November 9th 2022

Chapter 313
Our Holidays With the Eve

"Mo-om! Da-ad!"

The call came down, from two floors above, to reach Maya and Lucas as they stood in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for their pack of girls. They looked to one another, just shy of playing rock paper scissors to decide who would go before Lucas went to wipe his hands and jogged out of the kitchen and up to see what the emergency was. Up to the second floor he went, and there he discovered the mini stand-off that was happening.

Marianne stood just outside the guest bedroom, in front of the closed door, which she was having to guard from small, grabby hands that kept trying to get at the doorknob, all packed up around her and trying to get at the thing that she was hiding. Remy, Kacey, Lucy, and Mackenzie were all trying to get at that door despite their big sister's best efforts to keep them away, possibly because she was trying to keep them away. He barely had time to think about how one of them could get hurt, and then his concern came true. He wasn't sure whose elbow it was that did the deed, but it landed and sent Kacey tipping back to crash on the floor. The moment she landed, she started to cry, and all at once the struggle at the door came to a stop, the other girls seeing her and rallying around her even as Lucas came up and knelt down.

"Hey, no, alright, hey, let me have a look at you," he spoke in his best reassuring voice as he scooped up the three-year-old into his arms. Kacey was all for it and she held on to him. He could see both Remy and Lucy staring at their triplet in such concern, both of them seeming to wonder if they'd been the one to (accidentally) hurt her.

"There were too many of them, I couldn't…" Marianne tried to explain, even as she held on to Mackenzie. Even in all the mess of the moment, he could figure out what had led them there. The presents. They were hidden in that room. The girls must have either spotted them or come close to spotting them, and because she knew that they were in there and she wanted to guard the Santa secret, she'd tried to keep them back… and they had mutinied.

"It's okay," Lucas promised her, even as he gently tipped Kacey's head back so he could have a look at her face. The elbow had not hit too hard, but it was enough to have left a mark on the side of her face, likely to bruise and definitely hurting at the moment, going by Kacey's reaction. "I know, cub, it's okay, you cry as much as you like. Marianne, can you get the rest of them downstairs, please?"

"Yeah, yeah," Marianne nodded, with impulse still in her and the other three to hover near their sister. She still managed to usher them out toward the stairs and down from the second floor, while Lucas stood and picked up Kacey, tried to calm her down a bit before bringing her down the stairs. Clearly, by the time he made it halfway down, the story had been relayed to Maya. Up she was coming to check on the still distressed girl. Kacey did not let go of her father by an inch, but then there was her mother, rubbing her back and peering down into her line of sight, and she looked comforted by it.

As Christmas Eve mornings went, it was not what they had envisioned, but they couldn't say it wouldn't be memorable. Already at this point Eliza and Emma had gone out, meeting their boyfriends at Ma Maggie's, and Ella was at Theo's with Tori, so it was just Lucas and Maya and the six girls until after lunch, when they were expecting guests. Now with Kacey's unfortunate encounter with an elbow, it brought enough of a distraction that some of the breakfast was burnt, calling up the smoke detector and sending the dogs in some alarm of their own, and bringing the Friar sisters to either press their hands over their ears, or cry, or both. Maya was quickly handed Kacey, so Lucas could spring over to deal with the kitchen. It was several minutes before they could get everyone quiet again, but at least by then even Kacey had stopped crying. She was still feeling very clingy, but this was wholly welcomed by her mother, who funnelled any and all reassuring energy she had to give into her.

As Maya soon went to tend to the little bruise as best as she could, Lucas needed to take in what had become of their breakfast. He looked at the burnt things, then to the pack of spying girls, still standing around their baby sister in her seat. They all wondered what was going to happen now, too. They could start over, sure, but it did sort of feel like they were losing ground on what they would want this morning to be for their girls, so… how could they fix that?

Well, I know one way…

When Maya returned with Kacey, she was asked, in as covert of a way as could be done, how she'd feel about heading out and joining her sisters at their favorite breakfast place. She could see things just as he saw them, and… yeah, that would be the way to go. So, while she went and started getting everyone dressed upstairs, he finished cleaning up in the kitchen and joined in the effort. In due time, the family was packed in the minivan and was on its way to Ma Maggie's, letting the radio and the decorations out the windows lift everyone's spirits. From where they sat, Remy and Lucy would keep looking to Kacey, feeling bad for her, and still wondering if they'd been the one to hurt her, accidental though it had been. Hopefully, Eliza, Ben, Emma, and Dakota would not mind the extra presence.

"Hey!" Eliza was the first to spot them, surprised but happy as several of her nieces came running across the restaurant to find her. "What are you all doing here?" she asked. The others at the table all either turned or stood to welcome the new arrivals.

"There was smoke, all in the kitchen," Marianne told them excitedly.

"It was smelling bad," Remy recalled, face all scrunched up.

"Daddy put the potatoes in the trash," Lucy added.

"What happened to your face?" Emma spotted Kacey, standing with her sisters but not saying a word. The three-year-old approached her aunt and let her get a look at her bruise.

"An elbow, couldn't tell you whose," Lucas reported, as he came, holding Aubrey, while Maya had Mackenzie. "Hope you don't mind," he told Emma and the rest of the table.

They did not mind in the slightest. More out of sorts was the wait staff, who had to turn a table of four into a table of twelve, including a baby. But then these were the Friars, and they were regulars, and it was Christmas Eve, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it might have been. In due time, they were all seated and waiting on their food.

This would be their last Christmas with Eliza and Emma at the house. After all the ups and downs that they had gone through, especially in the last year or so, they were graduating in the spring, and then they would be striking out on their own. There was a very strong possibility, as displayed here, that the Hart-Lane sisters and the two young men with them could all find a place to share together, right here in Austin, and if that was the case, then their big sister and brother-in-law would be very glad for it. By now, it was very hard not to consider how all of them had found their way to Austin over the years and wonder how long it might be before the rest of the family ended up out here. It had been discussed in the past, especially with Wyatt in his senior year of high school and contemplating college, already having staked his claim on following in his siblings' footsteps, and little Maisie ending up all on her own even as her parents would be thinking of their children and their grandchildren, all of them in Austin while they were in Tucson. At that point, it was becoming a question of what mattered most to them, keeping their house and their life as it was out in Arizona, or being close to their family. Their priorities had always been there, always known, so it didn't feel like too big of a debate when it came down to it, did it? Maya knew that she wasn't the only one in the family who had been ever so innocently keeping an eye out for houses on sale in the area.

Breakfast brought their day back on track, and when it was over, they could head on home and start to prepare for the rest of their day and their guests. The smell of the burnt food still hung in the air enough that it became one of their priorities, right alongside making sure that they wouldn't have another situation like they'd had earlier with the presents and the kids. Maya and Lucas would later have to laugh about it all, considering what it would mean to have six small children running around and able to potentially suss out where their presents were hidden. Just now, most of them were still under the impression that said presents were at this time being loaded into a sleigh so jolly Santa could bring them over, so the real thing was having to make sure they wouldn't accidentally find them, but once they figured out who was really getting them those presents…

At least now they had back-up, and Eliza and Emma and the guys were on the case to keep everyone entertained and occupied, either playing around or aiding in some task or another that needed doing before their guests arrived.

"Hey, cub, how's the face?" Lucas asked when he felt arms locking around his leg, bringing a whole small body to stand against his side. He reached his hand down and let it cradle the head there even before looking at her, like his hand knew exactly where he'd find her, from habit. As minimal as the height difference was, though it existed, if it had been Lucy, he would have matched her, too, but just now it was the firstborn of the triplets, resuming her post as she had been doing since they'd returned home and even before that, at the restaurant, so she would either be held or be kept in proximity to him. The incident was behind them, but she still felt fragile enough that she wanted to be near him, and he was never going to stand in the way of that.

"It hurts," she told him, looking up and reaching her finger to prod at the spot. Lucas swiftly but softly prevented it from connecting.

"Here's a tip: it'll hurt less if you don't touch it, okay?" he smiled at her, and she nodded before resting her head to his side. "You'll be alright," he promised, brushing at her hair. "The moment your grandparents get here, they'll all be tripping over themselves to hold you, so don't be afraid to lean into that," he whispered, and he was glad to hear her giggle and show that she'd understood his idea. "And if you happen to see Santa today, you can do the same with him," he added before wondering if maybe it wasn't a good idea to suggest it was okay to hug people who, as far as she'd know, were strangers and totally not her father in disguise. He'd walk that back in time. For now, he needed to give her the best Christmas Eve of her young life.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners