyfriend and continuously held it over his head whenever the topic came up.
Royce laughed as he turned to Bentley, “Remember when Uncle Tommy’s little poodle got sprayed and he used ketchup because he had no tomato juice?”
A smile broke out on Bentley’s face as he nodded, “Poor Millie was pink for two weeks.”
Turning back toward his girlfriend to tell her the story, Royce took one look at her, and his brain short-circuited. Vivien’s skate company jacket had been tossed on his brother’s bed and her thinly-made track pants were in the process of being abandoned, leaving her in a dark green, skin-tight top and Royce didn’t want to know what else. Regardless of what she was wearing, she was still taking her clothes off in his room. The room he shared with Bentley… who was right across from him and possibly watching as well. Snapping back to reality, Royce grabbed Bentley by the drawstrings of his hoodie and dragged him close enough to shove his face into a pillow before turning toward the window, determined to not let either of them see his girlfriend like that. “Vivien!” he hissed, trying to find something, anything, on the wall that could distract him as his face burned as red as the plaid on his pajama pants.
“What?” she asked in a tone far too relaxed to have come from someone in a state of undress.
“Your clothes,” was Royce’s squeaked reply as his gaze finally settled on a notch in the windowsill that he only just noticed was almost shaped like an old-timey mustache.
The pause of silence in the room was brief, but it felt like forever to Royce as Vivien attempted to connect the dots. As soon as she realized what was happening, Vivien laughed, “Oh, come on, I’m not naked. I’m wearing my leo for ballet.”
“Leo?” Royce repeated.
“Leotard,” she reiterated as she crossed the room, her voice getting louder, closer, with every step she took toward him. “It’s like a swimsuit, but for dance and it covers everything. Look.” Royce didn’t want to look. His face felt like it had been lit on fire and burned for hours - it probably looked that way too - and the last thing he needed was to take one look at her and make it ten times worse. With a heavy sigh, Vivien took his face in her hands and turned him toward her, a small smile appearing on her face as she realized just how tightly he had closed his eyes. Pressing her forehead to his, she muttered, “Do I have to open them for you, Royce?”
As she expected, Royce was hesitant, but eventually, his caramel irises met her emerald ones. “I thought-”
“I was giving you two a show?” Vivien joked, releasing Royce’s face with a smirk and moving away enough for Royce to see the dark green leotard that she had only recently gotten in the mail. It wasn’t expensive or fancy, just a green one-piece number she had bought online and had worn over a pair of skin-toned tights she’d owned for a long time. “Definitely not, especially with Beeemer around. Besides, you should know by now that you won’t be getting anything like that until we both have rings on our fingers.”
If his face wasn’t crimson already, Royce was sure it would’ve been as he stammered out, “I wasn’t- You’re- I-I’m not worried about that.”
“Good,” Vivien said with a smile as she headed back toward Bentley’s side of the room. As she pulled on a yellow Myrtle Beach sweater she had seen both of the brothers wearing in the past, Vivien turned to Royce and told him, “You might want to let Bentley come up for air, though. You’re going to smother him to death with that pillow if you keep him pinned down.”
Royce’s head tilted to the side the same way Bentley’s did all the time, but the grumbled plea for help and the jab to his side alerted Royce to the fact that he still had his baby brother pinned to the mattress by the drawstrings of his hoodie. Upon release, Bentley bolted upright, an overdramatic gasp of air filling the blond’s lungs. “What the hell, RJ!” he breathed as he flopped onto his back. “Another minute smushed in your drool-stained pillow and I would’ve been singing Kumbaya with Jesus!”
“Sorry, Ben,” Royce chuckled as he rolled his eyes. “You alright?”
“Just waiting to see the light and hear the angels singing,” Bentley sighed as he stared at the star-covered ceiling above Royce’s bed.
“That might take a while,” a deeper voice claimed as the door to the room opened. The three teenagers turned toward the doorway as an exhausted Miles slumped against the frame. “Food’s here, boys. Better get to it before Lela does.”
“Oh, good,” Vivien began with a playful grin as she tied the strings of Royce’s sweatpants, “I’m starving.”
Miles hummed, barely looking her way as he nodded, “Well, grab your shit and get downstairs before it’s gone.” As the three teens shrugged at each other and scrambled to grab all of the things Vivien had left in the room since her arrival, Miles yawned and turned back toward the hallway, only making the connection as he reached the top of the stairs. Miles pivoted on his heel, looking back at the three teenagers with a raised eyebrow. Locking eyes with Vivien, he asked, “When did you get here?”
“A few minutes ago,” she offered with a shrug as she passed him.
“She climbed in our window, took her clothes off, and put on some of Royce’s,” Bentley added with a smirk.
“Will you shut up?!” Royce hissed as he ducked around Miles with his eyes glued to the floor, pushing Bentley to move faster as he and his girlfriend rushed to join the rest of the family in the kitchen downstairs. Miles stood at the top of the staircase, staring in confusion at the now empty hall as his sluggish, caffeine-free brain attempted to put any of those statements together in a coherent sentence. By the time he had effectively connected the dots and made his way downstairs, the three teens were sitting awkwardly around the table, filling their mouths with food so they didn’t have to answer any questions.
The icy stares Miles gave the young trio made the awkward air even thicker, but they did their best to ignore him and converse with the others as though nothing happened. After a while of sneaking food out of her boyfriend’s styrofoam to-go container, Vivien was summoned by the high-pitched honking of her mom’s minivan in the driveway. Pressing a kiss to Royce’s cheek, Vivien snagged a piece of bacon from his container and wished him good luck dealing with his brother before saying goodbye to the rest of the people at the table and rushing for the front door. As soon as the door slammed shut and the headlights from the O’Brian’s van dimmed in the distance, Carrie asked, “What was that all about?”
To Royce’s dismay, Bentley answered with a shit-eating grin on his face, “Vivien broke in through our bedroom window and Royce shoved my face in a pillow while she got changed in front of him.”
The reactions from everyone around the table were exactly what Royce had been hoping to avoid. Royce shot a long, hard glare at Bentley who only smugly grinned in return, obviously withholding the full story just to drag out his brother’s torture. He knew Bentley had been up to something, some kind of sick, twisted revenge in return for making him eat a pillow earlier, but he hadn’t expected this to be his weapon of choice. As everyone around the table began trying to get information out of him, Royce buried his face in one hand and shoveled another forkful of pancakes into his mouth with the other, hoping that whatever conversation was about to happen, he wouldn’t end up grounded… or worse.
Ballet was boring, Vivien knew this years ago. Due to wanting an air of professionalism and grace in her skating, her original skating coach had recommended she take ballet lessons with the rink’s teacher before spending a session on the ice. At the ripe old age of five, Vivien had readily agreed because she thought ballet would be like how it was in the Barbie movies. Nothing could’ve prepared her for the torture that was Madame DeCharme’s ballet class.
Thankfully, she had Riven with her all these years, training with her and helping along the way, but she swore the elderly ballet teacher had it out for her. She knew most dance teachers could be strict and forceful with their students as they wanted them to succeed, but the nearly eighty-year-old woman was just plain cruel to all of her students, especially the girls. The teacher’s comments about Vivien being too tall, her form being sloppy, her bun not being abhorrently tight against her skull, and how, if she moved a certain way, the woman could see her lunch, made Vivien want to quit years ago. However, she decided to continue with classes out of pure spite, willing to prove her wrong even if it meant dancing until the old lady croaked.
The fifteen-minute break between dance and skating was supposed to be used for changing into clothes for the ice, resting your feet for as long as possible, and attempting to remember your routine before you step onto the ice, but Riven and Vivien hardly ever used their spare time for that. They were already dressed and had their skates tightly laced on their feet, sitting in the stands on the side of the rink and letting out strings of complaints about the ancient French lady who taught them ballet.
Vivien pried the last bobby pin out of her hair and tossed it into the pile at her feet with a sigh, her scalp crying at the feeling of freedom. “I swear,” she huffed, tossing her hair over the back of her seat to relax it before having to tie it up again, “if she makes one more comment about my weight, I’ll kick her head in while en pointe.”
Riven snorted beside her, taking a long sip from the water bottle Vivien was almost sure he had filled with vodka before heading to the rink. It wouldn’t be the first time he had done it since starting college. “Might wanna do it away from the cameras, pipsqueak. Too much evidence.”
“Parking lot it is, then,” Vivien sighed. “You’ll be my alibi?”
“As always,” Riven chuckled, offering Vivien some of the water she knew was in the bottle. He wouldn’t have offered it if it was alcohol. Vivien took a long drag of his drink before handing it back and leaning her head on his shoulder. “Tired already?”
Vivien shook her head, humming in denial before muttering, “Long morning.”
Riven spared a glance at the girl on his arm and asked, “Care to elaborate?”
“Went to my boyfriend’s house and climbed in through his window-”
Riven gasped mockingly, “How scandalous!”
“Don’t get too excited, buddy boy,” Vivien chuckled, thumping the back of her hand against Riven’s chest, “he shares the room with his little brother, Bentley.”
“So you got cock-blocked by your future brother-in-law?”
“It wasn’t like that!” Vivien laughed and lifted her head from Riven’s shoulder, turning in her seat so she was facing him. “You know those tracksuits they gave us this year?”
Riven rolled his eyes and nodded - of course, he remembered. Every year, the team held a bake sale to raise money for new team gear, and, at the end of the previous year, they had raised enough money to buy some higher quality, fleece-lined tracksuits with their names and the company logo on the back. When the packages arrived and everyone gathered in the hockey team’s meeting room, the clothes looked nothing like the pictures they had been shown. In Riven’s case, his name had been spelled ‘Rivet’, the tiny logo on the chest was obviously fake, and the “expensive embroidery work” on the back turned out to be just a shoddy iron-on patch the company had sewn a few threads through to make it look authentic. Ironically enough, just a week after they were given the cruddy tracksuits, the owner announced that the parking lot was going to be re-paved, sealed, and painted. It was obvious where their priorities were, and it certainly wasn’t with any of their skaters.
“Well,” Vivien began, “I was wearing that this morning and decided I could borrow something from Royce since he never minds when I do.”
“Like any good boyfriend,” Riven added, tipping back his water and draining the rest of it before turning his attention back to Vivien. “Let me guess, he didn’t know you were there and found you stripping in his room?”
“No,” Vivien replied with a roll of her eyes. “He and his brother both knew I was there, but Royce didn’t know I had my leotard on and freaked out when I started taking my track pants off.” Riven didn’t bother containing his laughter, but the solid punch to his shoulder encouraged him to work his way back to his usual, lopsided grin. Vivien sighed, “Anyway, his older and super overprotective brother, Miles, came in all tired and said breakfast was ready, we went to follow him downstairs, he asked when I got there, I told him, and then Bentley, the younger brother, told him that I changed in front of them.”
Riven’s laughter would’ve been contagious to Vivien if she hadn’t lived through the story she was telling. “How did that go?”
Vivien shrugged, “We ran downstairs and started eating before he could say anything, and then we had to sit through an awkward breakfast with his family while Miles stared at us, just waiting to tear into us when he got us alone.”
“What happened?” Riven asked. “Did you get banished from the house or something?”
“Not a clue,” Vivien sighed. “My mom showed up and I tore out of there like a bat out of hell.”
“And you left poor Roycey-poo to clean up the mess?” Riven gasped, pressing a hand to his chest with a mockingly horrified look on his face. “Vivien Harley O’Brian, I expected better from you!”
Vivien made a face at the nickname he had given her boyfriend, “Yeah, maybe don’t call him that.”
A loud screech from the speakers around the rink blared, stopping Riven before he could make any further comments. The noise cut out almost as quickly as it had started and Vivien sighed as the voice of their coach came over the speakers, “O’Brian, Hewlett, get on the ice. Your break is over. Give me a full run-through and we’ll talk after.”
While Vivien worked on tying her hair back into a bun at the back of her head, Riven stood from his seat and stretched until his back crackled like a freshly poured bowl of Rice Krispies before extending a hand for Vivien to take. “Ready, pip?”
Vivien found Riven’s hand despite not looking his way, something years of teamwork on the ice had ingrained in them. As Vivien grabbed her things, Riven pulled her out of her chair, dragging her toward the gate leading onto the ice. “Are we working on Separate Ways today?”
“When aren’t we?” Riven asked in return, stopping to pull his blade guards off before stepping onto the ice. Vivien’s guards joined Riven’s by the gate as she pushed herself onto the ice, gliding backwards as she dragged Riven toward the center of the ice. They pair circled the giant purple finch in the middle of the ice before stationing themselves in the spot they would be starting their routine from. Their starting positions were so stupid Vivien felt ridiculous every time they worked on it and she briefly wondered if Riven felt the same from his kneeling spot on the ice. They both loved the version of the song they were skating to and the Stranger Things theme they had picked for their costumes, so despite not loving how the routine started, she knew it wouldn’t be much of an issue when the time for competitions came. They’d get over it.
Separate Ways by Journey was one of the few songs they had offered their coach that the man liked. He didn’t need to know that the only reason they wanted to use it was because it was from Stranger Things. As the faint start of the music poured over the speakers, Vivien allowed herself to relax and let the fluidity of the movements take over - the steps, spins, and jumps ingrained in her for weeks on end. Jumping into Riven’s waiting grasp, she allowed him to spin her for a few turns before being placed back on her feet and mirroring his movements, the two of them moving in sync across the ice.
Every step on the ice felt like it would take her across the world if she let it, the wind of movement whipping her face every time she faced forward. Turning away from Riven and skating backwards into his hands, Vivien gripped his wrists and helped him push her into the air, twisting herself a few revolutions on her way back into Riven’s grip, landing back on the ice on one foot and continuing with the routine. Vivien couldn’t wait to hear the roaring crowd when they performed for an actual audience, hear their cheers of praise whenever they landed a jump or did something graceful that a majority of the people watching could only dream of doing.
Vivien became so wrapped up in her thoughts that she launched into their synchronized triple toe loop a fraction of a second late, resulting in her mentally reprimanding herself for getting distracted before joining hands with Riven and continuing with the routine. Not even half a minute after her misstep, Vivien gripped onto Riven’s wrists again, gearing up for a triple flip throw across the ice she was always nervous for. Riven’s grip on her hips tightened a fraction as he softly said, “You’ve got this, pip.”
Vivien hoped he was right. As Riven turned into the breeze and lifted Vivien into the air, she tucked her arms close to her body and spun, mentally tallying the rotations she went through so she didn’t overturn and potentially injure herself. Metal met ice as Vivien’s left leg secured her landing, a smile appearing on her face as she fought to ignore the jolting burn searing up the inside of her leg, forcing herself to continue into a turn that matched Riven’s. As she joined hands with Riven once more, he pulled her toward him and lifted her off the ground with his free arm as she brought her knees toward her chest, allowing the auburn-haired man to spin in a circle before setting her down and leading into one of their step combinations.
Riven looped Vivien around him, joining both their hands and guiding her above his head, careful not to let her press on her left wrist as it had a tendency to buckle when she put much pressure on it. She held her splits above his head for a while until Riven began moving her and she shifted. Suddenly the only thing holding Vivien above the ice was a single hand pressed to her back as she attempted to look as graceful as possible. A few spins later, she was back on her feet and they were settled into the step sequence of their performance.
As they circled the rink, Vivien swore she saw people sitting in the stands, watching their every move, but she assumed it was the hockey team waiting to start their morning drills. The hockey team was always there to take the rink once it was free, offering sodas and snacks to whoever was on the ice before them. Vivien was almost glad they were there - she already knew she wanted snacks when they stepped off the ice. As their nearly three-minute-long routine came to a close, Riven pulled the brunette into a death spiral, spinning her around before pulling her back to her feet. Vivien slid away from her partner on the ice before being pulled to him in a crouch as the music pulsed to an end.
After holding their final poses for a while, Riven and Vivien hauled themselves to their feet. Over the heaving of their lungs and the thumping heartbeats in their ears, the pair heard cheers from the sidelines of the rink. Turning toward the noise, Vivien felt herself tense as Riven chuckled in her ear, “I’m guessing that’s Royce’s family?” Vivien swallowed thickly as she nodded. “Good luck with that, pipsqueak.”
Before Riven could skate away, she latched onto his arm and yanked him back toward her. “I die, you die, asshole.”
Riven dug his pick into the ice with a grin, preventing the girl from moving him, “You’re not going to die. There are cameras everywhere, there would be too much evidence.”
“I don’t care!” Vivien hissed, latching both hands around his wrist and jerking Riven to follow her. “You’re a physical witness. They can’t kill me if you’re around.”
Riven chuckled and shook his head, reluctantly following Vivien at a slower pace. Upon noticing how the girl was favoring her left leg, somehow the side she always seemed to injure, Riven sighed and bent down, sweeping her off of her feet. When Vivien tried to argue, he simply said, “If you think you can show me a Salchow, right here, right now, I’ll let you down.”
Vivien rolled her eyes at his statement but allowed Riven to carry her off the ice like she was severely injured. He set her down in one of the chairs closest to the gate before retrieving their blade guards from where they had abandoned them. While he was gone, Vivien watched as the three Murphys, Carrie, Butchy, and Mick approached her, eyeing them with a smile she hoped didn’t appear forced. “What are you guys doing here?” she asked as Royce slid into the seat next to her.
“I told them the truth,” Royce sighed, taking Vivien’s hand in his as Riven came back over with the blade guards.
“So did I,” Bentley claimed as he dropped into the seat on Royce’s other side, “but they want your side of the story since they’re sure we haven’t had the time to come up with a story.”
Vivien hummed thoughtfully as she reached for the sparkly purple rubber in Riven’s hands, but her hand was slapped away. Riven waved her off with a grin, “You talk, I’ll do this.”
With a chuckle and a shake of her head, Vivien lifted her right leg into Riven’s waiting hands and allowed him to help her as she addressed the others, “I came over to visit before practice and heard Mick’s mom telling off her dad for burning breakfast again, so I used the ladder out back to climb to Royce and Bentley’s window.”
“And changed in front of them?” Butchy pressed.
Vivien snorted and shook her head, “Not the way you’re thinking. I had my outfit for dance class on underneath my tracksuit and-”
“Hate to interrupt,” Riven started as he began gingerly unlacing Vivien’s skates, gaining the attention of the people he had only heard about before, “but those tracksuits are paper thin and protect from the cold about as well as a bikini would.”
“Duly noted,” Mick said with a slow nod.
While Vivien was grateful for Riven’s added help, she wasn’t sure how much it would aid her in the end. “Anyway,” she sighed, “I took some of Royce’s stuff from his closet and started changing because I thought it wasn’t a big deal. Royce freaked out, smothered Bentley in a pillow so he wouldn’t see, and I had to promise Royce that I had clothes on before he would even dare to look at me.”
“Then what?” Miles asked, the arms he had crossed over his chest slowly pulling away as he relaxed.
With a laugh, Vivien said, “Then you happened, Miles. You came in and told us about breakfast. That was the end of it.”
Carrie smirked as she bumped Miles with her shoulder, “I told you to trust the boys.”
“I know, I know,” Miles muttered.
Vivien turned to Royce with a smile, finding him already watching her with a fondness in his eyes that she always loved seeing. Leaning forward to press their foreheads together, a light zap between them forced the couple apart as Riven tugged the skate off of Vivien’s tender leg. Vivien tried not to grimace as the burn in her leg returned, but nobody who cared about her was willing to let her play off her pain without getting it checked first. Once Royce and Bentley helped Vivien to her feet, Riven lifted her, letting her talk with the boys as he brought them toward the on-site nurse. Carrie and Miles trailed behind the babbling group, leaving Butchy and Mick leaning against the wall separating them from the ice.
Mick felt the pair of chocolate brown eyes on her before she saw them, her eyes firmly set on the retreating group. “You saw it too, didn’t you?” she asked softly, turning to Butchy with a small grin.
“The two of them rubbing their foreheads like they were both stung by bees?” Butchy reiterated, sending his wife a knowing grin. “Yeah, I saw.”
“I wonder if they’re just like us,” Mick mused, a bubbling feeling of excitement rising within her as she glanced back at the others, "stinging each other every day."
Butchy had a love-hate relationship with Mick’s hopeless romantic tendencies, especially when she was targeting someone she felt needed a relationship, but seeing the utter fondness and adoration in her eyes, Butchy didn’t feel like squashing her hope. “I think they might be.”
Mick giggled as she turned back to Butchy and took his hand in hers, savoring the soft pulses of electricity that traveled from his hand to hers, “I still get them, you know. The little zaps every time we touch.”
“I know, amore,” Butchy replied, pressing a tender, electrically-charged kiss to her forehead as they began walking toward where the others has gone. “I do too. Ever since the first sleepover Lela invited you to.”
“I love that day,” Mick breathed, allowing herself to fall in step with Butchy as she rested her head on him.
“Me too, Mickie,” Butchy said with a smile. “Me too.”
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Making an Effort
December 3, 2022
Prompt - Snow Lodge
Notes - I wrote so much yesterday that I pulled a muscle in my forearm lmao. That isn’t going to stop me from writing my prompts though!
On a normal day, by the time Miles pried himself out of bed, had his first coherent moment of the morning, and had his second mug of coffee in hand, Vivien was either sitting at the kitchen table with his brothers, chatting about something Miles had no idea about or reading books by the fireplace. The kid was up at the crack of dawn most days, exercising before practice by going on jogs through the neighborhood or, in most cases, just wanting to sneak in a visit with her boyfriend and his family before school. It wasn’t rare for Vivien to help herself to a cup of coffee and refill Miles’ mug while she was at it, but that morning, the house was silent and Miles’ coffee cup was empty. Miles didn’t want to say it, but he missed his little barista.
It wasn’t often that Vivien wasn’t around first thing in the morning, but the few times Vivien hadn’t been by, the girl had been sick or injured. Despite her impressive skills on the ice, Vivien had horrible coordination on dry ground, so Miles felt mildly worried she could’ve hurt herself. However, he was sure that Royce would have heard from his girlfriend if she had. Perhaps she had an early practice that morning and Miles had missed her visit. It wasn’t an outlandish idea since he was always up later on weekends. As Miles realized that he had been staring into his empty coffee cup, hoping the little droplets he’d left behind would give him the answer he was looking for, he sighed and rose from the table, confusing Lela who had been watching him in amusement.
Miles poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and added some extra cream and sugar before heading for the living room where his brothers were sitting on the couch, reading comic books. Standing in front of the couch, Miles took a long, slow sip of his coffee before turning his attention to Royce and Bentley, who were staring at him in wonder. “Can we help you?” Bentley asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” Miles asked before taking another sip of coffee and cringing into the mug. Something about the coffee just didn’t taste right.
Bentley turned to Royce, who looked equally as confused. “Um, I don’t have one,” the blonde replied. “Nor do I want one, to be honest with you.”
Miles sent his youngest brother a look and sighed, “I meant RJ.”
“That makes more sense,” Bentley chuckled.
Royce sighed, closing his comic book and setting it aside, “She and her family are volunteering at some camp in Massachusetts this weekend. They needed more help and they had nothing to do this weekend.”
“Who the hell goes camping in the middle of winter?” Miles grumbled as he took a seat on the end of the couch.
“It’s just a weekend thing,” Royce explained. “They call it Arctic Blast.”
“She sent pictures from when they got there yesterday,” Bentley added. “It looks like a lot of fun.”
Miles hummed and returned to his coffee as his girlfriend came down the stairs, into the living room. He knew he was lucky to be able to call Carrie his girlfriend, he was reminded that she was far out of his league every time he looked at her. Every morning, though, he wondered how she could be so well put together so early in the morning when he still looked like some hobo the family dragged in from off the street. Carrie was way ahead of Miles in the day, as always - already dressed, hair curled to perfection, and perky as ever without much, if any, coffee. How on earth she managed to look so ready for the day when Miles was ready to collapse back into bed, he’d never know. Miles’ messy hair and sweats were a fabulous contrast to Carrie’s Italian wool sweater and soft plaid pants. Her superstar persona had toned down quite a bit since she and Miles first started dating, but her sixties style was still present, even in her casual clothes.
After kissing Miles on the cheek, Carrie sat between the oldest and youngest Murphy brothers with a smile. “So, what’s going on this morning?”
Bentley smirked as he answered, “Miles missed Vivien’s coffee delivery service and is moping.”
“I am not moping,” Miles argued, sending a glare in his brother’s direction before taking another sip of coffee and wincing as he swallowed the bitter bean juice. “And I don’t miss her coffee. I have some right here.”
“Doesn’t taste the same, does it?” Royce asked with a grin.
Miles slowly lowered his mug, eyeing the brown liquid with scrutiny before glancing at Royce. “What did you do to it?”
Royce’s hands went up in surrender as he laughed, “Don’t blame me, blame Viv. She normally brings over coffee grounds from Dunkin Donuts, but our bag ran out yesterday after you two went through six cups combined. We had to brew some knock-off brand coffee this morning.”
Miles grumbled, “That explains why it tastes like dirt.”
“Why do you keep drinking it, then?” Carrie asked, finding mild amusement in the situation as her boyfriend tipped the cup back and drained the rest of the coffee.
“Bad coffee is still coffee,” Miles and his brothers claimed in unison, the two younger brothers rolling their eyes at the familiar statement as their older brother placed his coffee cup on the coffee table. Royce and Bentley had heard the phrase from their brother enough times at home before Miles had been able to afford the more high-quality stuff.
Unsurprised with their joint answer, Carrie shook her head with a grin. “Why don’t we just go downtown and pick up more of the usual coffee?”
“We don’t have time, I’m afraid,” Mack said from the entrance of the kitchen.
Turning to the older woman as she and Lela entered the room, Royce asked, “Why not?”
With a smile, Mack approached the group, leaning on the back of the couch with her cup of tea in hand. “Vivien’s parents are working at Camp Northfield for the weekend and found that they have some open bunks for tonight and offered us a few of the spots in the main lodge.”
“We get to go camping?” Bentley asked, his face practically shining with excitement.
“Sort of,” Brady agreed as he made his way into the room, reading something on his phone as he went. “They have sledding, skating, hockey, and something called an ice tornado.”
“Sounds like fun,” Miles mumbled, grabbing one of the pillows from the corner of the couch and using it to cover his face as he lay down. “Have a good time.”
Carrie shook her head and pulled the pillow away enough to meet her boyfriend’s exhausted eyes. “If you go get your stuff together, we can stop for coffee on the way.”
Miles lazily raised an arm, childishly extending his pinkie as he muttered into the pillow, “Promise?”
With a small smile and a nod, Carrie looped her finger around Miles’ and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Promise.” Once her finger was released, Carrie turned to Mack and Brady and asked, “What do we need to bring?”
Mack answered, “Just your essentials, pajamas, and a change of clothes for tomorrow.”
Lela smiled from behind the couch, placing a hand on Royce and Bentley’s shoulders with a hopeful smile, “You two want to go pack?”
As the two brothers got up from the couch, Carrie smirked and said, “If your brother isn’t upstairs by the time you’re done packing, I’ll let you pick out his clothes for him.”
Bentley and Royce grinned devilishly at each other before propelling off the couch and heading for the stairs. With a groan of complaint, Miles moved the pillow off of his face and sat up, grumbling as he moved, “I’m going, I’m going.”
Lela grinned and followed Miles to the stairs, chatting with him about all of the fun they were going to have while Carrie, Mack, and Brady watched. Turning to the older couple, Carrie asked, “Have you ever been to this camp?”
Brady nodded, “I’ve been a few times for their winter retreats and Christmas dinners.”
“And I used to volunteer as a counselor every summer,” Mack stated with a proud smile. “The winter break and Arctic Blast are their last hurrahs until June, but it’s always fun.”
Carrie could see Mack being a counselor at some point. She was probably a very good, responsible mentor for the kids who came and went every year. However, Mack was from California and Carrie couldn’t picture anyone from a warmer state enjoying the freezing cold and snow that seemed to come with the idea of an Artic Blast. That in itself posed another question - how would this camp have an Arctic Blast without snow? It hadn’t snowed at all so far - something Carrie was extremely grateful for - but that meant no snow for sledding, no ice for skating, and no possible way to do half of the things they advertised.
Watching the blonde’s confusion grow, Mack chuckled, “They have a snow machine and an indoor skating rink in the basement of one of the lodges. Just a warning, though, it will be very cold outside, so dress as warm as you can.”
Despite her smile and cheerful nod as she rose from the couch and headed for the stairs, Carrie could tell this little excursion wouldn’t be much fun. If anything, she’d be stuck inside all day, drinking hot chocolate and trying to stay warm. The idea of going anywhere near the snow, regardless of whether it was real or manufactured, was certainly unpleasant, to say the least. As Carrie entered the room she was sharing with Miles, she hoped that everyone else would be able to have at least a little fun even though she would be stuck inside for most of their trip.
After almost two hours on the road, the family’s van pulled onto a loose gravel driveway leading to a large, wooden cabin. The cabin looked far bigger and more welcoming in person than it did in pictures. The upper floor had a wrap-around balcony that stretched around the building and met the hill in the backyard and the warm lighting emanating from the windows gave the whole place a warm, cozy feeling despite the snow that coated the ground outside. Pulling to a stop in the lightly plowed grass between a truck and a large, looming pine tree, the group piled out of the car and looked around the camp property.
At the bottom of the hill, right near the end of the driveway was a small lawnmower attached to a pole, a large tarp strapped to the back of the lawnmower as it rounded the pole. A group of teenagers clung to the tarp as it flung them in a circle, whipping them across the manmade patch of ice. What caught almost everyone’s attention was the screaming coming from the distant hill leading past an old, white building toward a large, brown and green building. They watched as a long train of people on snow tubes flew down the side of the hill, past the white building toward the end of the driveway. Near the bottom of the hill, the line broke apart and everyone ended up skidding to a stop in the distance.
Bentley turned to Royce with a laugh, “We have to try that!”
“Only if you plan on carrying me up the mountain,” Royce chuckled. “I don’t think my inhaler has enough in it to let me go up that thing.”
Mack placed a hand on Royce’s shoulder as she passed him. “It’s not as hard as it looks, sweetheart. Now, everyone, grab your bags and let’s go inside.”
As everyone else grabbed their things from the car, Carrie stood to the side, bouncing from one leg to the other and huffing hot air into her gloved hands in an attempt to stay warm. She had borrowed one of Mick’s coats - a thick, quilted coat with a sort of fake fur lining the hood - but it provided no warmth for her legs in the winds that whipped through the area. Her fashionable plaid pants had been exchanged for fleece-lined leggings, the one thing in her closet that Mick told her would keep at least some of the winter chill away, but they seemed to do little for the blonde’s normally warm, Florida skin.
Once the car had been mostly cleaned out, Carrie and Mick grabbed their things and followed behind the rest of the group toward the log building. Mick chuckled as Carrie slid on a patch of ice with a screech, latching onto the smaller brunette for safety, “Are you okay?”
“I hate the cold and I’m starting to hate ice just as much,” Carrie huffed as she blew a clump of curls from her face and righted herself. “I feel ridiculous.”
“At least you look like a New Englander,” Mick said reassuringly. “You’ll blend in with all of the other snow squirrels in the lodge.”
Carrie raised an eyebrow as Mick opened the door to the lodge. “Snow squirrels?”
“People who can’t stand the snow, but are here anyway,” Mick explained as they headed inside Hilliker Lodge, a large sign on the outside welcoming them to the camp. “Squirrels usually hibernate in the winter, so that’s what we call the people who just hang out in the cabins all day.”
Carrie shivered as an imaginary wall of heat welcomed her. It was a welcoming warmth compared to the high winds on the other side of the heavy doors. Just inside the front door was a sign asking people to leave any snow pants or boots by the heaters to dry and the available activities for the day. As Mack and Brady talked with the man at the front counter, Mick led the group into the room directly across from the front door where a cracking fireplace, two pool tables, and an air hockey table were surrounded by people talking and relaxing with friends and family. Conversations overlapped in the overly loud room and, somehow, Carrie ended up being dragged over to the air hockey table by Bentley and made to play a few rounds while they waited to find out where their rooms were.
“You know,” Bentley began as he batted the puck to Carrie, watching it bounce off of her paddle and hit the side of the table, “I think this trip could be a lot of fun.”
“It could be,” Carrie attempted. The thought of frostbite and turning into a human popsicle was the furthest thing from ‘fun’ in the blonde’s mind, but she was at least willing to play along. “Are you looking forward to anything in particular?”
“I have my eye on a few things,” Bentley admitted before meeting the blonde’s gaze. “Are you?”
Under the almost intimidating stare the fifteen-year-old gave, Carrie felt pressured to be honest in her answer. “Not really,” she told him. “I’ll probably just stay inside.”
Bentley hummed as Carrie saved the puck from sliding into her goal, inching it out of the danger zone before batting it back toward the teenager. As he zig-zagged the puck toward Carrie, Bentley said, “Good. That gives you plenty of time to bond with Royce.”
The puck sank into Carrie’s unprotected goal as Bentley’s words threw her off-guard, winning Bentley the game. Brushing off her surprise at his words and seemingly easy win, Carrie asked, “What do you mean? He’s here for Vivien.”
“She’s the skating advisor for the weekend,” Bentley stated calmly. “Vivien won’t have any free time to spend with Royce apart from mealtimes. That leaves you and him with nothing to do.”
“He can take you sledding or to go play hockey,” Carrie offered.
Bentley’s steely gaze made Carrie freeze. There was an intensity in his stare that she had never seen before from the teen, but she had seen a few times in his oldest brother’s eyes. Bentley spoke slowly and clearly, “Don’t try to worm your way out of this.”
Defiance reared in Carrie’s mind as her posture straightened subconsciously and she stated, “I’m not.”
“You are and it’s understandable,” Bentley claimed. “While you and I didn’t get off on the best foot, I was the easier one to win over since I’m the baby of the family. You put in the effort to make me like you and I do. But you’ve done nothing to help your case with Royce.”
“I’ve tried,” Carrie sighed, sparing a glance at the curly-haired brunette who was busy playing pool with Butchy, Lela, and Miles while Mick watched. “I’ve tried to take an interest in what he likes, I’ve bought him some things I think he’ll enjoy, and even Miles has tried to help, but it doesn’t work. Royce doesn’t like me regardless of what I do.”
“Have you tried approaching him as a sister?”
Carrie’s gaze shifted, turning back to the young blonde across from her. “What do you mean?”
“Royce sees you as a threat to us as brothers,” Bentley sighed. “He’s worried that you’ll either take Miles away from us or you’ll break Miles’ heart someday. Royce doesn’t want to like you because he’s scared to. If you show him that you can be the older sister figure and not just some celebrity in our lives who buys our friendship or love, he might just begin to accept you.”
As much as she didn’t want to get her hopes up about her relationship with Royce moving from the stagnant spot it had been in since their first meeting, Carrie wanted to believe Bentley’s words. “Do you really think that’s possible?”
“I do.”
Carrie looked over at Royce who had just helped Lela beat Miles and Butchy at pool, and smiled as the seventeen-year-old high-fived his teammate with a beaming smile. She wanted to feel at least some semblance of friendship with the boy. He was, after all, one of her boyfriend’s brothers. Carrie sighed, but smiled as she came to a decision, “It’s worth a shot.”
Bentley grinned, all semblance of seriousness disappearing as though it never existed in the first place, “I knew you’d come to your senses. Now, if he asks, Miles already promised he would take me to do stuff and you decided to try spending time getting to know him better.”
Carrie chuckled, “You’ve been planning this, haven’t you?”
“Of course,” Bentley replied with a roll of his eyes. “Royce can be quite thick-headed, but if I can be won over, so can he. It just takes time.”
As Bentley fished the hockey puck out from the side pocket of the game, Carrie looked back over at Royce as he chatted with the rest of their group and smiled. He talked so animatedly with everyone else, but as soon as his gaze landed on the blonde who was staring his way, Royce stalled. She nodded his way, and Royce gave her a stiff raise of his head before turning back to the conversation around him, noticeably less energetic. Carrie’s smile faltered as she attempted to focus on her game against Bentley, hoping that, in the end, Bentley would be right.
By the time they had figured out what cabin they were staying in, the group hiked their way up to the Hilltop Lodge to put away their belongings and find out where Vivien was working. Royce was more than happy to drop onto the bottom bunk in the room he’d have to share with the rest of the men in their family, glad that his asthma wasn’t awful by the time they got there. Sadly, he hadn’t seen Vivien at all since they got there and was hoping to surprise her at least a little. After a few minutes of relaxing, he asked Brady for directions to the skating rink and decided to leave his room in search of Vivien, but found that he wasn’t alone in the hallway.
Carrie smiled his way and Royce fought the urge to roll his eyes at her. His opinion of Carrie hadn’t improved much since he’d first met her, but it had shifted at least a little after she and Butchy had begun inching past their differences. It wasn’t much, but he was trying for Miles’ sake. “Hey, Royce,” Carrie greeted with her signature, beaming grin. Royce had to look away from the shine of her impossibly white teeth as she approached him. “Where are you off to?”
“To find my girlfriend,” he replied simply, putting in the effort to not sound exhausted by her presence. He had already put up with her on the car ride and felt no need to spend any more time with the blonde than he had to. What his brother saw in the girl’s irritating existence, he’d never know.
“Me too!” Carrie exclaimed. “I was hoping she’d teach me how to skate.”
Royce glanced questioningly over his shoulder as Carrie followed him down the stairs to the main level of the lodge. “You don’t know how to skate?”
Carrie shook her head, “Never tried. It always looks so graceful and magical when the Olympics come around, but I’ve never seen ice or snow in person.”
Hoping to dissuade the blonde from spending any amount of time with him and his girlfriend, Royce huffed, “Well, that magic sort of disappears after you watch your brother fall through the ice in the middle of a pond.”
Swallowing thickly at Royce’s tone, Carrie hummed, “I heard about that. It must have been terrifying.”
Royce hadn’t expected her to know about Bentley’s fall through the ice, but he supposed Miles told her everything about their private lives. “Miles tell you that?”
“No,” Carrie replied with a shake of her head. “Bentley did.”
That threw Royce off enough to make him freeze in the middle of the walkway. Carrie took Royce by the arm and moved out of the way so others could pass by as Royce’s mind wandered. When did she spend enough time with Bentley, without him around, to talk about something that happened a year ago? He was always with Bentley and they had never talked much with Carrie, especially not about something that terrified them both for a long time. “When did he tell you about it?”
“Last night,” Carrie admitted softly so the strangers around them wouldn’t hear. “I was in the kitchen, getting some tea because I couldn’t sleep, and Bentley came down to grab some water. He told me that he had a bad dream and told me a little about it.”
Instead of squashing Royce’s curiosity, Carrie’s statement only aided in making it more intense. He could understand his brother going for a drink or something to calm him down, but why did Bentley talk to Carrie about something like that? What hadn’t Bentley gone to him for help? They shared a room, for crying out loud! Even if he had been sleeping, that had never stopped Bentley before. Did Bentley really feel comfortable enough with Carrie to tell her about something he felt was personal?
A hand on Royce’s arm snapped him back to reality like a rubber band as Carrie softly asked, “Are you okay?”
Letting out a long breath, Royce chose to keep his questions to himself, swallowing his concerns with a shake of his head. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”
Carrie watched Royce walk away, briefly wondering what could have been going through the teenager’s mind, but as Royce turned back to her with an expectant look, Carrie set her curiosity aside for the time being and followed him outside. They walked across the bright white, snowy ground, seemingly heading for the white building they had seen people zooming past when they first arrived. Carrie’s shivering only intensified as a gust of wind raced through the area, nearly knocking her into the snow. Royce was quick to reach out, latching onto the sleeve of the blonde’s borrowed coat and making sure she could stand properly before continuing on as though nothing had happened.
The inside of the skating rink was warm enough that Royce felt alright with taking his jacket and sweater off. Carrie didn’t share this comfort and only took off her coat, staying bundled in her fuzzy sweater with Miles’ spare scarf still secured around her neck and Mick’s fur-cuffed, leather gloves keeping her fingers from falling off. To Carrie’s surprise, a couple of girls on the ice were skating in dresses or workout clothes, not a sweater or gloves in sight. As Royce looked around the ice rink for Vivien, Carrie spotted a brunette with her hair in two knots at the base of her neck and a tall man with auburn hair chatting at the snack bar, laughing about something the man had said. The brunette turned to the side just enough for Carrie to see the glittery gold glasses she had gifted Vivien for her birthday. Carrie turned to Royce with a grin and lightly patted his arm before nodding toward the boy’s girlfriend.
As they turned toward Vivien and her mountainous companion, the spectacled brunette dropped the sandwich she was eating and shoved the auburn-haired man with a laugh, “You’re such an ass, Riven!”
“Takes one to know one, pipsqueak,” the man, Riven, teased in return before going back to his food.
Carrie looked at Royce and, thankfully, found him smiling at his girlfriend’s interaction with the stranger. Grateful Royce didn't seem remotely close to being the jealous type or that he was at least distracted by the sight of his girlfriend, Carrie nudged him with her elbow. At Royce’s confused expression, she gestured toward the boy’s girlfriend with a grin, “What are you waiting for? Go get her.”
Royce took a few steps toward Vivien before calling out, “Hey, Vivien Leigh!”
Vivien’s back straightened as Riven turned to the voice curiously. Vivien turned slowly, swallowing the mouthful of food she had taken before smiling as she found her boyfriend standing just a few feet away. Dropping her sandwich back onto her plate, Vivien charged forward with a squeal of, “Rolls!” Even with her skates still tightly laced on her feet, Vivien moved with the speed of an Olympic runner, launching herself at her boyfriend and practically tackling him to the padded floors of the skating rink. The two stayed on the floor for a while, but neither seemed to mind the stares they were getting from other skaters as Carrie and Riven approached them and urged them to get off of the old, sticky mats.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” Vivien laughed as she pushed herself up from the ground.
Both Carrie and Vivien offered Royce a hand up as he said, “Your parents got us a room for the night so we could hang out and explore.”
Vivien chuckled, “Well, I won’t be able to get away too much, but I’ll try to sneak in some sledding or skating with you.”
Vivien’s auburn-haired friend stepped forward and nudged Vivien in the side, “Ooh! I’m telling on you.”
“As if!” Vivien laughed. “You do that and I’ll tell Chief about you running off with Ava Hull in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Riven snorted before turning to Royce with a smirk. “This your boyfriend, Viv?”
Vivien nodded emphatically, beaming in Royce’s direction. “Riven, this is Royce. Royce, I think you met Riven at my Christmas party last year, right? He’s my skating partner.”
“Yeah,” Royce said as he held a hand out for Riven to shake. “We didn’t get the chance to talk, though.”
Riven chuckled as he shook Royce’s hand, “Not a biggie, kid. Now, who’s your friend?”
Royce turned to Carrie who simply waved. “That’s Carrie. She’s dating my brother.”
Carrie smiled and turned her attention to Vivien, “I was hoping you could teach me to skate.”
Vivien’s eyes lit up like fireworks on the Fourth of July as she nodded, “Of course!” Vivien took Carrie by the hand and began leading her away, abandoning her friend and leaving Royce trailing behind them as she rambled, “We’ll have to get you a set of skates to borrow for now, but when we get back home, we’ll have to get you to break in a new pair since rental skates are hard to work with most of the time and aren’t taken care of as well as they should be.”
Royce watched as Carrie allowed Vivien to drag her around the skating rink, bringing her to the rack of available skates and making her try on different sizes and styles. Carrie never once complained about the brunette’s enthusiasm, but Royce did catch her chuckling softly as Vivien thought aloud to herself. Vivien seemed excited to spend time with the blonde, something Royce figured only Bentley, Miles, and Lela could willingly do.
As he watched Vivien tie Carrie’s hair into a secure bun, Carrie asked him if he was going to join them on the ice. When he responded that he wasn’t sure, Royce tried to ignore the almost sad look that briefly flashed across the blonde’s face. Why did she want him around when he was hardly ever anything but standoffish to her? Royce pushed away the idea that she could’ve wanted to spend time with him. Even if she did, it was probably just something Miles had put her up to.
Once she had helped Carrie lace up her skates the proper way, Vivien left her alone with Royce so she could grab a butt pad just in case Carrie needed it. Carrie attempted to stand on the blades of her rental skates, but quickly found herself back on the wooden bench. She laughed, “This will be fun.” Royce merely hummed in agreement from his seat on the bench across from her. After glancing around to make sure nobody could hear them, Carrie leaned forward and said, “You know, I totally understand you not wanting to go on the ice after what happened to Bentley last year, but if you change your mind and want to join us on the ice, I’d be more than happy to spend some time hanging out with you and getting to know you better, even if I end up flat on my ass half the time we’re out there.”
For once, Royce didn’t fight his amusement, letting out a chuckle as he shook his head, “Thanks, Carrie.”
Carrie’s signature smile appeared as Vivien returned with the extra padding, “Anytime.”
“Ready to go?” Vivien asked with a smile.
“As I’ll ever be,” Carrie sighed as she pushed herself to her feet. She wobbled a bit at first, but regained her balance with Vivien’s assistance. As they marched toward the nearest gate to the ice, Carrie glanced over at Royce and said, “Wish me luck!”
Royce grinned and nodded as he watched Vivien lead Carrie onto the ice. Wanting to give the girl some kind of reassurance, Royce thought about what he had heard Miles tell the blonde before work before, trying to remember the phrase his brother said so much. “Break a leg,” he offered hesitantly, hoping that was the correct term. Carrie’s head whipped back toward him with a small grin that only spread wider as she took in his small smile. Her happiness didn’t last long, though, as she took a step without using Vivien or the wall as a brace and soon found her legs had gone out from under her, slamming her onto the frigid ice below. Staring up at the ceiling above her, Carrie chuckled breathlessly as she heard Royce holler over the music, “I didn’t mean that literally!” Maybe forming some kind of bond with him wouldn’t be as hard as she had made it out to be.
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Freeze
December 15, 2022
Prompt - Snow
Notes - This is part one of three prompts that are all linked. This one is the shortest of the three so far (I’m working on the third as of right now), but I had started them as one, super long prompt, and got about halfway through the intended story before I realized that the split would be necessary for my schedule and my sanity, haha.
The first snow of the winter season raked through New Hampshire with a fine-toothed comb, white flakes leaving no stone unturned in their mission to cover the area in a white blanket. Despite most drivers being more than comfortable on the snowy roads, local news advised residents to stay inside. Most people followed the advice given to them while others flocked to the nearest stores in search of necessary foods like bread, milk, and water to last them until the snow stopped and the roads cleared. Although they didn’t need to get anything for themselves, Mack and Brady along with a few other members of the house joined the flock of people heading to the downtown shops that were still open, hoping to get some groceries for the elderly people that lived on their street who couldn’t make the trip themselves.
Of the few that stayed, Butchy was the only one sitting on the couch, a black plastic case next to his leg while he watched the other four play a game of Monopoly. Butchy liked to watch the game more than anything since it usually ended with the board getting flipped and everyone arguing over it, but it also allowed him to be the impartial party that couldn’t be accused of cheating. Miles was awful at the game, somehow always ending up in jail or having little money by the end of the game. Carrie was the only one to play just so she could watch the others and their reactions, laughing every time Miles screwed himself up or Royce got the smallest hint closer to flipping the board off of the coffee table. Out of the four playing, Bentley seemed to always come out victorious although his strategy-less style of playing never failed to annoy Royce who was very meticulous and hardly ever managed to win a single round. As Royce huffed and picked up the dice from the table, the landline phone on the kitchen wall that everyone assumed was for decoration, rang.
Butchy stood from the couch, telling the others to continue playing as he made his way over to the kitchen, picking up the old, black phone and holding it to his ear. “Birch residence.”
“Butchy?” a soft, almost choked voice questioned. “Butchy, it’s Vivien. I need help.”
Butchy spared a glance over at Royce and the others before turning his back to them and lowering his voice, “What’s wrong, piccola? Are you alright?”
A sniff came over the phone and Butchy could almost see the girl shaking her head as she choked out, “No.”
“Are you in danger?” he pressed as gently as he could. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she muttered. “I had to go to the rink for a meeting with Riven and my coach and, when I left, I realized my keys are in the car. They already locked up the rink for the storm, so I can't go inside, and I can’t get ahold of anyone because the service here is shitty.”
“Well, you got ahold of us,” Butchy said, hoping it would be enough to calm the girl at least a little. “Can you walk to the nearest store and stay there?”
“No, the nearest store is maybe a half-hour walk away and they’re probably closed for the storm,” Vivien breathed, her teeth chattering slightly as she took in a deep breath. “I’m in my stupid fucking tracksuit and it’s freezing out here. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t get hypothermia.” Vivien held the phone away from her as she coughed, a wheezing whine coming from the girl as she let out a frustrated cry, “How could I do something so stupid?!”
“Take deep breaths and try to stay calm,” Butchy instructed. “We’ve all done it before. Miles and I will be over as fast as we can.”
“Don’t get hurt,” she told him with a sniffle. “There’s a lot of ice on the roads.”
Butchy smiled, despite being stranded an hour from home in the middle of a snowstorm, Vivien was still putting others ahead of herself. “Don’t worry about us, piccola. Just stay put and try to keep yourself warm.”
“I kinda can’t go anywhere anyway, big guy,” Vivien said, a faint chuckle coming from her. “See you soon.”
“See you soon.” As soon as the phone was back on the hook, Butchy headed for the living room. “Miles,” he called, the firmness in his voice making the others jump, “get your coat and boots, we’re leaving.”
As Miles propelled off the floor and headed for the mudroom to get ready, Carrie asked, “What’s wrong?”
Butchy sighed as he pulled on his winter boots, “Vivien locked her keys in her car at the skating rink and she couldn’t get ahold of anyone else. We need to go over and help her.” Royce began to get up, determined to help his girlfriend, but Butchy stopped him, “You stay here and get things ready for her. Gather some blankets, something warm for her to drink, and get the fireplace started.”
Royce looked ready to argue, but as Miles tossed Butchy a jacket to pull on, his older brother told him, “The fewer people in the car, the less we have to worry about if we get into an accident. For now, do as Butchy says, alright? I’ll send you a message when we're on our way back.”
The look of defeat that flashed across Royce’s face would’ve convinced Miles to let him join them, but for once, the oldest of the Murphy brothers didn’t waver. Ultimately, Royce nodded and asked them, “Keep her safe for me?"
“Always,” the pair responded as they headed for the door, grabbing the keys to the only remaining vehicle in the driveway - a pickup truck Brady had attached a plow to so they could clean the driveway. Miles had driven the truck a handful of times to plow the driveway the year before, but Butchy was the one who had the most experience driving in the snow, so the older biker was the one to get behind the wheel. As soon as they got out of Sanbornton and into Laconia, Miles started calling Vivien, trying to get at least one call to go through as the snow blasted past their truck. It wasn’t until they had rounded the bottom side of Lake Winnipesaukee and entered the town of Wolfeboro that they realized the area had horrible service with both the radio and cell phone towers. The heavy snow piling up on the wires must have been causing connection errors.
Purple Finch Ice and Arts Center was built in the middle of nowhere, the nearest buildings on the long, tree-lined road being a farm and a retirement center. The building itself was set far back and could be easily missed from the main road, but the ski hills on either side of the building were hard to miss, even from the road. As Butchy pulled onto the pine-lined driveway leading to the ice rink, the snow pelting the car slowed. Vivien’s pale blue Hyundai stood out against the blanket of white that had settled on the otherwise empty parking lot. Footprints in the area were minimal and filled in by a thin layer of snow. The headlights of the truck shone on the front of the vehicle as Butchy parked the car in front of the hood. As Butchy got busy trying to find the tools he would need to get the keys out of Vivien's car, Miles grabbed the extra jacket he had brought before jumping out of the truck and searching the area for Vivien.
As he rounded the back of the car, Miles found a shaking figure curled in a ball against the bumper with their forehead head resting on their arms. Snow had gathered on the brunette’s hair and thinly-made tracksuit, making Miles wonder just how long she’d been waiting for someone to help her. Calling Vivien by name did nothing, so Miles knelt in the snow in front of her and placed a hand on her wrist, making the girl jump. Vivien’s head snapped up, nearly colliding with the back end of her car as she blearily attempted to meet Miles’ eyes. Her glasses were gone, probably tucked into her pocket or the long black bag she had set beside her, her hair was down around her like a makeshift blanket, the earbuds in her ears were most likely the only thing she had on her that could distract her from the cold, and her expression lacked the usual fire she normally burned bright. The sight alone made Miles’ chest tighten.
“Miles?” Vivien whispered.
Miles attempted a smile as he nodded, “Yeah, kiddo. You ready to go home?”
Vivien nodded and tugged the earbuds out of her ears by the string that joined them, slowly uncurling herself from her little ball before pushing herself toward Miles, slumping into him as she wrapped her arms around the older man. “I’m tired,” she muttered into Miles’ coat. “You’re nice and warm.”
Bringing an arm around the seventeen-year-old, Miles gave her a squeeze before bringing the extra jacket around her shoulders. The warmth the coat brought made Vivien curl further toward Miles with a sigh. Miles ran a hand over Vivien’s head, brushing the snow away from her hair and pushing her bangs to the side before pressing his lips to her forehead, something his mother used to do to check if he or his siblings had a fever. Granted, Vivien’s forehead had been pressed into her arms mere moments before, but the heat radiating off of her was enough to give Miles pause. She had been out in the cold for heaven knows how long, she shouldn't have been that warm. Taking a breath and moving so he could easily lift the younger girl, Miles spoke softly to the teenager, “It’s going to be much warmer in the car.”
With a hum, Vivien peered up at Miles before glancing at the large bag beside her, “My costumes-”
“I’ll get them in a minute, kid,” Miles told her. “Let’s worry about you first.”
Not a single argument came from Vivien as Miles lifted her off of the ground and toward the truck, passing Butchy as the older man slid a wire through the frame of the Hyundai’s door. Once Vivien was in the backseat of the truck, Miles went back for the black bag Vivien had left on the ground before returning to the young brunette, finding her already zipping up the jacket he had put around her. Vivien's green eyes flitted to Miles as he hauled himself into the seat next to her, watching him place the bag with her costumes on the seat next to where Butchy would be sitting. “Thanks for showing up,” she muttered.
“We told you we’d always be there if you needed us,” Miles told her as he adjusted the overhead heaters so they pointed right at her. “A promise is a promise.”
Vivien nodded, closing her eyes and accepting the warm air that thawed her skin. “I had tried calling everyone I could think of, even my parents, but nobody was answering and I didn’t want to be stranded for the night in the cold. I was just short of breaking the window when Butchy answered the phone.”
“No need to break anything now,” Miles chuckled softly. “Butchy will get the keys out, lock the car for the night, and we’ll bring you to get it tomorrow if you want.”
Peering over at Miles, Vivien smirked, “I can drive home.”
“The hell you can,” Miles argued. “I’ll be damned if I let you drive in the condition you’re in.”
Instead of arguing, Vivien sighed, “You can drive it home for me. I trust you not to crash it.”
Miles glanced over at the smaller car and shook his head, “I don’t drive in the snow if I can help it.”
“Why?”
Miles’ answer didn’t come easily, but as he found Vivien’s genuinely curious gaze on him, he took his time releasing the information he held so close, “My mom and Bentley were in an accident when Ben was only five. It was a snowy day, they hit a patch of ice, and ran off the road. I don’t think Bentley remembers much from that day, but that scar on his neck is from the seatbelt. That was the day our mom died.”
As she began processing the information, piecing it together like a jigsaw puzzle Miles had just dumped out on the floor in front of her, Vivien leaned against Miles’ side, feeling the warmth from the heaters in the front of the truck blast against her face. “We’ll pick up the car tomorrow, then.”
Miles glanced down at the teenager before resting his cheek against the top of her head. They sat in silence until a set of chirping beeps sounded outside the truck and the driver’s door popped open. A snowy Butchy slid in behind the wheel and slammed the door shut, tossing a few things into the passenger seat and running a hand through his snow-coated hair before turning to face Miles and Vivien with a hopeful grin, “How are you holding up, piccola?”
Vivien held up a thumb and smiled, “Peachy keen, jelly bean.”
Butchy nodded before handing the keys to the teen and turning back to the steering wheel, “Well, I got your purse and your backpack out of the car and it’s all locked up for the night.”
“Thank you, Butchy.”
Butchy simply nodded as he put the truck in gear and pulled away from the Hyundai. As the vehicle moved back down roads only Vivien knew like the back of her hand, Vivien pulled her borrowed jacket open and pulled a folded envelope from inside her tracksuit pocket. Tipping her head up to look at Miles, she smiled, “This is my letter for the Snowflake Championship.”
The arm Miles had wrapped around Vivien’s shoulders tightened as he beamed, “That’s awesome, kiddo. Where is it this year?”
“Take a look for yourself.” Vivien held the envelope out for Miles to take and, as soon as he had, she said, “You, Rolls, and Beemer were the first ones I wanted to tell, but I suppose Butchy can hear about it too.”
“Gee, thanks, you little shit,” Butchy chuckled, obviously taking little offense to the girl’s words.
A cheesy smile spread across Vivien’s face as she replied, “You’re welcome, you prehistoric fossil.”
Allowing the two to continue their little insult battle, Miles flipped open the envelope he had been given and pulled out the piece of paper within. The vibrantly colored paper congratulated Riven and Vivien on being accepted to their competition, gave them the dates and times to show up, and, at the very bottom of the page, was the address. “You’re going to Myrtle Beach?” Miles questioned, cutting Vivien off from calling Butchy yet another name.
“No,” Vivien said with a shake of her head. “We’re going to Myrtle Beach.”
“‘We?’” Miles asked.
Vivien nodded, a beaming smile spreading across her face. “I talked to Mick’s parents and they said they could get everyone to the competition once we knew where it was.”
Miles scanned the paper a few times - he knew where the competition was being held. When he had last been in Myrtle Beach, the sports center was only a ten-minute bike ride from their house. They would only be a few minutes away from their old house… their dad’s house. As hesitant as Miles was to go back, he knew there would be no repercussions if he did. Their father didn’t exist in this world and, even if he did, the chances of him being alive sixty years in the future were slim to none. Despite knowing there wasn’t a chance of running into their father at all, the fear was still there. Miles spared a glance at Vivien who watched him with a hopeful smile. Forcing a grin onto his face, Miles swallowed thickly and said, “I’ll have to talk it over with the boys and make sure they’re alright going back.”
Vivien nodded, “Even if you guys decide to stay here, I’ll have someone facetime you so you guys can watch the competition as it happens.”
As Vivien took the papers back and returned to resting against his side, Miles began wondering how his brothers would react to the idea. Royce would probably go even if he didn’t want to, just so he could be there for Vivien. He would do anything for his girlfriend and had made that perfectly clear on multiple occasions. Since the beginning of his stay with Miles, Bentley had been more fearful of being sent back to live with their father, so the chances of him being willing to go were slim. On the other hand, though, Bentley was a very devoted and loyal friend, so there was a chance that he would go to support Vivien in her endeavors. Miles tried not to allow the stress to get to him as he stared out the car window at the snow flurrying down around the car. Would he be the only one wanting to stay away from their hometown?
At some point during the ride, Vivien fell asleep, only waking up when the car slowed to a stop and Miles nudged her out of dreamland. Vivien’s boots had barely touched the ground when a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders, a hand tangled into her damp hair. Vivien caught a glimpse of curly hair out of the corner of her eye and smiled as she relaxed, “Hey, Rolls.”
“Are you okay?” Royce questioned softly.
Vivien nodded against her boyfriend’s shoulder, “Just tired.”
Royce’s grip tightened before he slowly released Vivien from his hold. He looked ready to say something, whether it was to pester Vivien into telling him how she was really doing or if he had something else in mind, she’d never know as Miles came around their side of the truck and sighed, “Royce, where the hell is your coat?”
With a grumble of complaint, Royce replied, “In the house. Where else would it be?”
A whack to the back of the head answered the teenager as his brother passed by. “On your body, dipshit.”
Butchy chuckled as he rounded the front of the truck and headed toward the front door, “Come on, lovebirds. Get inside before you both get sick.”
Vivien chuckled at the men before grabbing her things from the truck, taking Royce’s hand in hers, and heading for the front door of the house. It took a while for things to feel normal, but after the group told Vivien to take a shower and change into dry clothes while they washed and dried hers, things calmed down. Vivien sat on the floor between Carrie’s legs, allowing the blonde to braid her hair while she talked about how she ended up getting locked out of her car and stranded at the rink. By the time Vivien’s hair was braided and she had joined in playing a new round of Monopoly, Brady, Mack, Lela, and Mick returned to the house, laughing and joking about the decorations they had seen somewhere during their travels.
Once everyone had settled down, Vivien passed around her competition letter, allowing the rest of the house to hear the news. After handing the papers to her parents, Mick turned to Vivien and asked if she could show them the costumes she was bringing to the competition. As soon as Vivien had disappeared upstairs to find the dress bag she had brought, Mick quietly asked the others, “So, are we going?”
“We already said we would,” Brady commented. “But it’s up to the rest of you if you want to go or not.”
While everyone else, even Carrie, agreed that they wanted to go, Miles looked to his brothers, watching as they shrugged at each other before turning to him. “What do you think, Miles?” Bentley asked.
“It’s up to you two,” Miles said. Although he silently hoped his brothers wouldn’t want to go, he knew the odds were stacked against him. “If you feel up to going back to Myrtle Beach, we can go.”
“Even if I don’t feel up for it, I’ll still go to support Viv,” Royce said with a shrug. “Besides, it’s not like Dad’s there to get us in trouble for running away.”
“I wonder how much the town has changed since we left,” Bentley added.
As soon as Bentley and Royce began chatting about what they wondered what their hometown looked like after all the time that had passed, Miles stood and headed for the kitchen to get a drink. Sipping at the can of soda he had grabbed from the fridge, Miles jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder. Turning to see Butchy watching him in concern, Miles offered him a quick grin. “Are you sure you’re up for it?” Butchy asked as he leaned against the counter.
“No,” Miles muttered. “But for them, I’ll do it.”
“You don’t have to,” Butchy offered. “If you want to stay, I can keep an eye on them for you.”
Miles shook his head, “I can’t just sit around when I know where they’re going.”
“Like Royce said,” Butchy began, “they won’t be in any danger.”
“I know,” Miles sighed. “That doesn’t change how I feel about it though. I feel like I have to be there. I have to protect them.”
Butchy nodded, he knew how that felt. He had taken on the same protectiveness when it came to Lela and, eventually, Miles and the boys as well. Butchy wasn't surprised Miles would be the same way with his brothers. Placing a hand on Miles’ shoulder, Butchy pulled him into a hug and said, “We’ll be with you every step of the way, bud.”
The scent of Butchy’s cologne and the overall warmth the older biker exuded filled Miles’ senses and relaxed him as he took in a deep breath and brought his arms around his closest friend. “Thanks, Butch.”
“Anytime.”
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The Forbidden Film
December 21, 2022
Prompt - Eggnog
Notes - I love giving little nods to past things I’ve written, but this one has to be one of my favorites!
A thick layer of heavy snow blanketed the sleepy town of Sanbornton, New Hampshire, adding at least another seven inches to the already mounting piles that had been shoveled out of walkways and driveways alike. Temperatures overnight dipped from freezing to subzero as snow pounded the area, icicles formed on the edges of roofs, and the nearby lake glazed over with ice thick enough to support a semi-truck. School had been canceled for the surrounding area as frigid winds turned what little snow had melted in the last few days into ice on the roads. Many businesses announced their closure due to the storm long before it had even started, the local weather advisories too big to ignore. The threats of power outages, downed trees, and disrupted phone lines were enough to make even the most experienced New Englander refuse to leave the house. People who had places to be or things to do would simply have to wait until the roads were cleared - whether it be by the town’s rather lazy fleet of plow truck drivers or by a select few individuals with plows strapped to their pickup trucks who were sick of waiting for the town to get their asses in gear and decided to clean it themselves.
A handful of residents had already chosen to start the day by clearing their driveways of snow and acting as though nothing had happened, yet many hadn’t bothered to move an inch out of their cozy, warm blankets to turn up the thermostat or ignite the logs in their fireplaces. Some wished for nothing more than a peaceful day inside whereas others desired to be outside and away from the entrapment of staying home when there was so much to do elsewhere. Among the few who desired to venture outside were children who took the chance to ignore their parents' wishes to stay in bed and covered themselves in their finest winter gear, determined to play in the snow until they were dragged back inside by the straps of their snow-overalls.
Despite the myriad of activities presenting themselves upon one glance outside of the curtains next to his bed, Royce softly groaned at how bright the outside world had become and dropped the thick fabric that shielded his eyes from the blinding white that glared back at him from the ground. Dropping his head back onto his pillow with a quiet sigh, Royce couldn’t help feeling grateful that their family had nothing to do that day. After arriving back home from their trip to Myrtle Beach the night before, he was positive that the only thing he wanted to do was lounge in bed and never once look outside at the mess the clouds had left behind.
Glancing at the clock on his nightstand, Royce wasn’t too surprised to find it already a lot later than when he normally would wake up. With the jetlag and the overall exhaustion of the trip they had just arrived home from, he was sure that it would take a lot longer for everyone else to get up as well, especially his brothers. Out of habit, Royce pushed himself to the top of his mattress and grabbed his trusty journal and the pen he kept telling himself he needed to replace, yet never did. The faint light that came through the heavy curtains was enough for him to see as he flipped to the first empty page he could find and began mindlessly scrawling out his thoughts about everything that had happened the day before.
The last day they had spent in Myrtle Beach was a day to explore for those who were already packed up and felt like venturing outside the hotel. Royce had enjoyed spending the day with Vivien, bringing her around on a little tour of the area he had grown up in. She had taken an interest in everything he had to say and he was sure she’d get bored of his rambling at some point, but she continuously reassured him that she was content just being with him, regardless of what they were doing, and allowed him to continue blabbering about different places and how much they had changed over time. When they stopped to pick up lunch at a restaurant on the boardwalk and Vivien told him that she loved him once again - her emerald eyes glimmering with adoration and the dimples he loved so much on full display - his brain short-circuited and he was sure she would have to clean his melted body from the floor with a mop and bucket as he tried to find the words to say it back.
Throughout their relationship, Royce had never once failed to make an absolute fool out of himself with Vivien around, but ever since they had confessed their love, it seemed to have gotten worse. It was bad enough that she made his brain turn to a pile of mush just by smiling at him, but those three words were enough to send his heart skyrocketing into outer space. Every little detail about Vivien was special to him now. Her heart was much like the oceans she loved to learn so much about - deep and filled to the brim with life and color. Her mind was like a kaleidoscope of knowledge and her interests were so vastly varied that he could spend a lifetime trying to understand her and never even scratch the surface. She was a mystery he would devote his whole life trying to figure out, even though he knew he’d never get anywhere close to an answer.
Just the thought of spending a whole day with Vivien brought a smile to Royce’s face, but the idea of spending a lifetime with her made a warmth that could’ve easily started a fire spread throughout his chest as his hand stilled against the paper and his head thumped back against the wall. Royce took in a sharp, deep breath, hoping his brain would absorb some oxygen and allow some thoughts that didn’t involve his girlfriend to float around. With a sigh, Royce realized that maybe Butchy was right to invite him to the “Whipped Boys Committee” the other day. He was a goner when it came to Vivien and it was blatantly obvious to anyone who so much as looked his way when she was around. Hoping Bentley hadn’t been disturbed by the solid clunk his head had made when it hit the wall, Royce spared a glance at his little brother, thankful to find him still curled up in his blankets with a hand tightly wrapped around the stuffed whale shark that Miles had gotten him at a shop back in Myrtle Beach. Royce grinned; despite Bentley’s claims that he was “getting too old” for stuffed animals, he certainly didn’t seem to mind adding another one to his collection.
As Royce took a deep breath and tried to return to his habitual journaling, a series of soft taps on the glass next to him made him freeze. Caramel eyes flickered to the curtains on his left as he listened for a moment, yet nothing more came. Assuming it was just the branches of a nearby tree flicking against the glass due to the wind, Royce shrugged and turned back to his journal. Bringing pen to paper, Royce began writing once again. Only a few words in, the tapping returned - this time, with a vengeance. The ticking on the glass seemed to have a pattern and, once Royce realized whatever it was, was tapping in time to the chorus of Last Christmas, he set his journal and pen aside and opened the curtain separating him and the outside world. As the curtains moved aside, a set of fingernails moved away from the window and Royce chuckled as he found his girlfriend’s face smiling back at him. She raised a hand and waved as she said hello, but Royce put a finger to his lips, telling her to keep her voice down, before opening the window.
“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked softly, eyeing the ladder Vivien had precariously propped against the house. “It’s freezing out.”
“Well, the front door was locked,” Vivien whispered her breath turning as white as the snow on the ground, “so I was hoping you’d let me in.”
Royce shook his head, a chuckle falling from his lips as he reached out to his girlfriend, “Get in before you get sick.”
With Royce’s help, Vivien clambered through the window, attempting to keep as much snow off of Royce’s blankets as possible as she entered the warm bedroom. While Royce worked on forcing the window closed again, Vivien pulled her gloves and boots off, leaving them by the heater as she worked on tugging her ski pants off. Vivien’s coat and ski pants were hung on the back of the door by the time Royce turned back to her, watching her tie her hair into a floppy knot with a scrunchie as she stalked back toward him and sat on the edge of his bed.
Once she was done tying her hair up, Vivien turned to Royce with a smile, taking in his appearance with a grin that only grew wider the longer she looked at him. The absolute bird’s nest his hair had warped into was enough to show Vivien that he was barely awake, but the green pajama pants with tiny, scarf-wearing snowmen on them just sealed the deal. “Love the snowmen.”
Royce’s head cocked to the side as a confused expression claimed his face, but it didn’t take long for realization to sink in. Wide eyes flickered down to the fleece-lined pajama pants Royce had taken from Miles not long ago before finding an amused Vivien smirking back at him. He was quick to spring off of his mattress, nearly tumbling to the ground when a blanket snared his foot. Vivien’s outstretched hands quickly slapped over her mouth as she took in Royce’s bewildered expression, hoping to keep her muffled laughter from Bentley’s sleeping ears.
Once Royce found his balance again and righted himself, he turned to Vivien and quietly muttered, “I’ll go change.”
Before Royce could go far, Vivien took his wrist in her grasp and shook her head, “Today is a day to rest, Rolls. Stay comfortable.”
Her gentle smile sealed the deal and, as Royce ran a hand through his tangled curls, he nodded, “Alright.”
Vivien chuckled as she stood, reaching for a coil of Royce’s hair that stood nearly straight above his head and twirling it around her finger before letting it fall back into place. “If you feel like doing something, though, you could try to pry the baby birds out of this nest you’ve got going on while I steal one of your hoodies.”
“Deal,” Royce chuckled. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“I’ll be here.”
Quietly clicking the door shut on his way out, Royce left his bedroom and effortlessly avoided the creaky floorboards on his way across the hall to the bathroom. He took one look in the mirror above the sink and closed his eyes, a heavy sigh replacing the groan of frustration he wanted to release. His hair looked as though it hadn’t been touched in weeks, curls tangled into knots stuck out in every which direction and he was sure if he brought a comb anywhere near it, he would look as though he’d stuck his finger inside the nearest electrical socket. But, if he wanted to look halfway decent for his girlfriend, he was going to try everything Carrie had tried teaching him about maintaining the mane of curls they both possessed.
Meanwhile, in the other room, Vivien had already scoured through Royce and Bentley’s extensive collection of shared hoodies they kept in their closet and hefted Royce’s backpack back onto the top shelf after it tumbled into her arms when she opened the door. After selecting a hoodie he had gotten during their trip to a museum and pulling it over her head, Vivien made her way back to Royce’s bed. She fixed his blankets so his bed looked almost well-made, picking up a pen that had clattered to the floor before climbing under the layers of fabric and making herself comfortable. As she adjusted the blankets over her lap, Vivien found a hardcover book that had been covered by a folded section of fabric. After flipping through the book from the back to the front, Vivien found a long, handwritten page with the day’s date scrawled near the top. Realizing she must have caught Royce in the middle of a journaling session, Vivien smiled and moved to close the book, but after spotting her name written multiple times across the paper, she glanced at the door and decided to sneak a peek at what he had written about her.
Scanning briefly over the page, Vivien’s smile broadened so much that her face began hurting, but as soon as she heard footsteps creeping back across the hall, she snapped the book shut and set it on the nightstand with the pen before moving closer to the wall, attempting to act normal, and waiting for her boyfriend to return. His words about her raced through her head like a toy train on an endless loop, making her smile like a lovesick fool as Royce opened the door and crept over to her. Royce slipped under the side of the blankets Vivien held open for him and let her use his arm as a pillow as they laid back against his mattress and brought the blankets up. Royce took a look at the smile on Vivien’s face and allowed a confused grin to form on his as he softly asked, “What’s up?”
Vivien carded her fingers through Royce’s curls and softly said, “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you.”
Royce chuckled, “I’ve been thinking the same thing all morning.”
“I know,” Vivien breathed, a knowing grin tugging at her lips. As Royce’s confused smile returned, she quoted, “‘Her heart is like the ocean. Her mind is like a kaleidoscope.’” Vivien watched in amusement as confusion turned into understanding and flooded into embarrassment as Royce quickly sat up and began scanning his blankets for the journal he had forgotten to put away. As she sat up, Vivien put a stop to Royce’s frantic searching by quietly telling him, “It’s on the nightstand.”
Royce’s head whipped around and, upon discovering his journal was placed beside his cell phone with the pen resting atop it, he let out a long breath. Turning to his girlfriend, he asked, “You read my journal?”
“Only that little bit,” she replied. “I saw my name and wanted to see what it said, but that was all I read.”
With a nod and a sigh, Royce relaxed and leaned back until his head hit the pillow he had been resting on. As Vivien joined him, he glanced over the stars on the ceiling and softly said, “Sorry for freaking out.”
“Don’t be,” Vivien replied, her eyes searching for plastic constellations the boys had plastered to their ceiling. “I’d be a little freaked out if someone read my journals.”
“At least your journals are full of potential novels,” Royce claimed, turning to his girlfriend and watching her scan the ceiling’s stars. “Mine are just to get my thoughts out before I start the day… Recently, though, they all seem to be about you and how much I love you.”
Vivien smiled as she turned to Royce, yet as she opened her mouth to speak, a metallic creak on the other side of the room stopped her. As Bentley slowly turned to the side, using his left arm as a brace as he glared across the room at his brother’s bed. “Royce, you better wake the hell up,” the fifteen-year-old grumbled, his voice still thick with sleep. “You’re flirting with Vivien in your sleep again and, I swear, if I have to listen to you telling her how much you love her for another night, I’m going to move in with Lela.”
Royce rolled onto his right side, sending Bentley a smile as he said, “I’m not flirting with her in my sleep.”
Vivien sat up just enough to be seen as she added, “Yeah, he’s flirting with me while he’s awake. There's a difference.”
Bentley rubbed at his eyes as a yawn pushed the chance of him going back to sleep even further away. “Did you sneak in and stay the night or something?” he asked once he was able to form words again.
“Nope, I got here a little while ago, but the front door was locked,” Vivien answered. “I used the window.”
Bentley wasn’t too surprised that was the girl’s answer. Ever since the first time she clambered into their bedroom window, it seemed as though an open-ended invitation had been tucked into Vivien’s back pocket. Neither of the brothers minded her just popping in whenever she felt like it, especially since they had all been close for what felt like forever and had formed close bonds between them, but it was the first time Bentley had woken up to her already sitting in the room he shared with Royce. After stretching himself out and releasing another yawn, Bentley ran a hand through his hair as a makeshift comb and pulled his top blanket around his shoulders before standing from his bed and asking, “Well, if you two are done being all lovey-dovey and shit, do you wanna go play Mario Kart?”
Vivien spared a glance at Royce who shrugged. Deciding they had nothing better to do, the pair got themselves out of the blankets, Royce grabbing two of them while Vivien picked up her things, and followed Bentley downstairs to the living room where they lit the fireplace and attempted to play video games as quietly as possible. Even with their earbuds plugged into their controllers and tightly tucked into their ears, the trio heard when the others in the house began to rise from their blanket cocoons and make their way to the main area of the house. Mick and Butchy were quick to start making breakfast while Brady went back to his and his wife’s shared room to get dressed, leaving Mack to watch the TV as the teenagers battled for the top spot on Rainbow Road.
Lela and Carrie were next to make an appearance, talking about something on Carrie’s phone that got them both laughing as they found their way to some of the empty spots on the couch. “Yeah,” Carrie chuckled as she took her phone back from Lela, “Mick showed it to me on the plane yesterday.”
“I can’t believe I forgot about that night,” Lela laughed. “I remember those two came back wearing the darkest sunglasses possible and their hangovers were so bad we had to whisper for two days straight.”
The idea of hearing about someone’s drunken escapades piqued Vivien’s attention as she set aside her controller and turned to the two girls on the couch. “Who was hungover?”
“Miles and Butchy,” Lela explained.
Royce and Bentley shared a look as they turned toward Carrie and Lela. Bentley quickly shook his head, “Miles wouldn’t get drunk. He doesn’t even like alcohol.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Carrie said. “We were at a Christmas party in California and they got into the eggnog without knowing it had a shit-ton of alcohol in it.”
A groaned sigh came from the doorway of the kitchen as Butchy stepped into the living room with a mug of coffee in hand, “I never want to see another bottle of tequila in my life.”
“Wait,” Royce began, “you mean that actually happened?”
“Happened?” Mick repeated, a laugh leaving her as she entered the room behind Butchy. “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum got wasted on eggnog, took a whole bottle of Jose Cuervo from the host’s liquor cabinet, traded clothes, and started singing along to the karaoke in the other room.”
While the younger Murphy brothers tried to imagine their oldest sibling and his best friend getting drunk to the extent Mick had described, Vivien laughed, “Tell me you got that on video!”
Carrie waved her phone from one side to the other, a proud smile on her face as she claimed, “Mick sent it to me last night.”
“Can we watch it?” Vivien asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Mick shrugged. “I cut out the parts where they changed clothes before I posted it online.”
A burst of coffee splattered onto the wood floors from Butchy’s cup as he choked on the mouthful he had been sipping. Once he had the chance to speak without wearing more of the hot liquid, Butchy pressed, “You did what?!”
“Nothing!” Mick quickly dodged Butchy’s wide-eyed gaze as she scurried toward the couch, chanting, “Put it on! Put it on! Put it on!”
Mario Kart was quickly dismissed as Carrie connected her cell phone to the TV, pressing play on the video Mick had sent her the night before. The screen was quickly filled with an image of what looked like a dining room, Butchy and Miles sitting across from each other, making a pyramid of red plastic cups between them as they giggled nonsensically at each other. Butchy watched in confusion - he had never seen the video himself, nor did he remember half of the things he and Miles had done that night, but if the bottle of alcohol on the table was anything to go by, they had gotten thoroughly wasted. Quickly ditching some paper towels on the floor to absorb the coffee he had spilled, Butchy set his coffee mug down and headed for the stairs, bounding up them a few at a time until he reached the floor they all slept on. He made a quick stop in the room he and Mick shared, ditching his coffee-stained shirt in the hamper and grabbing a new one to pull on before marching next door to Miles’ room.
Miles was just barely conscious when Butchy found him, the slamming of his door hitting the wall probably the only reason he was conscious in the first place. Miles’ tired eyes found Butchy and an eyebrow raised as he sluggishly muttered, “Good morning to you too.”
Instead of returning the greeting, Butchy declared, “Your girlfriend and my wife are showing everyone a video of what we did at that party a few years ago.”
It took Miles’ exhausted, decaffeinated brain a while to catch up with his best friend’s words, but once he caught on, alarm bells began blaring in his head. “They recorded us?!”
“Mickie did,” Butchy explained with a sigh. “Now she and Carrie have it on the TV for everyone to watch.”
Miles unwillingly began prying himself out of the blankets he had found comfort in and pushed himself to the closet to throw on a sweatshirt as he commented, “It can’t be that bad if they’re showing it to the rest of the family, right?”
“We shared a bottle of tequila and traded clothes in the middle of a Christmas party,” Butchy stated as Miles pulled a shirt over his head. “There’s no telling what else we did that night.”
“At least we didn’t kiss or anything stupid like that,” Miles chuckled as he closed his closet door. As soon as it registered that the only one laughing was him, Miles turned to Butchy with horrified eyes. His friend was staring into space, trying to recall what had happened that night after his fourth cup of eggnog, but his silence did nothing to quell Miles' rising panic. “We didn’t, did we?”
Instead of answering, Butchy met Miles' gaze and asked, “I don’t remember much of anything from that night, do you?”
Miles thought for a moment, hoping to bring back any of his memories from that night, before letting out a meek, “No.”
“Then we better get downstairs and hope they haven’t seen anything we don’t know about,” Butchy said before stepping outside the room and making his way to the stairs, not bothering to wait for Miles as he made his way to the living room.
Miles was quick to follow, throwing himself into a run and practically tumbling his way down the stairs, missing many steps on the way and nearly colliding with the floor as he jumped the last four. By the time Miles reached the living room, Butchy was chasing Lela around in an attempt to grab the remote from her - the hilarious height difference between them proving that, even with Butchy’s long limbs and overall muscle, he was no match for his wiry younger sister’s speed. Miles spared a glance at the television, finding a video of him and Butchy drunkenly singing along to some song he couldn’t make out, the two of them taking turns drinking from a large bottle of Jose Cuervo. Cringing at the sight of his younger self looking like an absolute moron, Miles made his way over to where his girlfriend was sitting, reaching over her from behind and latching onto the cell phone clasped in her surprisingly tight grasp.
Carrie’s head tipped back, mirthful eyes glimmering up at Miles as she teasingly asked, “And just what do you think you’re doing, mister?”
“I think you know exactly what I’m doing,” he quipped, tugging lightly on the phone in an attempt to pry it away.
“Do I?” she replied coyly as she yanked the device back to her chest.
“You absolutely do.”
Carrie hummed, a small nod bouncing her golden curls against the couch cushions, “But, just like in chess, I’m three steps ahead of you.”
Miles chuckled, “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” The grin that settled on Carrie’s face just proved her point and, just like that, Miles knew he had already lost. Before he knew it, a hand threaded into his hair and pulled him down to the blonde as she turned sideways, locking their lips together. Miles’ muffled noise of surprise gained the attention of the trio sitting on the floor, but the only one to not make a noise of disgust just so happened to be the one to notice the phone the couple was still fighting over. As Royce and Bentley turned back to the TV to watch their brother and Butchy make complete fools of themselves, Vivien took it upon herself to creep closer to the couple and tap Carrie on the leg. One of the blonde’s brilliantly blue eyes peeled open and she glanced down at the smirking teenager, watching the brunette wiggle her eyebrows mischievously and cup her hands like she was waiting for Carrie to throw something her way.
Carrie attempted a wink at the girl and, as Vivien backed away enough that Miles would have to jump over the couch to snatch the phone from her, Carrie closed her eyes once again and decided to use her boyfriend’s love for her against him. She made sure to keep the love-drunk Miles occupied as she moved once again, kneeling on the couch and dragging her nails against his scalp. It didn’t take much for Miles’ resolve to evaporate and for his hands to move to his girlfriend’s waist, pulling her as close as he could with the couch in the way. However, as soon as the phone was out of her boyfriend’s grasp, Carrie backed away from Miles and tossed it to Vivien who caught the phone and dropped it down the front of the hoodie she had borrowed from Royce. Nobody would be getting the phone back from her until the video was done playing.
Miles was slow to catch on to what had happened, but the matching grins on the girls' faces sobered him up faster than a bucket of ice water dumped on his head. He glanced over at Butchy and Lela, the latter of whom had ditched the remote’s batteries somewhere during their multiple laps around the main floor of the house and had given Butchy an empty, useless remote. Miles’ gaze landed on Vivien who only looked innocent if you could ignore the proud gleam of mischief in her eyes. After searching for someone, anyone, in the house who would take his and Butchy’s side in the argument, yet finding nobody willing to do so, Miles let out a sigh of defeat and moved to take a seat next to his girlfriend. As Miles rounded the end of the couch, Carrie sat back down and leaned forward, high-fiving Vivien as the brunette moved past her to the spot she had been in between Royce and Bentley. Miles dropped into the cushion next to Carrie and tried his best to ignore the blonde’s proud smile that shone up at him.
“Like I said,” Carrie taunted, proud to have bested her boyfriend, “three steps ahead.”
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A Sense of Closure
December 17, 2022
Prompt - Home
Notes - Part two, baby! This part was originally something I planned on using as either the third part or a one-shot, but I changed the plot around to fit as a middle piece and it worked out pretty well. If you'd like to see the original plot, I would love to write it out after I'm done with my next project.
Despite the many flights that Miles had been on going to and from New Hampshire where his nerves stayed minimal and he could get by with listening to music or watching a movie, the nearly three-hour flight to his hometown of Myrtle Beach had Miles worrying that he’d be scrubbing his lunch out of the expensively upholstered seats. Carrie’s words or reassurance did little to quell the rollercoaster of emotions inside of him, but the grip she had on his hand and the gentle circles she pressed into his skin distracted him at least a little. Every now and then, he would spare a glance at his siblings and their friend, watching the trio gab on and on about something he couldn’t hear over the plane’s engines and the thumping of his heart in his ears. As soon as the pilot announced they were landing in Myrtle Beach, time seemed to slow down for Miles. Why had he agreed to join them? Why did he think he would be able to do this? He wasn’t ready for this!
Autopilot kicked in and Miles followed everyone off the plane, taking his bag of things he didn’t even remember packing and making sure his brothers were following him before stepping out of the plane and onto the tarmac. The ride from the airport was spent listening to everyone else talk as Miles looked out the window, trying to pinpoint where they were in relation to their old house. The city he knew had changed drastically in the sixty years since he had last been there, but certain buildings looked familiar. As they pulled to a stop at a red light, Miles felt a tug on his hoodie that roused him from his thoughtless ride.
Royce released Miles’ shirt once his older brother turned to face him, a small smile appearing on the teenager’s face as he pointed at the small store on their left and said, “Look, it’s the Circle K you used to work at.”
Miles raised an eyebrow as he turned to look out the window next to Carrie, but sure enough, the little gas station was still there. It had certainly changed a bit - the building had gotten larger, the pumps had gone from two to four, and the price of gas per gallon had gone from thirty-one cents to almost three dollars, but Miles still remembered the days of him and his brothers hanging out behind the counter, getting their homework done and playing blackjack between customers. They would walk home with barely enough money to buy food for the night only to have it confiscated once they walked in the door. If they didn’t hand over the money, chances were Miles would have a black eye the next morning at work, telling the kind old man who ran the shop that he’d been roughed up by people on the way home.
“Can we stop for drinks?” Bentley asked, oblivious to Miles’ thought process.
“Sure,” Mack said with a smile, flicking on her blinker and pulling into the parking lot of the gas station once the line began moving. As soon as the car was parked and people began piling out, Miles slowly slid his way out of the car and sighed. They weren’t even a ten minute walk from their old house.
Vivien huffed as she leaned against the side of the car, pulling her hoodie off over her head and tying it around her waist. “This must be cool for you guys,” she said, turning to Miles with a grin.
“How so?” he asked in return, faintly hoping he didn’t sound nearly as cold as he thought he did.
Vivien shrugged, “It must be nice to go back to a place you used to live and see how much has changed.”
Miles scanned the intersection as cars flew by in all directions, “Yeah, well, I don’t exactly remember this place all that fondly.”
“Why not?” the girl asked. “I mean, it’s so close to the beach.”
Miles stilled, looking at the girl with an eyebrow raised. “Did the boys never tell you why we left?”
“Royce hardly ever talks about anything that happened before you guys moved,” Vivien replied with a small chuckle as she turned toward Miles. “I’ve always wondered, though. Why? What happened?”
Vivien’s cheerful gaze dropped as Miles said, “Our dad happened. He was a drunken asshole and we ran away to escape him.”
“Oh,” Vivien muttered, all semblance of curiosity withering away like the petals of a dying flower.
“We used to live just down the road,” Miles continued. “I worked here just to have money for food and lunch money and our dad would take it as soon as he knew I had money. He’d get wasted and throw punches like he was down at the bar.”
Vivien’s eyes widened as she softly asked, “He hit you guys?”
Miles' nonchalant shrug told Vivien that it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, “Mostly me. I know RJ said it happened to him after I left, but I doubt he ever hit Ben more than once if he ever did in the first place.”
As Vivien slouched against the car, her usually bright eyes glued to the ground, Miles was sure the conversation was over, but as soon as Royce came back to the car and was wrapped in a hug by his girlfriend, he asked his older brother, “What happened?”
With yet another nonchalant shrug, Miles said “We were talking about Dad, that’s all.”
Royce nodded and allowed Vivien to hold him close before whispering to her, “It’s alright.”
Vivien leaned back, taking Royce’s face in her hands before pressing her forehead to his, “He hit you guys. That’s not okay.”
“We’re not there anymore and he’s not around to bother us,” Royce replied. “We’re safe now.”
“He probably doesn’t even exist in this world,” Miles added with a shrug.
“Probably not,” Bentley said as he joined them. “I wonder if our old house is in this world.”
“One way to find out,” Vivien mentioned, pulling her phone out of the pocket of her jeans and unlocking it before opening her map. “What’s the address?” Pulling their old, Duffy Street address out of the deep recesses of their brains, the three Murphy brothers recited it in unison, allowing Vivien to type it in as everyone else came out to the car with snacks and drinks in hand. “This says that the address exists, but it doesn’t show what it looks like.”
“Really?” Bentley asked.
“What are you looking for?” Mick questioned.
“Our old place,” Royce answered. “Viv’s phone says that it’s still there.”
To Miles’ dismay, Brady suggested, “Why don’t we drive by and see if anything has changed? Hotel check-in isn’t until three and Vivien doesn’t have to meet her family at the rink for another hour or so.”
Bentley was quick to agree, making his two older brothers reluctantly agree to keep his excitement at bay. Once everyone was piled into the car, Miles gave the instructions as to how to get to their old house and, within a few minutes, they were stopped across the street from their old house. However, it looked different than any of them expected. Grass and weeds cracked through the walkway leading up to the front door, the numbers above the porch that used to showcase their address were long gone, and the once pristine, olive green paint that colored the house was faded and peeling away. Overall, it looked… abandoned.
Brady threw the car in park, allowing the brothers to file out of the car, staring at their old home in shock. Their parents, especially their mother, had designed the house and had it built before Miles was born and took care of it as though it was another one of their children up until their mom’s death. Even though they hadn’t had too many pleasant memories in the house after their dad’s personality did a one-eighty, it still hurt to see the building their mom loved so much looking so decrepit.
As a few of the others followed the brothers out of the car, they took in the crumbling foundation and the overall look of the house with worry. While it was true that the Murphy brothers hadn’t actually grown up in that specific house, the three pairs of eyes filled with sorrow were enough to make the others present feel just as remorseful. Oddly enough, Miles was the first to break away from the group, venturing across the empty street to the house he used to call home. Bentley latched onto Royce’s hand before dragging him across the street, Royce’s free hand taking hold of Vivien's sleeve as they walked.
While some of the others followed them to the house, Vivien’s gaze flickered over the dusty windows and weathered brickwork that formed the front porch. “It’s definitely abandoned,” she spoke as she stepped onto the porch behind the brothers.
Miles sighed, “I never thought I’d see it like this.”
Bentley attempted to peek into the house through the picture window next to the door, but the dust that had settled on the window mingled with the fact that the curtains were blocking any prospective peepers, he couldn’t see much of anything. “I can’t tell what it looks like inside.”
With a hum, Royce tapped a thoughtful finger to his lips, “I wonder if any of the windows are open. Maybe one of us could climb inside and unlock the door.”
As the three brothers began devising a plan to break into their family home, Vivien took one look at the front door and snickered, rolling her eyes as she tapped the flimsy, plastic, doggy door with the toe of her sneaker. “Rookies,” she sighed under her breath. Vivien pulled her hoodie away from her waist and knelt on the porch, placing her hoodie on the wooden floor just beyond the heavy, oak door before climbing inside the house through the significantly smaller, plastic door. Once Vivien was inside the house, she dusted herself off with a sigh, grabbing her hoodie from the floor and wrapping it around her waist once more before sparing a look around the house.
Looking around the house was like stepping back in time. Vivien had only experienced the sixties over the last summer, but the furniture and overall aesthetic of the house made the brunette feel as though she had somehow stepped through a portal and ended up back in the beach-side, Florida town. Bright colors accented the otherwise cream-colored room, mid-century style decorations made the room feel dated but also welcoming, and hand-painted artwork still clinging to the walls by little pieces of tape and thumbtacks gave the house a lived-in feel, but the colder temperature and almost damp smell were an obvious tell that nobody had lived in the house in years, perhaps even decades.
Vivien’s nose crinkled as she looked around, but a thump on the door dragged her out of her thoughts. Twisting the deadbolt and unlocking the handle, Vivien pulled open the door and sent the three awaiting men a hesitant look. “This place was abandoned ages ago. Are you sure you want to come in?”
Bentley turned to Royce who, in turn, glanced at Miles. The oldest of the brothers took in a deep breath and nodded, “Let’s do it.”
With a small nod, Vivien held the door open and stepped aside, allowing the brothers into the old abode. Once everyone was inside, Vivien closed the door, watching as everyone seemed to linger in the living room. Bentley was the first to truly begin examining the house, pointing out how the house looked in comparison to how he’d last seen it. While Miles and Royce seemed more hesitant to explore the place that looked so similar to the house they had run away from, they eventually split off to look around. Vivien wandered the house in wonder, looking around the closest thing to her boyfriend’s old home that she would ever get to see. The house’s style was certainly outdated, but it suited the time period they were from.
Upon exploring the kitchen, Vivien was mildly surprised to find lines of old, glass, alcohol bottles had been placed across the counter with a thick layer of dust settled on them. Perhaps whoever had lived in the house suffered from the same addiction the Murphy brothers' father had. The refrigerator still had childlike artwork clinging to it by little magnets, the signature in the bottom corners too faded for Vivien to read, but the art itself still vibrantly present. As Vivien circled the dining table, emerald eyes caught a glimpse of a thick envelope tucked underneath a piece of folded leather. The seventeen-year-old’s experience investigating abandoned buildings told her to leave well enough alone and to ignore the items, but her curiosity over where they were and the connection her friends had to the building won over as she picked up the peeling leather wallet.
Vivien only intended to check for any information as to who the wallet belonged to, but the thickness of the back fold led her to discover a thick stack of cash in varying amounts. The brunette glanced around, making sure nobody else could see the wallet as she closed it and set it back down on the table, taking the envelope instead. After wiping the front of the envelope against her jeans to rid it of the dust, Vivien’s eyes widened at what was scrawled across the white paper faded, rigid letters. It couldn’t possibly be right. She pulled her glasses off and swiped the lenses across her shirt before placing them back on the bridge of her nose. Nope, it was still there. It didn’t make sense! How on earth was it possible? By all accounts, it shouldn’t have been possible, yet there it was, staring her in the face. Seven words in faded pencil that, if they were real, had probably been written long before she was even born.
‘To my sons, Miles, Royce, and Bentley.’
Vivien debated on what to do, but eventually came to the conclusion that she had to tell her boyfriend and his brothers. Vivien tapped the envelope against her fingertips before taking a deep breath and heading toward the living room. The only person there was Butchy who was busy examining the books on the shelves. Glancing past the couch to where the boys had gathered in another room that must have been one of their bedrooms, Vivien crossed the living room and tapped on Butch’s arm. Butchy smiled at the younger girl, “There’s the little criminal. You know, breaking and entering is a jailable offense.”
“Maybe,” Vivien agreed, “but just entering isn’t.”
“I’ll give you that,” Butchy chuckled. Glancing at the envelope grasped in the girl’s trembling fingers, Butchy sent Vivien a quizzical look, “What’s that?”
Vivien glanced over her shoulder before lowering her voice and holding out the old envelope, “I found it on the kitchen table with a wallet, but I didn’t want to open it.”
Taking the white package from the teenager, Butchy opened it to find a thick stack of paper. At the bottom of the last page was a signature he doubted the Murphy brothers wanted to see. “Did you tell them yet?”
With a shake of her head, Vivien said, “I just found it. Do you think we should give it to them?”
Folding the papers back up and putting them back into the envelope, Butchy peered over Vivien’s shoulder at where Miles was sitting on the end of a bed, an old notebook in hand as he showed Carrie and Mick what was in it. Bentley and Royce were too busy showing Lela things they had found to notice the stare directed their way, but Miles was quick to sense the pair of eyes focused on him. As soon as Miles’ confused gaze met Butchy’s, the older biker gestured for him to come out to the living room.
“We don’t have much of a choice now,” Butchy muttered, bringing an arm around Vivien’s shoulders as Miles approached them, his hands tucked into his pockets.
“What’s going on?” Miles asked the pair, the small smile on his face disappearing as he took in their expressions. “Is everything okay?”
Butchy held the envelope out for Miles to take as Vivien said, “I found this on the kitchen table. It says it’s for you, Royce, and Bentley.”
Icy blue eyes flickered between the envelope and the other two people in the room before Miles accepted the papers. On the front was a style of writing Miles knew all too well after years of forging the signature for field trips and checks he had to send out in the mail so the gas company wouldn’t shut off their hot water. “It’s our father’s handwriting.”
Seeing the hesitant, almost wary look in Miles’ eyes, Butchy asked, “Are you sure you want to read it?”
Miles shook his head, “No, but I should.”
“I can read it for you, if you want,” Butchy offered, placing a hand on Miles’ arm. Miles contemplated the idea for a while before handing the envelope back to Butchy. Butchy nodded slowly, nudging Miles toward the couch as he said, “Alright. Do you want the boys to hear it too?” Miles was quick to shake his head. He didn’t want them to know what their father had written until he knew there was nothing in the letters that he should keep from them. “Okay. Go sit down. I’ll be over in a minute.”
As Miles wordlessly headed toward the kitchen, making his way through the living room with practiced ease, Butchy turned his attention to Vivien who watched Miles with concern. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked in a whisper.
“He'll be fine.”
Although Vivien desperately wanted to believe the older man’s words, she wasn’t even sure if he believed them himself. Green eyes met brown as Vivien crossed an arm around herself, the other playing with the chain of her necklace. “I should’ve hidden that letter and left everything alone.”
Butchy sighed, placing his hands on the girl’s shoulders as he moved in front of her, “Don’t beat yourself up, Vivien. This might be something he needs to hear.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“We’ll be there for him and the boys.” Butchy watched Vivien’s gaze flicker toward the room everyone else had congregated in. “For now, go keep them occupied. I’ll handle this with Miles and then I’ll let you know when the coast is clear, alright?”
Reluctantly, Vivien nodded, her eyes flicking between Butchy, the kitchen, and the other room as Butchy stepped aside. Butchy watched Vivien disappear into the other room, hearing her instantly get pulled into a conversation as he took a deep breath and headed for the kitchen. Miles was already sitting at the dining table, presumably in the same spot he always took growing up and, as Butchy dropped into the chair next to him, the younger biker met his friend’s gaze. “Thanks for doing this, Butch.”
“I told you from the beginning that I’m here for you no matter what,” Butchy replied. “You need me, I’m there.”
Miles nodded, more to himself than to Butchy. “What if I want to stop at some point?”
“Then we stop, simple as that.”
Taking in a deep, prolonged breath, Miles glanced at the letter before muttering, “Let’s start before I change my mind, then.”
Butchy grinned, placing a hand on Miles’ back for a moment before pulling out the letters and beginning to read, “‘Boys, in the off-chance that you’ve come back home, I wanted to leave you this letter so you know everything I never got the chance to say.’”
“He didn’t say much at all when he was hammered,” Miles scoffed.
Ignoring Miles’ statement, Butchy continued, “‘I wasn’t the father you three deserved, especially after what happened with your Mama. You three lost a mother that day and I lost the love of my life, but you three handled it with the grace only she could’ve given you. I broke and turned into a beast.’” Another scoff from Miles interrupted Butchy’s reading, but it didn’t stop him from continuing, “‘Your mother gave me the best gifts in the world and I treated you all so horribly. I didn’t deserve you boys and you didn’t deserve me as a father. I know I should have let you stay with your grandparents or with Thomas when they asked, but I had already lost your mother and I couldn’t imagine losing you three too.’”
Butchy spared Miles a glance, watching the brunette drive his hands into his hair as he breathed, “We could’ve lived with our mom’s family and he didn’t let us?”
“I know you don’t want to, but try to think of it from his perspective,” Butchy attempted as he placed the first page down on the table. “His wife had passed away and you three were all he had. It was probably something they offered early on and he was scared of losing you three.”
Miles’ gaze followed the faded scuff marks on the kitchen table as he thought over Butchy’s words. Instead of commenting further, he closed his eyes, shook his head, and said, “Let’s just keep going.”
Butchy shook his head and sighed, “Alright.” After clearing his throat, he read, “'I know this won’t mean much to you now, but I’ve been seeking advice on my drinking since just after Miles left home. It worked a little at first, but I was so far down the path that it was hard to turn back. Even though it didn’t look like it, I started getting serious about quitting. I was at a meeting the day Royce and Bentley took off. I came home to their note on the coffee table the same day I came back with my five-month sobriety chip.’”
“Oh, yeah?” Miles scoffed rhetorically. “Wonder where he was hiding those.”
Butchy’s eyes scanned the paper he was holding before he set the few papers down and reached for the wallet on the table, opening the flap in the front and dumping the coins out. There weren’t many, but the furthest along was two years. As Miles examined the cheaply made coins, Butchy scanned over the rest of the papers that had been left in the envelope. He skimmed a few pages and set some aside before getting to the more personal messages that had been left.
“‘Bentley, I hope that you become an artist of some kind. You certainly don’t get that talent from me, but I know how great you are, even though you’re so young. You’ll far exceed everyone’s expectations. As for Royce, I’m sure you’ll be a famous novelist someday. You boys got a lot from your mother’s side of the family and your way with words is definitely not from me, so take pride in it. I have no doubt you boys will be great regardless of what you do in life. Like your mother used to say: if you follow your heart, you’ll fly further than the moon.’”
Miles eyed the paper, a barely noticeable grin appearing on his face as he said, “I still tell the boys that.”
“I’m sure they appreciate that,” Butchy said.
“I know they do,” Miles replied with a nod, the tension in his shoulders releasing as he took in a deep breath. “You can keep going.”
Butchy smiled and began reading again, glad that Miles was more open to the words now that he knew how positive they had been, “‘Miles, I hope you’re taking good care of yourself and the boys. Show them the love that I wish I had. I will forever be proud of you for stepping up and taking charge when I failed to do so. You would have made a great soldier, but I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, especially one of my boys. Take a different path than I did. Find someone who makes you as happy as your mother made me, pop out a few kids or get a couple dogs, and love them more than anything. Just make sure that you’re happy. You deserve it after all the shit I put you through.’”
Miles took in a long breath, his eyes locked on the paper in Butchy’s hands, following every word on the page as it was said. Butchy paused in his reading, keeping an eye on Miles as the younger man slowly sat straighter and asked, “Is there anything else?”
Butchy placed the paper down, only one page remaining in his hands. “This is it. You want me to read it?”
Miles shrugged, “We’ve come this far.”
“Alright,” Butchy said softly, returning his gaze to the paper. “‘You three always had each other’s backs, even when I didn’t. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish you three would walk back through the front door, but that day will probably only come when I’m no longer here. I’ve come to terms with that. I’ve come to terms with my death. It’s inevitable at this point. Even though I stopped drinking a long time ago, that doesn’t cure every other illness that comes along. Liver failure is a bitch, but I’ll go on my own terms. I left money for you in my wallet. It’s all of the money I would have spent on alcohol since I quit. You were the reason I quit, so it only makes sense for me to give it to you now. Maybe someday I’ll be able to see you again, watch over you just like your mother does. I’ll be with her soon enough. Your mom and I will be proud of you three no matter what happens. Take care of yourselves and remember to never let anything drive you apart. I love you, boys. Always.'”
Once Butchy set the papers down and restacked them, Miles pulled them to him and slid them back into the envelope they had been in. For a while, they sat in silence, Miles staring off into space while Butchy tried to gauge his friend’s reaction. Then, to break the silence they had created, Butchy put a hand on Miles’ shoulder and asked, “Are you alright?”
Instead of answering immediately, a lie rolling off his tongue with relative ease, Miles seemed to genuinely think before answering, “No, but I will be.” Finally meeting Butchy’s gaze, Miles smiled, “It’s nice to hear even though it’s not coming from my dad. I mean, I guess it is, in a way, but it just doesn’t feel like it is... I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
Butchy chuckled, “It does.”
As the pair rose from their chairs and Miles tucked the envelope into the pocket of his jean jacket, a head of blonde hair poked around the corner. Bentley’s smile beamed brighter than any lightbulb as he declared, “RJ and I found Mama’s art set!”
“That’s great, Ben,” Miles claimed with a smile. “Are you keeping it?”
“I was just going to ask if I could,” Bentley laughed. “Does that mean I can?”
“If you can fit it in the van.”
A mischievous giggle was the only response Miles got as Bentley took off for the other room. Butchy shook his head, “I think you’ve enabled a monster.”
“I think you’re right.”
Leaning against the kitchen counters as Miles pocketed the wallet from the table, Butchy asked, “Are you sure you’re alright, Miles?”
“I think I just need time to register it all,” Miles decided with a shrug, turning to Butchy and tucking his hands in his pockets. “Then, when the time comes, I’ll tell the boys and let them read it for themselves.”
“And if you need help-”
“You’ll be there like you always are,” Miles interrupted with a grin.
Butchy hummed in agreement as Carrie entered the kitchen with a sigh, “You guys might want to stop them before they shove the whole house into the back end of the car.”
“That bad, huh?” Butchy chuckled.
Carrie glanced over her shoulder before turning back to the men with a hesitant chuckle, “Let’s just say that, if they bring out much more, we’re gonna have to walk to the hotel.”
Mick, one of the supposed “adults” in the house, cackled maniacally in the other room, “Take all of the photo albums! We can use them as blackmail!”
Miles turned to Butchy with a grin, “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Butchy agreed, allowing Miles to lead the way out of the kitchen.
Later rather than sooner, they managed to get everyone out of the house and into the van. Things they didn’t really need, yet wanted to take home had been piled into the trunk and shoved into the gaps between seats, forming a problem they would have to solve when they met up with Vivien’s parents at the sports center. Miles slid the door shut after making sure everyone had their belongings, staring out the window at the house across the street that had, at one point been his home. Although he wouldn’t be returning to it for a long time in any world, he was almost glad to have seen it one last time. It was a sense of closure he didn’t know he was missing. All too soon, the van’s engine roared to life and, within moments, they were leaving Duffy Street and Miles watched his old home fade into the distance for the last time.
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Boiling Over
December 11, 2022
Prompt - Secrets
Notes - This is quite a bit shorter than the other prompts that I've been posting, but I’ve been getting very little sleep and dealing with high anxiety for a few days. I’m feeling pretty calm today, though, so here’s a chaotic little prompt that I wrote to get over everything!
Winter winds whipped outside the log walls of the cabin, a winter weather advisory the only thing keeping the family inside. Snow was yet to appear on the ground, but with gale force winds mixing with the pelting rain outside, it felt like snow slamming their faces as soon as someone opened the door. Burning logs crackled in the hearth of the stone fireplace to keep everyone warm, sparks of flames fluttering into ash as the logs broke down. False pine needles littered the living room floor in an array that everyone knew wouldn’t get cleaned until January and, even then, they would be finding more little pieces of their tree until April or May.
The reason for having a fake tree was simple - allergies. The only member of the Birch family who had an allergic reaction to pine needles, Mick, could normally settle in with some allergy pills in her system and enjoy a real tree for the season. However, this year, her allergies had been a lot worse. Hives had spread across her skin, a full-force migraine emerged, and the twenty-one-year-old struggled to breathe when they were looking for a real tree at the beginning of the month, so her parents chose the safer alternative and hauled the rarely used, imitation tree down from the attic. Although Mick had originally claimed she could handle the real tree for the sake of everyone else, the others had vehemently refused the idea and reassured her that the fake tree would be more than enough for them. In the end, the fake tree was decorated with tinsel and ornaments and was plugged into the nearest socket, lighting the room with softly glowing colors.
While most of the residents were either in the kitchen making lunch or sitting on the couch, watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas, sitting in front of the fireplace with enough yarn on the floor between them to make blankets for an entire army were Mick, Vivien, and Carrie. Carrie had chosen to use the wooden knitting needles she’d been given as hair sticks and Vivien had taken hers as an invitation to drum on the lumps of colored yarn like it was her drum set back home. Meanwhile, Mick’s knitting needles worked at a fast pace, moving colorful yarn through stitches with ease as she listened to the conversation the other two girls were having.
“So, long story short,” a smirking Vivien began, “blow out your candles before you leave the house.”
“Did your tree burn that badly?” Carrie questioned.
“Ask the fire chief,” Mick commented.
Carrie’s eyes widened as she looked between Mick and Vivien, a laugh coming from the blonde as she asked, “You burned down your Christmas tree on Christmas Eve?”
“No, Loki burned the Christmas tree,” was Vivien's adamant claim. “I left the candle on the mantle next to his bag of treats, but he knocked it over. I cannot be held responsible for my dog’s crimes.”
Mick laughed as she set her knitting needles aside to take a drink of hot chocolate, “Tell that to your parents. Didn’t they have to pay almost two hundred dollars for a new tree because it was so close to Christmas?”
Vivien looked ready to defend herself, but Mick’s stare from over the rim of her mug shut down the girl’s plan. In a deflated tone, Vivien sighed, “Maybe.”
“Mhm,” Mick hummed knowingly, setting her mug back on the coffee table and continuing with her knitting.
“It was one time!”
Mick chuckled, “Yet the story is told every year, like clockwork.”
The teenager’s face tinged scarlet as she sent an annoyed look in Mick’s direction. Not one to allow defeat so easily, Vivien shot back, “What about the time you burned the ham because you were too busy making out with Butchy to hear the timer?”
Widened eyes shot Vivien a glare as Mick quickly shook her head, hoping the girl’s statement hadn’t been heard. Unfortunately, luck was not on Mick’s side as her mom stepped into the kitchen archway and asked, “Is that what happened, Makana?”
“No,” Mick tried maybe a touch too quickly.
“You told us that the timer was broken,” Mack stated, her arms folding over her chest as she tried to gauge her daughter’s reaction.
“It was!” Mick exclaimed as she turned to her mom with a small, hopeful grin.
Vivien laughed, “Yeah, after you took one of the batteries out and cut a wire in the back of it.”
“Viv!” Mick hissed, shooting the girl a disbelieving look.
Before Vivien could argue, Brady laughed from the kitchen, making everyone wonder what on earth he had found so funny. “Do I want to know?” his wife asked.
As Brady made his way into the archway, he chuckled, “It seems like having something go wrong is just a Christmas tradition at this point.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Mick laughed, “Ever since Mom banned you from cooking, on Holidays, things have been pretty good!”
A smirk appeared on Brady’s face that let everyone know that he knew something they didn’t. Mack sighed as her husband leaned against the wall, “Here we go.”
“Christmas Eve, just before Mick’s fifth birthday,” Brady began. “The three of us were at Mack’s family’s Christmas party in Laconia.”
“We were exhausted since a certain someone had a nightmare and kept us up all hours of the night trying to sing herself to sleep in our room,” Mack added, smiling at Mick’s embarrassed expression. “Every time we thought she was asleep, we’d hear Jingle Bells being sung and be forced to join in, or else she would only get louder.”
Brady nodded, grinning at his wife before continuing, “We spent a few hours at the party that night, eating, opening Secret Santa gifts, and trying to keep ourselves awake while Mickie ran around with her cousins.”
“Mick and her cousins, Holly and Lily, were very close because they look a lot alike and they’re only a month apart,” Mack claimed. “So, to make them feel like the set of triplets they so desperately said they were, my aunt gave each of the girls matching coats with long skirts and thick lines of fur around the hoods.”
Brady and Mack paused in their story, watching to see if the rest of the story would click with any of the people listening. Of the few people who seemed to piece it together before Mick, Vivien was the one to voice her realization as her eyes widened and her mouth fell open, a howling laugh bubbling out of her, “You took the wrong kid home?!”
“No,” Mick chuckled, sparing a glance back at Vivien before turning her attention to her parents, “I think I would remember that.” The wary smiles Mack and Brady sent their daughter made her rethink her statement. Could they really have mistaken her for one of her cousins? “Wait - seriously?”
Brady nodded, “It was the end of the party, all of the adults were tired, and you three looked the same when you hugged each other, so we took the first kid we saw and headed out the door.”
“None of us realized there was an issue until Brady and I stopped for gas and Lily asked if she could get a slushie,” Mack said. “We called Erica and Marcus and, sure enough, they had Holly and Mick in their backseat, playing with their new toys.”
If her reaction before hadn’t given away that she had never heard the story before, the look of shock mingled with horror on Mick’s face did. “You guys didn’t even look to see if I was your kid, you just took one and left?”
“It only happened once,” Brady said with a shrug. “Although, it may have created three little demons who thought they could climb into other people’s cars to have sleepovers.”
“What do you mean? We didn’t do that,” Mick said with an eyebrow raised.
“Oh, really?” Mack questioned rhetorically. “There was that time we went to their birthday party at the McDonald’s PlayPlace and you had Holly climb into the backseat through the trunk before we went home.”
“Don’t forget the time Lily tried to hide in the spare tire chamber and got covered in grease before her mom could take her to the dentist.”
“And the time you hid inside their camper before their trip to Oklahoma,” Brady added.
“Or-”
“Okay, I get it!” Mick insisted. “We were three little terrors. I’m sure everyone else here was a little monster as a kid.”
“Or still is a little monster,” Miles chuckled as he ruffled Royce's and Bentley's hair.
“We are not little monsters,” Royce argued.
“Says the one who faked an asthma attack to stay out of gym class,” Bentley laughed.
Royce's eyes widened as he quickly turned so he couldn’t make eye contact with Miles, his older brother’s piercing stare making him squirm. “You faked that?” Miles pressed. “They called me at work to come and get you that day because they didn’t have your inhaler yet.”
Needing the vindication he so desperately craved, Royce met Miles’ eyes with determination, proudly declaring, “Yeah, well, the cat didn’t melt your records by bumping them against the heater, Bentley did!”
Miles’ head whirled around to Bentley whose eyes had grown exponentially wide. Taking a deep breath, Bentley tried to think of something, anything, to get the heat of Miles’ intense gaze off of him. Eventually, his floundering brain came up with, “Hurricane Ginny didn’t break the porch swing, Royce and Vivien did!”
“Bentley! What did I do to you?!” Vivien squawked. As soon as Miles’ eyes landed on her, Vivien pointed a finger back his way, “Oh, no! Don’t you act so high and mighty there, bucko. I walked in on you and Carrie having sex on Mick and Butchy’s couch over the summer.”
“For the millionth time, kid, we weren’t having sex!” Miles argued with a roll of his eyes.
“Yeah,” Carrie cut in, “we were just making out.”
Butchy turned toward Mick and sighed, “Remind me to burn that couch when we get home.”
“Why?” At the look she received from Butchy, Carrie rolled her eyes, “Oh, come on. It’s not like you and Mick or Lela and Tanner haven’t done the same thing on that couch.”
A heavy clang echoed from the kitchen as Lela, who had been quietly listening through the whole ordeal as she helped get lunch ready, dropped the pan she had just pulled out of the oven. As soon as the raven-haired girl made an appearance, she proclaimed, “Well, Mick and Miles took your motorcycle to the mall while you were at work and told you it was getting fixed up as a birthday present when, in reality, it was stolen while they were shopping!”
As Mick and Miles started arguing their case and Lela made her way further into the living room, Mack and Brady inched back into the kitchen, hoping to wait until everyone else in the house had cooled off. Standing in front of the counter where Lela had dropped the tray of English muffin pizzas, Mack sighed, “So much for a quiet afternoon.”
Fire reduced to flickering ash, rain that pounded against the front door turned to drizzles, and raging arguments simmered into near-complete silence over the two-and-a-half hours it had taken for everyone to calm down. Dirty laundry had been aired and secrets spilled like cold tea down the drain, resulting in a tense, awkward silence that spanned the entirety of the cabin. The only people who had eaten lunch hot were the two people not involved in the conversations, leaving the other seven younger members of the house to microwave their food before sitting around the living room and nibbling at their food in silence. The only sound in the room was the occasional sip of soda or hot chocolate. Those who had sore throats from yelling were nursing their vocal cords with teas while others simply eyed them in concern, sending them small smiles of hopeful reassurance.
Bentley was the first to break the tension, clearing his throat with a cough before saying, “This is awkward.”
Murmurs of agreement fluttered around the room like confetti before the room went silent once again. It wasn’t long before Carrie took in a long breath and laughed, “You know, I think I learned a lot about you guys from that.”
Butchy scoffed, “I think we just aired out about ten years' worth of secrets and aggression in the span of two hours, what could you have possibly learned from that?”
Without giving Carrie the time to respond, Lela said, “All of our secrets.”
A collective hum of acknowledgment passed through the room, followed by a pause of silence that was quickly broken once more by Bentley. “I mean, even I didn’t know that Royce knows how to hotwire a car,” Bentley claimed, “and he tells me everything.”
“How did you think I started Uncle Tommy’s car when it stalled on us in Georgia?” Royce questioned. “Besides, I only use it when I need to, like when Butchy needs help in the shop.”
“Speaking of Butchy,” Vivien began with a mischievous grin, “I wanna hear more about the laxatives Lela and Mick put in the advent chocolates so he’d stop eating them.”
“It’s far from a glamorous story, piccola,” Butchy claimed, shooting the girl a half-hearted glare that she could easily see the humor in. “I’d rather hear about you three breaking into an abandoned school.”
Miles swallowed his sip of hot chocolate and said, “You know, the three of them brought me and Carrie to an old mall that was all run down and they had us help them make a movie while we were there.”
“That was nothing,” Vivien said with a shrug as embarrassment flooded her face. The movie had been a short film for a story she and Royce had written over the summer with Bentley’s creative edge helping them design the characters as they went. The script called for more people than they could get ahold of, so they asked Miles and Carrie if they minded helping while on their excursion to explore the long-vacant mall. Things happened and, in the end, they filmed most of the parts they needed over the course of a week and filled in the rest with parts they filmed later on with friends once they were free. The video ended up being almost half an hour long and hadn’t been meant for the public to see, but they loved it so much that they posted it on Youtube after much editing.
“‘Nothing?’” Carrie restated, placing a hand on the younger girl’s arm. “That script you gave me was incredible! That’s probably one of the most interesting things I’ve ever worked on.”
“I don’t know about it being ‘incredible’, but thank you,” Vivien allowed with a smile. “It was a lot of fun to work on.’
“You should put it on,” Mick suggested.
Vivien shook her head with a soft laugh, “I don’t think-”
“Please!” Lela pleaded. “I wanna see it!”
“Yeah,” Miles agreed, “put it on the TV or something.”
“I still have a copy on my phone,” Royce offered.
Bentley clapped his hands together and rubbed them with a smile, “Let’s do it then!”
Enthusiastic agreement sounded through the room and, as Butchy turned on the TV and Royce connected his phone to it, everyone settled in just a bit closer, held each other a little tighter, and laughed a little louder. At the sound of life and laughter in the living room, Brady and Mack paused in their mission of wrapping as many presents as possible and smiled at each other before glancing toward the door. Brady rose first, inching his way around the piles of wrapping paper tubes, tape, and presents to help his wife onto her feet. The pair crept out of their bedroom and down the hall, stopping just close enough to hear cheerful voices chatting about how excited they were to watch the short film.
Mack turned to Brady with a soft smile, wrapping an arm around him as she whispered, “I told you they would sort it out themselves.”
“You did,” Brady chuckled airily as he nodded. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t ask them if they wanted to play Monopoly, huh?”
“Yeah… don’t do that.” Mack placed a hand on Brady’s chest and patted it before turning on her heel and heading back toward their room with a shake of her head. Brady watched the group in the living room as the TV came to life with the introduction of a video he had only ever seen once. The three teenagers had been so proud to showcase their hard work to him and his wife and they, of course, loved every minute of the video. Brady wasn’t quite sure how the film’s topic came to fruition, but he wasn’t about to complain - at least they were all back on speaking terms once again. They needed each other. With a smile, Brady turned back toward the room he shared with his wife and returned to their mission of wrapping presents to put under the Christmas tree as a surprise to the very children occupying all of the furniture in their living room.
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Stress Reliever
December 9, 2022
Prompt - Staying Inside
Notes - This was so much fun to write! I wrote this today after reading over the comments on my last few posts and, Eleanor, I have to thank you for giving me an idea to add toward the end! I feel like it worked perfectly with what I had already written and wanted to sneak it in for you, haha. I hope you like it!
The Birch family living room was silent apart from the rapid clacking as finger met key. After the jump she had ever-so-gracefully landed a few days prior, Vivien O’Brian was forced to stay off the ice and practically off the ground too. Her sprained foot and ankle gave cause for concern as the girl had a couple of upcoming performances, not only with Riven on the ice, but also with the high school color guard and the theatre troop she was a part of. With all of her deadlines creeping up on her like Bentley’s attempts at jump-scaring her and Royce, Vivien couldn’t afford to spend any time doing anything other than resting her leg. Her school had the option of online learning for those who were sick or injured, so she took full advantage of what was available. The only thing was, her parents had to drive her to and from the Birch house every day before they left for work so she wasn’t alone all day.
Mack and Brady had been very accepting of Vivien’s presence since the girl practically lived there anyway, the only difference was that she was now there all through her usual skate practice times and all through the school day. Vivien was grateful they had allowed her to stay over. Her and Loki, that is. The giant Saint Bernard had made himself comfortable in front of the fireplace, sprawled across the floor so that nobody could join him. Every time the dog heard someone enter the living room, he would sit at attention, watching them like a hawk to make sure they didn’t get close to his Vivien. He wasn’t much of a guard dog, but he was protective and his growl could be considered menacing if Vivien didn’t tell him to stop.
Vivien’s fingers flew across the keyboard of her laptop as she worked on her assignment for history class. Her teacher, Mr. Brunner, was a laid-back guy who was also in charge of the photography and Dungeons and Dragons clubs. He made his history class interesting by allowing the class to watch movies and clips of shows from times they were working on in class and comparing them to what actually happened. Even though she could have easily transferred to Advanced Placement History, Vivien had been in Mr. Brunner’s history class since freshman year and loved his way of hands-on teaching far more than the AP History teacher, Mr. Shepherd’s boring, by-the-books-and-nothing-else way of teaching. Her friends that had transferred always complained about the man being an awful, opinionated, and strict teacher who locked the door to his class as soon as the bell rang and hardly ever accepted excuses unless they were from his favorite students.
Vivien’s history assignment was a free-for-all where all she had to do was interview someone about their life in a different decade and write a short story about a day in their life. Of all the people she could have chosen to interview, she chose Carrie. She had spent the previous day asking Carrie any questions she could think of, recording the conversation with her phone and making sure to ask every question she could about an average day in the life of superstar actress, Caroline Cole. After spending half the afternoon sorting through the questions and answers, taking out useless information, and organizing the list into a coherent storyline, Vivien wrote it all down in a notebook Royce had bought her for her birthday. Vivien had already mostly filled it with script and novel ideas she might never even get the chance to work on, but she had enough space to fill the last few pages of it with information about Carrie.
Before getting up to make breakfast, Mack and Brady had joined Vivien for a while in the living room, sitting on the opposite side of the couch and reading together, but Vivien was so in the zone that she barely acknowledged their presence. Lela had come downstairs around seven, taking the time to sit and play with Loki by the fireplace before asking Vivien if she could take him for a walk. That was the first time in two hours that Vivien had looked up from her keyboard long enough to do anything more than drink whatever she had put in the metal water bottle she had brought with her. She set her computer aside and dug Loki’s leash out of her backpack before handing it to Lela with a Ziplock baggie of treats and some bags for the walk. After telling her different instructions Loki knew and making sure he responded to Lela just as well as he did with her, Vivien watched them leave and immediately went back to typing.
Royce and Bentley were next to make their appearances known, talking animatedly about something Bentley had a dream about as they made their way down the stairs to the main floor of the cabin. Bentley jumped over the back of the couch on one side of Vivien while Royce took the other side, pressing a kiss to his girlfriend’s cheek as she worked. “Good morning,” Royce said softly as Vivien continued typing like a madman.
“Morning,” she replied quickly.
Royce and Bentley leaned forward so they could see each other past Vivien and her computer. With a shrug, Bentley offered, “Do you want to play some Rocket League when you’re done?”
It took Vivien a while to answer, her eyes following the letters on the screen as they appeared, but once she realized the question was directed toward her, she glanced over at Bentley and asked, “Huh?” Before Bentley could restate his question, Vivien nodded and went back to her laptop, “Oh, yeah, sure. I could do Rocket League. Might take a while for me to finish, so you two can play for now, if you want.”
Royce watched as Bentley stood from the couch and headed for the bins on either side of the fireplace where the gaming things and cases of movies were kept. After watching his brother set up the Playstation, Royce turned to Vivien and watched her type faster than he’d seen her go before. “How long have you been working on that?”
“Since last night,” she breathed. “Started as soon as I had it all organized, but Mom stopped me at two this morning so I could get some sleep.”
“How long have you been working on it today?”
“Since I got here at five-thirty.”
Glancing to the corner of Vivien’s computer screen at the tiny clock above the date, Royce sighed; it was already almost eight. If what she said was correct and she had, in fact, stopped writing at two and got here at five-thirty, that meant that she was running on three hours of sleep, give or take. Placing a hand on Vivien’s arm, Royce softly admonished her, “Vivi, you need sleep.”
Normally cheerful green eyes were bloodshot and glassy as Vivien spared a glance at her boyfriend. “No, I need Red Bull and to get this project done. It’s almost done.”
A gentle, almost statically charged shock greeted Royce as he took Vivien’s hand in his with a sigh, “Vivien.”
Vivien huffed, tossing her head back so she stared at the ceiling, “I need to get this done as soon as possible. It counts toward both my English and my History classes and is a huge chunk of my grade because of how long it is. If I can write out two more pages by the time my class would be in lunch, I could raise both of my grades enough to qualify me for early graduation and my associate’s degree.”
“You’re in high school,” Bentley stated curiously. “How are you going to get a degree early?”
“I’m in the vocational programs for history and creative writing,” she answered. “We attend college classes every other week and, once I graduate, I get an associate’s degree for both.” With a heavy sigh, Vivien looked back at her computer screen and shook her head at the eight pages she had managed to write since she began typing after lunch the day before. “I need two more pages before I can send this to Mr. Brunner and, even then, I’d have to go back through and edit the whole thing.”
“Why not take a break and get some breakfast into you?” Royce suggested, rubbing circles into the back of Vivien’s hand with his thumb. “You deserve a break.”
Vivien’s shakily exhaled breath almost convinced Royce that she was willing to take a break, but the firm shake of her head squashed the idea like a bug under a newspaper. “I only have two pages left and I can finish them in about an hour if I really focus on it.” Turning to her boyfriend, Vivien gave him her best smile and said, “I just need an hour. After that, you can take my computer away and I’ll edit it later.”
Royce didn’t want to let her continue, especially with her looking so exhausted and drained, but as long as she actually rested once the hour was up, he could handle that. “Promise you’ll actually rest later?”
With a nod, Vivien tightened her grip on his hand and said, “I promise. Now, you two have fun and I’m going to go back to work, alright?”
Royce hummed and let go of Vivien’s hand, accepting the controller Bentley handed him and turning toward the TV as he started the game. As the game started, Royce continued sparing glances at his girlfriend, making sure she was alright as he and Bentley began racing their cars toward the giant soccer ball they would have to fight the other team for. He just hoped that Vivien would be alright and, more than anything, she would keep her promise once the end of the hour came. He didn’t want to fight with her over something so trivial.
Before Vivien knew it, the hour was up and, in the middle of typing her final paragraph, her laptop was snatched away from her by someone much quicker and much taller than the person she had expected to take it. “Miles!” she screeched, propelling herself off of the couch. In an instant, the laptop was forgotten and a searing pain scorched from her foot up to the bottom of her spine. At once, Miles shifted the laptop to one arm and lowered Vivien back to the couch cushions with the other.
“Get that leg back up, kiddo,” he ordered.
“Alright, alright.” Once Vivien had lifted her leg back onto the coffee table where they had set up a pillow and a heating pad for her, she sighed, “Thank you. Now, can I please have my computer back? I was almost done with the last paragraph.”
“You said that three paragraphs ago,” Carrie commented from the other side of the couch where she was busy filing and painting her nails.
“Not helping,” Vivien huffed, sending the blonde a sharp stare.
Carrie only shrugged and returned to the glittery polish hed between her thumb and index fingers. Miles chuckled as he handed the computer off to Royce over the back of the couch, “You need to relax, Viv. You’re a smart kid, I’m sure you can see the reason behind us making you rest.”
Taking in a long breath and letting out a heavy sigh, Vivien said, “I can, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”
“Nobody likes being told what to do,” Royce commented from behind the couch, making sure the laptop was kept out of his girlfriend’s reach. As she tipped her head back to look at him, Royce pressed a light kiss to her forehead and softly told her, “I’ll work on the editing while you rest. When I’m done, you can finish up, alright?”
“You’d really do that for me?” Vivien mumbled, glancing blearily up at Royce.
“I would do anything for you,” was Royce's reply. “All you have to do is ask.”
Vivien smiled, “That goes both ways, you know?”
Royce chuckled, “I know. Now, get some rest.”
“Yeah,” Miles said with a grin. “You better get some rest or we’ll sic the warden on you.”
“‘The warden?’’ Vivien snorted, sparing a glance at the slumbering giant whose slobber was puddling on the wooden floor under him. “If you’re talking about Loki, he’s not going to do much other than lay on top of me and lick me to death.”
Miles shook his head, a knowing, mischievous look glimmering in his icy eyes. “Loki isn’t the warden.”
“I am,” came a voice to Vivien’s right. Glancing to the side, Vivien met gazes with the blue-eyed blonde who had just tightened the cap of her glittery gold nail polish and set it back into the bag she had pulled it from. Carrie’s smirk was enough to make Vivien swallow thickly, a feeling of defeat building inside of the teenager.
Glancing back at Miles, Vivien sighed, “I’m not going to be able to get away with shit today, am I?”
“Not with her around,” Miles said with a shake of his head as he made his way toward the kitchen for another cup of coffee. “Good luck, kid.”
As Royce and Miles left for the kitchen - Miles in search of coffee and Royce to make up a plate of food for Vivien - Vivien watched as Carrie zipped her makeup bag shut and shuffled closer to her. “So,” Vivien began, “why did they stick you with me?”
Carrie scoffed, patting the girl’s good leg as she sidled up beside her, “They didn’t stick me with you, I asked to stay with you.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
Vivien sighed, “I just figured you would’ve rather liked spending time with Miles or something more than hanging out with some teenager.”
“You’re not just some teenager, Vivi,” Carrie said, turning so she had one leg bent on the couch. “You’re my friend. Besides, you need some girl time and someone who won’t let you get away with stuff because you bat your little eyelashes and flirt with him.”
Vivien’s face burned as she tried to argue, “I don’t do that!”
Carrie hummed, “Sure you don’t. Just like I don’t when it comes to Miles.” The look of defeat on Vivien's face made Carrie smile as she nodded, “Yeah, I’m not dumb. I know all the tricks of the trade.”
“I really can’t get away with anything if you’re around, can I?” Vivien sighed.
“Nope!” Carrie giggled, proudly popping the ‘p’ sound. “Now, I was thinking, while everyone else is out Christmas shopping or whatever else they have to do, we could do a spa day.”
Vivien had never been to a spa before - the closest thing she had was the sauna at the gym and the ice baths she would take after volleyball practice in the summer. “What, exactly, does a spa day entail?”
“Well,” Carrie drawled, “Mick and I just got these face mask things at the mall the other day and she has an entire line of lotions that are just collecting dust in her bathroom, so I figured we could put up our hair, relax, and do some at-home facials for the day.”
“That actually sounds like a lot of fun,” Vivien chuckled as Royce brought her a plate of food he knew she liked.
“I hope it lives up to your expectations, then,” the blonde said with a grin. “I do have one condition, though.”
Vivien sighed as she stabbed a piece of pancake with her fork, “Of course, you do.”
“You have to do your physical therapy stuff first.”
“Of course, I do.”
By the time Vivien had finished eating and completed the exercises she had been taught for her leg, almost everyone was occupied with shopping, reading, or, in Royce’s case, editing. While Vivien was busy, Carrie had brought out the face masks she had bought, taken some of the lotion bottles from the bathroom Mick and Butchy shared, and piled a plate full of cookies that had been made the night before. The arrangement of everything was put out on the coffee table in a haphazardly organized array and, after taking the time to decide who wanted what, the girls set about on their mission of relaxation.
The first thing Carrie insisted on was making sure their hair was out of their faces. After letting Vivien brush out her hair, Carrie braided it out of her face and used a hairband to slide any stray hairs away from the girl’s eyes. Since she had no clue how to make a braid, Vivien had a fun time attempting to wrangle Carrie’s curls into something half-decent, but eventually settled on a bun that she secured with a silky scrunchie. Even though Vivien apologized for such a messy hairstyle when the blonde had done such a great job on her, Carrie brushed it off with a wave of her hand and told the teenager that she loved it anyway.
Despite telling Carrie she was more than capable of putting on her face mask herself, Vivien found herself resting back against the couch with the blonde painting the hot cocoa-scented face mask on her skin with such a light hand that she barely felt Carrie’s movements. Once her mask was done, Carrie wiped off the paint brush they were using to put the masks on and handed it to Vivien along with the gingerbread-scented one she had wanted to use before laying back on the couch with her head as close to Vivien as she could manage.
Vivien was glad she was getting to spend time with Carrie one-on-one. There were others in the room, of course - Royce was editing her assignment at the island off of the wall separating the kitchen and living room, Miles was drawing something in a sketchbook with Bentley, and Lela was watching something on her phone - but it felt like she and Carrie were spending alone time together. Vivien didn’t usually get a lot of one-on-one time with other girls. Sure, she had Abby who used to be practically up her ass all the time, but they never really spent time doing stereotypically “girly” things. Most of the time, they were studying, working in the vineyard, or training together for competitions. Over time, it seemed as though Abby was more interested in her gaggle of friends to spend much time with her older sister. Outside of family members, Mick was the first friend who had taken Vivien in as a little sister. They had known each other for as long as Vivien could remember and, since the beginning, their sibling-like bond was strong. The two of them did everything they could together when Mick was visiting New Hampshire, but it was hard to bond much when the older girl had a whole other world of people to care about. Carrie was new to Vivien. A whole new person to bond with and love who she hadn’t grown up knowing or been made to love due to being blood-related. Vivien wasn’t about to complain about having the opportunity, though. She needed a day to just hang out with a friend.
“This is kind of nice,” Vivien said with a grin as she slathered a glob of the gingerbread face mask on Carrie’s forehead.
“I knew you’d have fun with it,” the blonde muttered, attempting to keep her mouth closed while Vivien worked.
“I am.” As Vivien smoothed out a layer of the mask on Carrie’s skin, she said, “I think I needed this, you know.” One of Carrie’s eyes peeled open and she raised an eyebrow at the girl curiously. As though answering the girl’s question, Vivien took in a deep breath and sighed, “There is this insane competition this month that Riven and I are waiting for an invitation for. If we get a letter in the mail, it will tell us where the competition is. If we don’t, it means we didn’t qualify. It’s a lot of stress on top of school, my spot in the color guard, and my role as Irene Molloy in Hello Dolly.”
As Vivien swiped the extra mask back into the container it came in, Carrie sat up and said, “I know how awful such a busy schedule can be.”
“I bet you do,” Vivien sighed. “With your acting and all, you must be busy all the time.”
Carrie shrugged as she turned on the video of calming music Vivien had picked out, “It comes and goes. Once you find a solid way to balance everything out, things get a lot easier to deal with and you get more time to yourself and the people you love.”
“I think I’m still working on that whole balance thing,” Vivien chuckled.
“You’ll get there.”
With a small smirk, Vivien nodded, “I sure hope so.”
Carrie took the younger girl’s hands in hers and squeezed them, her signature smile beaming so brightly Vivien worried about it burning her retinas, but it was reassuring all the same. “You will.”
Vivien smiled in return and followed the actress into relaxing with her head resting against the back of the couch and her eyes sliding closed, allowing the music to lull them into a sense of serenity until their masks were done setting. Hearing the gentle music over his headphones, Royce, tugged one earbud out and turned toward the living room, finding Vivien and Carrie sitting with their heads toward the ceiling, colorful paste on their faces, and Vivien’s right hand in Carrie’s left, a smile on both girls’ faces. Royce felt a smile tug at his lips as he watched them, he was glad someone was keeping Vivien relaxed. She needed the break. With any luck, she would pass out exactly like she was and would get at least some sleep before her parents came to pick her up. Smiling to himself, Royce turned back to the project at hand, having only a couple of pages to go through before reaching the end of the writing Vivien had done.
After a while, the timer went off and Carrie helped a drowsy Vivien clean up her face before diving into the nail polish and lotion they had picked out earlier. When she finally was awake enough to be aware of her surroundings, Vivien was surprised to note that almost everyone had disappeared, leaving the two of them alone in the living room. While Vivien watched Carrie paint a tiny flower on her ring finger, she asked, “Hey, Carrie?” The blonde hummed, attempting to focus on the artwork she was doing. “You remember those TikToks I was showing you the other day?”
“Those are the short videos on your phone, right?” Carrie asked as she came up for more paint.
“Yeah,” Vivien confirmed. Carrie nodded in understanding. “Well, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to make some with me?”
“I’m not sure how we would go about it, but sure,” Carrie said with a smile. “No dancing ones until your leg is better, though.”
“Of course not,” Vivien agreed.
“Alright,” Carrie nodded. “Once your nails are dry, we’ll find something you want to make.”
“Actually,” Vivien began with a hesitant, but hopeful smile, “I think I already have something in mind.”
By the time everyone was home from shopping or done with what they needed to get done around the house, Vivien and Carrie were sitting on the couch, laughing and talking like old friends. The pair watched Vivien’s cell phone for a few seconds before muttering something to each other and giggling as though they had seen something hysterical. After a while of this happening, Mick asked, “What are you two doing?”
Carrie turned to Vivien with a grin before replying, “Watching TikTok.”
“Is it that Dylan guy baking weird recipes again?” Butchy asked as he found a spot on the couch to call his own.
Vivien giggled, “No, we watched him earlier. We’re watching ones that we made while you guys were off doing other things.”
Miles nudged his girlfriend over the back of the couch, “What happened to you making her rest?”
“She was resting,” Carrie claimed, “while also being my camerawoman and director.”
Vivien quickly turned the TV on over the mantle, scrolled down past the videos they had posted earlier, and connected her phone to the screen so everyone could see what she was watching. As the rest of the family piled in on the couch and found a place to sit, Vivien and Carrie smiled at each other in giddy anticipation. “Ready?” Vivien asked, making sure everyone gave a sign of agreement before scrolling to the first video they had posted. It wasn’t the first one they had made, but it required the least amount of editing.
The video was of Carrie in an all-black dress they borrowed from Mick’s closet, dancing to Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga the same way as Wednesday Addams had in the show the family had recently started watching. A few other videos were just the two girls acting out different songs, but the last one they posted, the one that they spent the most time editing due to them just sitting and laughing every few seconds, was one showing pictures of Butchy with the lyrics of Taylor Swift’s song Anti-Hero in the background. The words on top of the pictures were, “Why is he always so grumpy?” A heavy sigh came from Butchy as he rolled his eyes, but he stopped as soon as the pictures and words disappeared and Carrie appeared, turning around to face the camera with a beaming smile as she mouthed the lyrics, “It’s me, hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.”
Butchy let out a bark of laughter, “Damn straight!”
Carrie turned to Vivien and, as soon as the pair locked eyes, they burst into hysterical laughter, leaning into each other and revealing their inner hyenas. The more they laughed, the more everyone wondered what was so funny. With everyone else’s eyes on them, Carrie and Vivien eased themselves back to normal, eventually getting ahold of themselves enough for them to laugh out, “We knew he’d say that!” before their laughter picked up once again, earning a round of laughter from the rest of the people in the house.
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Cookbook Cavities
December 5, 2022
Prompt - Baking
Notes - I know I've done some baking prompts before, however, I recently received an old cookbook from my great-aunt and I’m using it to my advantage, haha.
The sound of children arguing over something or another was nothing new in the Birch house. When Mick would have friends over, they would argue over who got to pick the movie or who wanted the last snack on the table. Nowadays, however, it wasn’t any of Mick’s friends that would cause the typical commotion. With Royce and Bentley being so close to Vivien, the house was abnormally silent most days since they would either spend hours at a time reading and watching TikToks. This was not one of those days.
Apple cider cookies, peppermint patties, and peanut butter bread had been made up the day before, leaving the house smelling like a bakery. This day, however, a disagreement had broken out about what the three troublemakers were going to concoct. Royce had wanted to make potato chip cookies, Vivien declared that she wanted to make eggnog, and Bentley wanted to recreate a recipe from TikTok - pickle cheesecake. Neither Royce nor Vivien wanted to attempt making Bentley’s relish cheesecake after watching the video for it. Knowing how disgusting the cabin was going to smell afterward, most of the other residents of the house hoped they wouldn’t either.
Deciding to put an end to the argument, Brady decided to use the distraction method. He rose from the couch and headed for the bookshelf on the wall, searching for a moment before pulling an old, plastic-ringed book from the shelves. The others in the living room watched him in curiosity as he passed them, but Brady simply smiled their way as he headed into the kitchen.
“The house is going to reek of pickles for a week, Benny!” Royce argued.
“Is that a bad thing?” the blonde asked in return.
“Yes!” both of his companions exclaimed.
Bentley rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything, Brady cleared his throat, effectively breaking up the tension in the room. “I might have a solution,” he claimed, holding up the old cookbook. “This is a book bunch of recipes from different families in my mom’s hometown and it was published in the sixties. My grandmother had sent some of her recipes in like her breakfast pizza and her family’s German potato salad, but there are some questionable desserts in here that might just end this argument here and now.”
The trio shared a look before shrugging. “Like what?” Bentley asked.
With a grin, Brady opened the book and, near the back, read, “Watergate pie, Dottie’s tomato soup cake, ice cream bread. The list goes on and on.”
Cheshire-like grins spread across the teens’ faces, telling Brady that he’d done something right by them. Once Brady held the book out for them to take, Royce quickly accepted it and thanked Brady for letting them use it. Brady brushed off their gratitude with a smile and a simple, “Anytime,” before heading back to the living room where most of his family was sitting, having watched the interaction with piqued interest.
“How’d you do that?” Miles asked from his corner of the sectional, his girlfriend curled up next to him.
“Do what?” Brady questioned with a grin as he slotted himself back into his seat next to his wife, listening to the kids begin chattering in the kitchen about the different recipes they had to choose from.
“Get them to stop arguing,” Miles clarified. “I can barely get two of them to stop arguing at home, how did you get all three to calm down so quickly?”
Mack chuckled beside her husband, “If you can find something to distract them or help them figure out a solution without making them feel like you’re telling them what to do, they’ll calm down pretty quickly.”
Butchy chuckled as he nudged Mick, “I had a feeling you were a difficult kid.”
With a roll of her eyes, Mick huffed, “I was not. Right, Mom?”
Mack glanced over the top of her novel at her daughter, “Well…”
As the small group around her laughed at her expense, Mick’s mouth dropped open incredulously. Mack merely smirked at her daughter and returned to the novel she had been reading, allowing her daughter to flounder and fumble over her words. Ultimately, Mick’s mouth snapped shut and she slouched back into the couch with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “I was not.”
Deciding to add fuel to the fire, Brady grinned and claimed, “You had your moments.”
“Dad!”
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the three teenagers had already begun scouring through the old recipes, settling in the dessert section of the book fairly quickly. The first thing on Royce’s list was something a lady named Cathy had sent in called Aggression Cookies - the harder you mix the ingredients, the better they taste. Vivien had selected some Southern Ambrosia, something her parents had told her in the past that they wouldn’t make because it was disgusting so, of course, she just had to make it without them around. Bentley, on the other hand, had yet to choose something since everything sounded fun or disgusting to make.
“How about fruitcake?” Royce sighed.
Vivien turned to Royce in disbelief and asked, “Who even likes fruitcake?”
Bentley shrugged, “I don’t mind it.”
Royce sent his girlfriend a smug smirk, “See? At least someone will eat it if we make it.”
As she looked between the brothers, Vivien smirked and chuckled, “You are what you eat, I guess.” Although Royce laughed, Bentley looked more confused than anything. Instead of letting him think on it for too long, Vivien patted Bentley’s arm and said, “Don’t hurt your brain there, Beemer. Just pick something to make.”
With a shrug of indifference, Bentley shook his head and flipped through a few pages of the cookbook. There were a few recipes with names from different languages, some that were definitely sent in by old people, and a couple that even Bentley knew by name alone, but nothing stood out to the blonde. Then, as Bentley flipped to the last page of desserts, he found it, the perfect recipe to complete their circle of weird foods. On the bottom of page two hundred and eighteen was the perfect, nasty dessert to coerce their family to eat. After their chocolate mayonnaise cake last year turned out to be a success, Bentley doubted anybody would think they had made some other gross concoction out of a cake. Then again, who would think of putting both vanilla pudding and chopped tomatoes in a cake?
Once Bentley had pointed out his intended recipe, Vivien smirked and added the ingredients to the growing list they had created. Their trip to the grocery store would definitely be fun. With everything written down, Bentley closed the book and set it aside, following Royce and Vivien around the island counters and into the living room, proudly declaring, “We’re ready for shopping.”
“Yeah,” Royce agreed with a grin full of mischief as Vivien retrieved the car keys from the dish near the door. “Which one of you poor, unfortunate souls are going to bring us to the store?”
“Not it!” Lela, Carrie, and Mick announced in near-perfect unison, touching their index fingers to their noses with a laugh.
Butchy and Miles turned to Mack and Brady, finding them shaking their heads in return, “Not happening,” Brady stated.
“Those three going shopping together is like leaving these three,” Mack gestured to the three younger girls on the couch, “in the mall together. I don’t feel like sitting in the car for three hours waiting for them to get out.”
“Again,” Brady added with a smirk.
Butchy and Miles shared a groan of frustration before turning to each other and settling the debate the way most things were in the Birch house - with a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. On the count of three, Miles drew a protective rock against Butchy’s scissors, making Vivien toss the set of car keys in the older biker’s lap. Unapologetically, Miles relaxed back into the couch with a smile and wished Butchy a fun time with the kids, earning him two middle fingers once the man was on his feet.
“That’s two bucks for the swear jar,” Vivien teased, feeling oh so proud to be the one to catch the swear jar enforcer in the act.
“I didn’t say anything, piccola,” Butchy claimed as he took a credit card from Mack and headed for the mudroom to take out his coat.
As Royce opened the door and held it for those behind him, he said, “I’m pretty sure that swearing in sign language is still against the rules of the swear jar.”
“Yeah,” Bentley began with a cocky little smirk, “if you don’t have to put money in the jar for that, does that mean we can flip people off and not get in trouble too?”
“Don’t push your luck, cucciolo,” Butchy asserted, shoving Bentley’s hat over his eyes as he passed the younger boy.
It hadn’t taken them long to get to the shopping center the family normally shopped at. At least, it didn’t feel that way to the three teenagers who had begged Butchy to let them play music over the car’s speakers, blasting the twenty-two year old's eardrums to oblivion as they played a medley of Christmas songs and songs from the 80s as loud as he would allow them to. After finding a parking spot not too far from the shops and turning the volume way down, Butchy slid the credit card he’d been given out of his coat pocket and told the three kids to have fun.
“You aren’t going in with us?” Royce asked.
“I was just going to wait here,” Butchy claimed with a shrug. “Why? Do you need me to go in?”
“Well, no,” Bentley replied. “But we usually get distracted pretty easily and everyone else that takes us here gets bored in the car.”
“Besides,” Vivien began, patting Butchy’s shoulder with a knowing smirk, “who else is going to stop me from spending three hours in the sporting goods store, looking at all of the archery equipment and buying two new pairs of skates?”
“Or spending the whole afternoon in the arcade,” Bentley agreed.
“Or the comic book store,” Royce added.
The look Butchy sent in return was full of amusement as he sarcastically replied, “The nonexistent cash in your wallets.” The trio of teenagers being, well, teenagers, rolled their eyes, whining out complaints until Butchy sighed and a fond smile tugged at his lips. “Alright, alright,” he grumbled. “But if we go in, we’re sticking to the list, got it? No wandering the store for random stuff.”
“Deal,” the trio replied.
Butchy nodded, tucked the credit card back into his pocket, and reluctantly pulled the car keys out of the ignition as the kids quickly exited the car, skeptical they’d listen to him at all once they got inside. While Bentley led Butchy inside, distracting the man by telling him about something he’d seen online, Vivien took Royce’s hand in hers and smiled as she said, “He’ll get fed up with us in the first five minutes.”
Royce snorted, “Oh yeah.”
As soon as the sliding glass doors parted in front of them, the group was met with an instant blast of warmth coming from the overhead heaters. After grabbing a cart and making their way into the first store, Butchy turned to Vivien and asked, “What’s first on the list?”
“Well,” the spectacled brunette began, pulling up the list on her phone, “I already crossed off what you guys have in the pantry, so there’s a lot less. My recipe still needs bananas, frozen orange juice, crushed pineapple, coconut, cherries, and mini marshmallows.”
Butchy’s look of disgust was exactly what Vivien hoped to achieve with her recipe. “What the hell are you making?”
Vivien held out a hand, making a grabbing motion until Butchy begrudgingly pulled out his wallet and slapped a crisp dollar bill into the palm of her hand. “Thank you,” she smirked, shoving the dollar into her pocket. “And, for your information, I’m making southern ambrosia.”
“I don’t care where it comes from,” Butchy grimaced. "Ambrosia tastes like cavities and disappointment.” It took a moment for the ingredients to register in his brain as they walked toward the fresh produce, but when it did, Butchy stalled and turned to Vivien in mild horror. “Did you say you’re putting bananas in that monstrosity?!”
Vivien nodded, fighting hard to contain her laughter as Butchy turned away, looking absolutely disgusted with the idea. As soon as there was a little distance between the three teens and their guardian, she muttered, “He has no idea what he’s gotten himself into, does he?”
“Nope,” the brothers replied.
Vivien smirked, “Let the fun begin.”
After a while of dragging the older man through every inch of every shop they came across, Vivien began to notice something. Everytime they stepped near a particularly shady or rough looking person, Butchy would use himself as a sort of barrier or make himself look more intimidating. He didn’t need to do much to look intimidating, his six-foot-three frame normally did the trick, but his broadened shoulders and tilted glare would be enough to dissuade any potential attackers.
After watching Butchy straighten up and step to the outside of their group, keeping the kids between himself and the glass storefronts, Vivien felt the need to question the tall man. “Why do you keep doing that? You’re acting like you’re our bodyguard or something.”
Butchy glanced down at Vivien curiously before shrugging passively. “The boys are my brothers and you, by extension, are my sister. I want to keep you three as safe as possible. Too many people in this world have the IQ of a Goldfish cracker and would love to get their hands on any of you. If they want to get to the three of you, they’ll have to get through me first.”
“Ever the momma bear, huh?” she teased, lightly elbowing Butchy in the side as a fond grin crossed her features. “I appreciate the gesture, but you can relax a little. I come here all the time and nobody bothers me. They’re probably scared of my guns.”
Despite Vivien flexing her arms and acting all tough, her muscles were practically nonexistent compared to Butchy’s. The man lightly nudged the teenager and scoffed playfully, “Says the child with wet spaghetti noodles for arms.”
Vivien looked up at Butchy with shock evident on her face but humor in her eyes. Butchy’s smug smile quickly changed to laughter as he took in her expression. Royce and Bentley turned to them curiously, having walked ahead to check out the window display for the comic book shop, but simply shrugged at each other and went back to looking at the new display. In retaliation, Vivien shoved Butchy with a smirk. “You’re such an ass.”
Butchy’s smile widened as he held out a hand, “I’ll take that dollar back.”
Instead of putting the dollar in Butchy’s hand, Vivien high-fived it and took off with a maniacal laugh, “Maybe next time, big guy!”
Hours went by before they got back in the car, but oddly enough, not even Butchy seemed to mind. On the drive home, Vivien was surprised when she noticed Butchy singing along with some of the songs she picked, particularly when he started jamming out to ABBA’s Dancing Queen and a few of the Whitney Houston hits that popped up in between Christmas songs. Although she knew that Mick had exposed her friends to more modern music, shows, and movies, but for some reason, Vivien liked the idea of the big, tough Butchy just rocking out in his room to pop songs from the 80s, singing awfully into a hairbrush and dancing around like an idiot in his free time, much like she did in hers. Yeah, she would definitely be asking Mick about it later on.
When they finally pulled into the driveway of the cabin, Butchy took most of the shopping bags despite multiple offers from the teenagers and helped them separate everything in the kitchen before taking whatever was left and distributing it among the rest of the house members. With all of their ingredients separated, Royce, Vivien, and Bentley grabbed their aprons and got to work. Bentley’s cake and Royce’s cookies required the same heat where Vivien’s recipe needed none, so they preheated the oven and started working on Vivien's ingredients with her.
With the help of her friends, Vivien’s assortment of fruits, marshmallows, coconut shavings, and whipped cream was mixed, covered in plastic wrap, and left in the fridge to cool pretty quickly, allowing her to help the boys with their desserts. Royce’s five-ingredient aggression cookies only took a few minutes to put together and roll into balls on the baking sheet, but he and Vivien let the mixture sit on the counter while they helped Bentley chop up his tomatoes as finely as possible and stir the nasty concoction of pudding, tomatoes, cake mix, and a handful of other ingredients. Once everything was mixed, blended, and poured into a pan, they put both Bentley’s cake and Royce’s cookies in the oven.
Instead of joining the rest of the family in the living room, the trio sat around the dining table, Bentley and Vivien listening as Royce began reading the book Butchy had bought them at the mall after very little pleading. Before they knew it, the timer on Royce’s phone went off and they pulled his cookies out of the oven, setting them aside to cool while Bentley retrieved the frosting from the pantry. Frosting coated cookies in hand, the three teenagers headed for the living room and placed cookies into waiting hands before sitting on the floor in front of the couch and awaiting to hear their opinions.
“I’m not a big fan of oatmeal,” Mick claimed, “but these are really good.”
“I’m surprised you guys didn’t add something nasty to it like last year,” Lela commended with a grin.
“‘Last year’?” Carrie repeated curiously. “What happened last year?”
“Three words,” Miles began, gaining his girlfriend’s attention as she eyed him in confusion, “chocolate mayonnaise cake.”
Carrie’s curls bounced as her head whipped around to face the three teenagers with wide eyes. “You didn't.” The trio nodded, mischievous grins splitting their features. Carrie cringed, “That sounds disgusting.”
“It actually was pretty good,” Mack said with a shrug. “I have to say, I’m surprised, and almost disappointed that we didn’t get some kind of weird mixture this time.”
“Well,” Butchy began, a knowing look appearing as he spoke, “as far as I know, there are two more desserts coming. There’s still time for something gross.”
Bentley smiled, “Maybe we have the best treat in the world coming and you just don’t know it yet.”
“If you think ambrosia is the ‘best treat in the world’, you are sorely mistaken,” Butchy claimed blandly.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Vivien chortled as she rose from her spot on the floor. “You’re going to have to try some so I can prove you wrong.”
“Not gonna happen,” Butchy chuckled.
“Mick,” Royce pleaded, “could you help us? You’re his only weakness.”
Mick snickered, “What am I going to do? Sit on him while you three force-feed him something?”
Vivien looked between Royce and Bentley before nodding, “That could work.”
With a snort, Mick shook her head, “Considering the fact that he can easily pick me up with one arm, I don’t think that would end well.”
A look of slight disgust crossed Vivien’s face as she groaned, “I don’t want to know how you two figured that one out.”
“Vivien,” Butchy grumbled, bringing a hand up to his face as he shook his head.
“What?” the spectacled brunette questioned with a smirk as she backed her way toward the kitchen. “I said I didn’t want to know. What you two get up to behind closed doors is none of my business.”
Royce and Bentley were quick to follow their friend into the kitchen while everyone else laughed at the couple’s expense. “That’s your sister,” Butchy muttered to Mick.
Mick quickly shook her head and chuckled, “I don’t know her.”
In the kitchen, Bentley checked if his cake was done and pulled it out of the oven, setting it on the counter to cool. The cake looked surprisingly normal; the yellow cake mix and vanilla pudding muted the red of the tomatoes into a pale pink. The smell wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and three teenagers suspected that, if you had no idea tomatoes were an ingredient, you wouldn’t notice the faint tangy, acidic smell in the air. Using what frosting they had leftover from Royce’s cookies, Bentley and Royce decorated the top of the cake as best they could while Vivien scooped her ambrosia mixture into cups. Once the cake was sliced for everyone and Vivien made sure there were enough cups for everyone to have at least a little, the teenagers stood in the archway of the kitchen and asked the rest of the people in the cabin to grab some.
After grabbing a slice of cake from Bentley, everyone grabbed a cup of the fluffy, fruity concoction Vivien had made. Well, everyone apart from Butchy. When it came time for the towering biker to take a cup from the teenager, she simply leaned on the countertop with her cup of ambrosia, poking it with her spoon and paying no attention to Butchy.
“What?” Butchy asked with a grin as he nudged the girl. “You’re not going to have Mickie pin me down so I have to eat this creation of yours?”
“No,” Vivien muttered with a small shrug, taking a few tiny marshmallows out of her cup and eating them. “You don’t like it, so I won’t make you eat it.”
Butchy’s teasing smirk faltered at her tone - where was the spitfire he was used to dealing with? “I was going to have some,” he offered, setting his slice of cake on the counter and putting a hand on the girl's arm.
Vivien peered up at Butchy and shook her head, “You wouldn’t have liked it.”
“Why do you think that?”
“You said so in the store,” Vivien claimed as simply as possible. “You said it tastes like cavities and disappointment.”
Shit. He had forgotten all about that conversation. Butchy’s mind raced as he tried to come up with a way to make it up to the teenager. Maybe he could do the same thing he did when he let down Lela, spend the day with her and do some of the things she likes. Vivien was different from Lela, though, and he wasn’t sure how, exactly, to make it up to her. Before Butchy could think for too long, a small cup was thrust into his hand. Butchy’s eyes widened as he examined the cup and its contents. Inside the small glass was a thick, purple-ish pink liquid with a spiral of whipped cream, a couple of marshmallows, a cherry, and a slice of banana on top.
Vivien slid a striped straw into the glass as Butchy looked to her curiously. “What is this?”
She shrugged, a tiny grin tugging at her lips. “I don’t guarantee it’s going to taste any less cavity-inducing, but I made you a smoothie with the ambrosia ingredients.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Butchy said, glancing between the drink and the girl in front of him.
“I know, but I wanted to,” Vivien said. “Besides, it only has some of the ingredients. There’s cherries, bananas, and a few marshmallows, but I didn’t think the orange juice and coconut shavings would taste so good blended in with yogurt, so I-” Vivien was cut off as she was dragged forward, an arm around her shoulders bringing her into a tight, one-armed squeeze. She chuckled softly, maneuvering her cup of ambrosia so Butchy didn’t wear any of it, “Well, this is nice.”
“Thank you, piccola,” Butchy spoke softly.
Vivien smirked, “Anytime, big guy.”
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Where You Should Be
December 1, 2022
Prompt - Reunion
Notes - I have a bunch of prompts for this month in my notes, but I might not get the chance to do all of them, sadly. However, I’ll be doing as many as I can before Christmas, so hopefully, this will be a great month full of prompts! Also, I know I mention everyone being a year older in this, however, it is only for this season and I'll hardly ever bring it up in other prompts. Their normal ages have not changed.
No amount of Jingle Bell Rock could stop Royce’s pacing as he wandered back and forth in the living room of the Murphy house. Bentley had insisted on putting their well-loved, more than slightly scratched, Christmas record early in the morning, but its blaring lyrics and cheerful music did nothing to calm the curly-haired brunette. Miles had tried his best to keep the seventeen-year-old busy, but Royce had packed his backpack of essentials and small presents three days prior, his room was cleaned, and the offer of joining Miles in picking Carrie up from her studio’s Christmas party was answered with a roll of Royce’s eyes and a very quick, “I’ll pass.”
Bentley, who had been tossing the last of his things into his backpack, slammed his bedroom door shut as he left it, singing along to the lyrics of the Christmas song as he made his way into the living room and tossed his bag by the front door. Collapsing onto the couch, Bentley chuckled as he watched his older brother pace back and forth, subconsciously picking at his nails as he went. “Are you trying to wear a hole into the rug?” Bentley asked.
Royce froze, glancing down at the carpet before sending his brother a sharp glare. “Not funny.”
“It was to me,” Bentley claimed with a grin. He watched his brother anxiously begin tearing at his fingernails for a moment before sighing, “Are you still worked up about the whole Vivien thing? I told you, man, you have nothing to worry about.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Royce sighed, “You’re not the one in a relationship with her.”
“I certainly hope not,” Bentley agreed, a look of disgust evident on his face. Vivien had been one of his best friends for over a year at that point and never had the thought of having any kind of romantic relationship with her crossed his mind. If anything, she was the sister he never had. Royce ran a hand through his hair, tugging on curls as he went and Bentley sighed, “You’re not asking her to marry you.”
Royce was quick to shake his head. “Of course not. I don’t have to worry about that for a few years.”
“Heaven help us when that time comes around,” Bentley mumbled, knowing just how worked up his brother would be when the time came. “Look, you’re just giving her a bracelet, not an engagement ring. It’s not that serious.”
Royce gave his younger brother an incredulous look. “‘Not that serious’? Bentley, I’m asking her if she wants to go steady with me and that’s practically a step behind asking her to marry me. Viv could still say that she’s not ready for something like that or that she doesn’t like me like that.”
Bentley rolled his eyes. “She wouldn’t do that to you. You know she loves you.”
“And I love her.” Dropping onto the ottoman with a sigh, Royce ran a hand through his hair before turning to Bentley with a tentative look and confessing, “You know, we’ve never actually told each other ‘I love you’ yet.”
Bentley’s confused look only made Royce feel worse. “Really?” the youngest Murphy brother asked. “You two have been together for almost a year, I thought you would’ve done that by now.”
Royce shrugged, “I mean, we’ve shown it in other ways. I give her little gifts or things that make me think of her and she likes to sit together and read or show me things she likes. I just think it’s something that’s understood between us.”
“You’ve just never said it?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I can see why you’re nervous,” Bentley said, “but I still don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“What do you mean?” Royce questioned.
Bentley pushed himself forward, leaning his elbows on his knees and smiling at his brother. “You remember how I knew you and Viv liked each other before both of you knew and you were freaking out over how to tell her?” Royce thought for a moment before nodding slowly. “It’s sort of like that. You two are idiots, but you’re idiots in love with each other. I don’t think you need to work yourself into a panic attack over something that’s only going to work out in the end.”
The room was silent as Royce thought hard about his brother’s words. It made sense that someone outside of the relationship would have a different perspective. Bentley knew both of them personally and saw them through both good and bad moments, the idea of him seeing things going smoothly wasn’t too farfetched. Besides, Bentley had a good intuition and seemed to have some sense of premonition from time to time, Royce would have to be a fool to ignore his brother’s words.
“Maybe you’re right,” Royce allowed, giving his brother a small smile.
“Of course, I’m right,” Bentley scoffed as he reached over and shoved Royce, earning him a laugh from his brother. The fifteen-year-old pushed himself to his feet with a sigh, patting his brother’s shoulder as he stepped around the ottoman. “Come on, let’s get our stuff together and wait outside for Miles and Carrie to show up. You need fresh air and I want to make sure my bike is in the garage before we leave.”
Royce chuckled as he rose off the ottoman and followed his brother toward the door, turning off the record player as he went. He picked up his bag from next to the door and locked the front door they had finally managed to replace over the summer. The pale blue painted wood never quite sat right in the door jamb, so it took a bit of tugging on the doorknob to slide the deadbolt into place, but it was certainly an upgrade from the crumbling red paint that would latch onto your skin anytime you opened or closed the door before. The house was finally starting to feel like home now that they had the money to peel away the old wallpapers and fix up little things here and there.
As Bentley pulled his bicycle into the garage, Royce sat on the walkway with their belongings and opened his backpack, digging toward the bottom of the fairly new orange and black bag that Mick’s parents had gotten him for the new school year. He had missed Mack and Brady, but the school year had taken up a lot of his time in the last year and their trips to California and New Hampshire had been far less frequent. However, he was extremely grateful that they were going to be able to visit for a whole month again. He had missed having them around, but Mick had told them the feeling was mutual. Royce’s train of thought stalled as his fingers brushed a long, thin, velvet box he had wedged between his hoodie and the books he wanted to bring.
Pulling the box almost out of his bag, Royce examined the bracelet inside with scrutiny. He had done a ton of research trying to figure out what Vivien would like and he finally felt as though he had picked out something perfect. Her budding interest in crystals and their meanings helped him greatly and he was able to get Mick to help him find the crystals he wanted to use. The amethyst and citrine stones were an odd coupling, but Royce felt it was far more meaningful than any charm bracelet could ever be. Mick and her parents had offered to help pay for it, but Royce’s stubbornness had won out and he was able to pull enough money together from the shifts he’d picked up at Big Momma’s and the few hours he’d spent tutoring people at school.
The simple bracelet wasn’t much, but Vivien wasn’t much for anything extravagant. As Miles drove his beat-up pickup into the driveway, Royce closed the box, shoved it into his backpack, and zipped the bag shut, not wanting either of the vehicle’s occupants to know about his plan. He wanted to surprise everyone on Christmas, his and Vivien’s anniversary. Royce stood from the ground and Bentley retrieved his bag as Miles parked the truck next to his motorcycle and helped Carrie get her bags out of the back seat. The walk to Mick and Butchy’s house never took long, but to Royce, it felt like it went on forever. It always did when they were going between worlds - the excitement, anticipation, and nervousness accumulated with every step they took.
Mick and Butchy’s garage was unusually quiet as the group of four stepped inside. The only person present was Mick and she was listening to something with her headphones on, her head bopping along to music the rest of them couldn’t hear as she sketched something in her notebook. Miles tried calling out to the brunette, but got no response, so he set Carrie’s bags inside the trusty yellow machine they had built so long ago and allowed the boys to follow suit before sneaking up behind the girl at her work desk and quickly wiggling his fingers up her spine.
Mick let out a high-pitched shriek as she whirled around, her old, black headphones landing around her neck as she realized who it was that scared her. “Miles, you ass,” she huffed, deftly closing her notebook and tucking it under her arm as she stood from her desk.
“You love me,” Miles replied with a smirk as he stepped back toward the machine.
“Sometimes, I wonder why,” she fired back with a grin. After a long, groaning stretch to release the tension in her muscles from sitting in the same spot for so long, Mick smiled and asked, “You guys ready to go?”
“Where’s Butchy and Lela?” Bentley asked. “Aren’t they coming?”
Mick chuckled as she hit the button to lower the garage door, “They’re already back at my parents’ place. My dad needed Butchy to help him fix something in the van before we could head to the airport.”
The simultaneous nod of understanding that the three Murphy brothers shared didn’t go unnoticed by the two women, but they managed to keep their laughter contained as they stepped into the machine. Interdimensional travel didn’t last long, surprisingly, and it didn’t take long for them to be opening the latch and stepping into Brady’s workshop shed. Over time, the shed had become a bit of a catch-all; gardening tools and lawn care equipment were shoved to the side, boxes of decorations had been arranged in some form of organized chaos on high shelves, and Brady’s tools, work benches, and various other equipment were spread through the room in a manner only he could comprehend.
Ocean air and squawking seagulls greeted the group as they emerged from the shed. San Clemente, California was cooler than normal at only 58 degrees, but everyone knew they wouldn’t be complaining about the chill in the air for too long. After all, New Hampshire’s tiny town of Sanbornton would be much colder and far snowier than any Southern California city. With bags in hand, the group made their way into Mick’s family home, greeting the two women who sat on the couch, chatting.
Mack was on her feet in a matter of seconds, placing her cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table and rounding the couch so she could wrap every person in a hug. Mick stepped aside as her Mom wrapped her arms around Royce and Bentley’s shoulders, pulled them to her, and swayed them side to side. Royce was already taller than the woman, resting his head over her shoulder with a smile, but Bentley discovered that he was just barely the same height as the woman who acted like a second mother to them. Royce closed his eyes as Mack squeezed him close, whispering to the woman, “We missed you, Aunt Mack.”
Mack slowly pulled away from the teenagers, cupping one of their cheeks in each of her hands as she told them, “Your Uncle Brady and I have missed you too. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up on lost time.”
Before either of the boys could say anything in return, a voice from the front entryway loudly asked, “Do I hear my troublemakers?”
Bentley turned to Royce and the pair shared a smile before running around Mack and calling back, “Uncle Brady!”
With a chuckle and a fond smile in the direction the boys had left in, Mack shook her head and turned to Miles and Carrie. “I had a feeling that would happen.”
Miles grinned as he was brought into the woman’s arms. “Good to see you again, Mack.”
“It’s good to see you too, Miles,” Mack said before pulling away from the young man and reaching for his girlfriend.
Carrie, who had been standing quietly to the side since their arrival, wasn’t as surprised to receive a hug from the woman as she had been the first time they had met. The first time Carrie had been to their home, she’d kept her distance in an effort to not get in the way of the family, but found herself brought into any activity Miles participated in. That day, she was glued to Miles’ side the entire day and barely said anything until the rest of the girls dragged her off to watch a broadway show, but it was evident by how quickly she accepted the older woman’s embrace that she had certainly grown more comfortable around Miles’ extended family.
“I’m so glad Miles convinced you to join us for the month, Carrie,” Mack told the blonde.
Carrie’s surprise was barely concealed as she asked, “You are?”
Mack nodded as she pulled back, rubbing the girl’s arms reassuringly. “Of course. However, I bet there’s someone else who will be even more excited to see you.”
The curly-haired blonde could only think of one person who wasn’t present who would want to see her and it certainly wasn’t Butchy. Although her rocky relationship with Butchy had begun to mend over time, it definitely wasn’t to the point where he’d be glad to see her. The person on her mind, though, was a specific brunette with circle-framed glasses and a penchant for sneaking into abandoned buildings. She and Vivien had bonded quickly, sharing a love of music, theatre, vintage fashion, and movies. The pair had grown close quicker than anyone had anticipated they would, but Carrie certainly wasn’t complaining since she knew that, with Vivien around, there was at least one person in Miles’ life that wanted her around and enjoyed her company.
“Does she know I’m going with you?” Carrie asked as Miles wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Mack chuckled and shook her head, “She doesn’t even know that we’re coming.”
Carrie’s grin broadened into a smile as she tried to imagine the reaction they’d get from the seventeen-year-old. Chances were, after realizing there were people other than her boyfriend present, the young brunette would tackle each of them with the force of a professional football star and, oddly enough, Carrie would be fine with it if she did. She hadn’t heard from the brunette since her last visit with Mick’s family when they chatted on the phone, but their conversation was short-lived since Royce wanted to talk to his girlfriend about some of the things going on at his new school. For now, Carrie could only imagine the teenager’s surprise at their arrival.
Their stay at Mack and Brady’s house didn’t last long as they needed to get to the airport for their flight, but once the chaos began, it didn’t show any signs of stopping. Bags were thrown into the storage box on top of the roof rack and, after everyone else had filled the seats, Bentley made himself comfortable in the trunk with some of the blankets they’d left there the last time they’d gone on a road trip. Was it legal? No, but it would work for the quick drive to the airport as long as he kept his head away from the back window.
In no time at all, they pulled into the small airport where Mack and Brady’s friend worked and started loading themselves into the private plane’s seats. As the plane began moving, Royce felt glad that he had gotten used to flying over the last year they’d been spending time at the cabin in Sanbornton. Over time, everyone had seemingly adjusted to flying, but Royce had taken the longest to get used to it. He preferred being on the ground where the possibility of a fiery crash into the side of a mountain wasn’t likely, but he’d at least gotten to a point where he wasn’t having a panic attack with every movement the plane made. Even Carrie had practically no issue with the plane rides. Mick was the only one on the plane who hated flying with a passion regardless of how often she flew, but she claimed it was only bad if she was sitting near the window since her vertigo would get the better of her if she so much as glanced out the window.
Everyone was glad when the seven-hour-long flight landed at an airport near Boston, Massachusetts. It took a few minutes for everyone to grab their things and file out of the plane, but they knew their journey wasn’t over yet. The group tossed their belongings into the trunk of the Yukon Mack and Brady had bought before attempting to pile into the car without fighting for who got what seat. After an intense game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Royce found himself wedged in the far back with Miles and Carrie while Bentley smugly filled the seat in front of him, proudly flaunting his prized seat for the duration of the nearly two-hour-long drive north. While Bentley kept himself occupied by chatting happily with Mick and Butchy for the ride, Royce found himself staring out the window, wanting nothing more than for the ride to be over so he could see his girlfriend again and collapse into the comfort of his lofted bed.
Miles tried to distract his brother with talk of the book series he’d just started reading, but eventually gave up when Royce rested his forehead against the icy window and tried to sleep through the ride, claiming he was starting to get a headache. Instead of allowing her boyfriend to worry about his younger brother, Carrie distracted Miles with some stories from her time on set, something Royce felt grateful for. He eventually resorted to listening to the playlist Vivien had made for the two of them, hoping it would make the time go by faster. Before he knew it, his breathing began to even out, and sleep found him easily.
If it hadn’t been for the typical, New England potholes jerking the car and thumping Royce’s forehead against the glass he had once found comfort in, he probably would’ve needed somebody else to wake him when they got to the house. However, he was now wide awake and his headache had worsened. Bentley turned around and caught a glimpse of his brother’s disheveled hair and disgruntled expression and was able to figure out what happened, laughing at his brother’s expense. Carrie and Miles, on the other hand, were far more comforting.
“Are you okay?” Carrie asked, leaning forward so she could see past Miles.
Royce nodded as the car turned onto Gray Road, rubbing the side of his head with a yawn, “Just peachy.”
“Want some medicine when we get to the house?” Miles offered.
Royce shook his head, “I’ll be fine.”
A cheeky smirk breeched Bentley’s face as he teased, “Fine enough to see your girlfriend?”
“What are you talking about?” Royce asked.
“We’re surprising Viv and her family first,” Bentley answered. “Aunt Mack texted her parents when we crossed the state line and they said they’d be home from the skating rink by the time we got here. Viv, Abby, and Oliver don’t know we’re on our way.”
Royce’s eyes widened as he realized the car was pulling into Vivien’s driveway. His brothers shared a laugh as Royce quickly ran a hand through his hair and attempted to make it look as though he hadn’t just woken up. Once the car was parked and the family had begun climbing out of the car to stretch and make their way to the front door, Royce was dragged toward the front of the line and made to ring the doorbell since it was his girlfriend and her family they were visiting.
Anticipation bubbled inside Royce as he listened to the Christmas-themed doorbell chiming on the other side of the door. His girlfriend was potentially only feet away, a thick, metal door with a giant wreath keeping them apart. He had swiped his hands across his jeans enough times to not only rid them of sweat but probably remove a few layers of skin as well. Why was he so nervous? He’d been to Vivien’s house many times before and had simply walked in on more than one occasion when Vivien had told him to. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t seen her since her birthday in August. Sure, they’d done a few phone calls and video chats when they could find time between their busy schedules and the three-hour time difference between California and New Hampshire, but nothing compared to the real deal. And Royce hadn’t seen the real deal in months.
It took a while to hear anything from the other side of the door, but soon, a familiar voice called out, “Yeah, I got it!”
All at once, the door was pulled open, revealing a Vivien who looked just as well-put-together as Royce felt. Vivien’s violet sweatpants had little Care Bears printed down one leg and her baggy t-shirt was an identical shade of purple with a smiling, rainbow flower inside of a white circle. Her hair was pulled into a pile at the top of her head, but her hair was so thick that the fluffy band holding her hair in a knot looked ready to burst. Her face was paler than usual and she looked exhausted, but to Royce, she was gorgeous.
It took Vivien a while to register that the person in front of her wasn’t the pizza guy she had been expecting to see. Instead of one of the typical high school kids who worked at one of the two pizza places they normally ordered from, Vivien found herself face to face with a teenage boy dressed like he’d stepped off the set of some cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie - blue sweater over a plaid shirt, jeans, winter boots, and neatly coiled, curly hair. What caught Vivien’s attention most, however, were his eyes; practically glowing, golden brown eyes that only seemed to brighten as he caught her gaze with a smile. Vivien’s eyes widened as she realized who it was, but her shock soon turned to horror and the tips of her ears began burning as her gaze snapped down to the outfit she’d thrown on after a long and tiring practice.
As soon as the mortification set in, Vivien shrieked and, in a panic, slammed the door in Royce’s face.
“Vivien?” her dad, Damien, questioned as he stepped through the archway that led from the kitchen and living room areas. “What’s wrong, pumpkin?”
The girl in question had pressed herself against the metal door, her eyes wide as she tried to think through what had just happened. “He’s here!” she whisper-yelled.
“Who is?”
“Royce!”
Damien glanced between his daughter and the door behind her in confusion. “And you slammed the door on him… why?”
Vivien’s shock began to wear off as she sent her dad an incredulous look, gesturing wildly to her outfit. “I look like I just rolled out of bed and raided a five-year-old’s closet! He can’t see me like this!”
Once again, Damien was confused. “Sweetheart, he held your hair back when you had the flu last February and you looked like death warmed over. I doubt he’s worried about what you’re wearing. I think he’s more concerned with why you’ve slammed the door in his face when you two haven’t seen each other in months.”
Damien smiled as he watched the gears in Vivien’s brain shift into overdrive, sorting through her thoughts and coming to terms with the fact that her boyfriend was there and she had quite harshly squashed his sweet surprise by screeching in his face and slamming a metal door in his face. As his daughter’s eyes slid shut and her head thumped back against the door, Damien chuckled and shook his head, telling Vivien that he’d be in the kitchen if she needed him.
Vivien slowly turned back to the door, hoping the man on the other side of it hadn’t turned tail and run already. Thankfully, Royce was still standing there when she opened the door, a look of bewilderment evident on his face. To Vivien's dismay, the rest of his family was standing behind him, either laughing or trying to contain their laughter. Vivien tried to suppress her grimace of frustration as she forced a hopefully apologetic look across her face. Not only had she shut out her boyfriend, but she had also done the same to his family. Boy, she was off to a great start.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed to mutter.
Royce stepped across the threshold of the home, bringing his arms around his girlfriend and holding her close as she buried her face in the collar of his sweater. “Don’t apologize. We didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” Vivien claimed, her arms tightening around Royce’s shoulders as she watched his family file into the house behind them and close the door. “I realized that I look like a toddler dressed me and I might’ve panicked a bit.”
Royce pulled back just enough to look at Vivien, the fondness in his caramel eyes sending a wave of calm through his girlfriend. “You look beautiful in anything.”
With a smile, Vivien leaned closer to Royce, pressing her forehead against his and closing her eyes, something she did often. She had mentioned to Royce in passing that it was something to do with her Native American heritage, a sort of grounding, soulful gesture to show trust and give comfort, but it had become a way for them to show affection throughout their relationship. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, her breath ghosting across Royce’s face.
Royce’s arms tightened around Vivien as he whispered in return, “Not nearly as much as I’ve missed you.”
Knowing they could playfully argue back and forth on the topic for hours, Vivien merely rolled her eyes and pulled Royce back in for a tight squeeze. They stayed like that for a while, just holding each other close. Eventually, Vivien rediscovered the other people that had arrived, locking them in hugs and chatting their ears off about anything and everything she had wanted to tell them over the last few months. In the end, though, she ended up on the living room floor with Royce and Bentley, her two favorite people in the world. It wasn't the most comfortable place to sit and chat, but as long as they were together again, it was exactly where they wanted to be.
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