Chapter 10

I woke up one bright morning and, glancing at the man snoring to my left, I couldn't help but think how good things were going for us. After so many years of struggle and craziness, my family (Kuki and Wally included) was finally in a good place. Brady loved school, we had money, Joey and Wally were coping, Little Miss Ryan was growing beautiful and strong. For once, it was hard not to let the idea that nothing could go wrong seep into my thoughts.

I scooted over on the bed and shook Hoagie's shoulder. "Hey, baby, wake up!"

Hoagie moaned slightly, less of a morning person than me but still better than Wally. "Ughn?" he grumbled.

"Abby thinks," I started, running my fingers through his hair while trying to expedite his waking process, "we should have a party or something. You know, like one of the parties we used to have. I mean, we're legal now. Abby's never legally been drunk, you know."

The idea of a party seemed to wake Hoagie up a bit. He smiled at me. "Like a full-blown rager?"

"All the bells and whistles. We still have friends, right?" I joked.

Hoagie sat up and stretched. "Of course we have friends," he said, drawing out the phrase. "Jeez, Abs. What do you think I am? Some kind of loser?"

I punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Middle school ring a bell? Actually, any time before Abby decided to save your sorry butt and date you!"

"So, it's a go?" Hoagie verified, smiling his lopsided grin at me.

"It's a go."

"Oh, I don't know," my best friend murmured. Her ebony hair rustled back and forth as she shook her head slowly.

"Whatever happened to my crazy, aspiring artiste, girl?" I asked, trying to raise my Kuki's spirits.

Kuki turned her attention to folding the laundry. I watched her neatly crease every piece of clothing. Perfection. What had happened to my friend? "She has three kids to take care of now," she replied.

Frustrated, I grabbed a t-shirt out of Kuki's tiny hands. "You deserve fun. Abby deserves fun. We all deserve fun. So we are gonna have us some damn fun! Understood?"

Kuki nodded her head with a shocked look on her face.

"Hell yeah!" Patton yelled as he cranked up some rap.

The party was going great. It turned out to be just what we all needed. A night off with all our friends from our very hectic, filled lives. Cree was watching all the kids. We figured this was a fair trade-off because Brady loved seeing his cousins and Ash loved seeing Cree's kids. I approached Patton, confidently, although I was already a little tipsy. "Turn that off, fool. This party is about Abby. Not you."

Patton made to block the sound system, but I quickly reached around him and changed the music. Of course, Patton was much drunker than I was. The voice of Rihanna filled the room and I walked off to find Hoagie, satisfied. Upon finding hoagie, I stumbled a bit into his arms. He glanced down at me. "How drunk do you plan on getting, Miss Lincoln?"

"I'm not that drunk," I giggled.

Hoagie sighed and wrapped his arm possessively around my shoulders, pulling me to him. "You just giggled. You're drunk."

I stuck with Hoagie for the rest of the night, enjoying the party and reliving all the things we had almost forgotten. Like Ace hooking up with at least three strangers, Patton spilling his beer on the rug, Fanny's drunk rendition of any song that was playing. But, in the back of my mind, something kept nagging at me that I didn't belong there anymore. I was no longer young, carefree, in college.

And I knew that, this was not only a great party, but also a farewell of sorts.

I woke up the next day feeling completely detached from my body. I couldn't remember how to move and my head felt like it was spinning. "Is this seriously happening?" I grumbled.

"I'd like to say no, but you don't even want to know how much you drank last night, Abs." I jumped slightly, not realizing that Hoagie had stepped out of the bathroom and heard me.

"Abby ain't happy," I moaned, rolling over on the bed.

Hoagie bent over the bed and placed a kiss against my throbbing skull. "I'm gonna go pick up Brady. Sleep."

I drifted back off to sleep and was suddenly awoken not too long after by something pounding against my bed. I opened one eye to find Brady jumping on the bed, a huge grin across his face, so similar to one his father often wore. "Brady, settle down, kid."

"Daddy says you need to suck it up, Mama!" Brady recalled, pausing to catch his breath every so often.

I sat up slightly and, wrapping an arm around the child's waist, pulled Brady next to me on the bed. "Oh, did he, now?"

Brady nodded solemnly before he was suddenly attacked by my tickles. The little boy giggled and squirmed, trying to break free. I stopped and smiled at my son. "Mama's gonna go talk to Daddy. Do you wanna watch TV in here?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Brady squealed. He loved watching TV in our bed with all the pillows and stuff.

I set Brady up and was out of the room when the phone rang. I heard Hoagie pick it up at the kitchen table and went to go sit with him.

As he spoke to whoever was on the other line, I watched his perpetual grin fall from his face. That couldn't be good. "Thank you." He ended the phone call and let the phone fall from his fingers. It hit the table with a clatter. Hoagie's fingers threaded themselves in his auburn hair; a sure sign he was upset or nervous. He turned to me. "The show's off the air."

I must've looked shocked and Hoagie took my hand in his. "But, we're OK, right? Abby knows you don't work that much right now, but we have money, right?"

I remembered the other day when I thought that nothing could go wrong. And then, in a phone call…

Hoagie nodded his head sadly. "Yeah, yeah. We should be fine. But, Kooks and Wally…they're screwed, Abs."

I looked down at our entwined hands. "They could move back in with us again. Do you think we have enough to buy a bigger house?"

He pushed a piece of hair behind one of my ears. "No college fund for Brady then. You know, this sucks." Suddenly, Hoagie was angry; an expression I rarely saw from him.

And it did suck. But, Hoagie would just start working more. It was Kuki and Wally that were the true problem. They had two more kids than us and had been getting paid less for the show since Hoagie was the one who won the contest. Not to mention, they had decided a couple months ago to finally get married and that had probably taken some of their funds.

The phone rang again, shocking me from my thoughts. Hoagie picked it up and I could hear that the person on the other line was screaming. "Whoa, slow down, buddy….Yeah, we have plenty of money. It shouldn't be such a problem….OK, really? Nice...OK...Sounds good...Peace." Hoagie placed the phone back down on the table.

I looked at him expectantly.

"Wally said if Kooks went back to work and they didn't have to pay for any daycare, they could probably make it without our help," Hoagie said happily. "Except, I guess you'd have to watch the kids."

I walked into the kitchen and started getting things together for dinner. "It's a small price to pay, Abby thinks." I didn't mind that I would be watching Ash and Ryan again. They weren't so bad.

Monday morning, I woke up early. I went over to Kuki's to get Ash and Ryan. Kuki had some interviews today. I opened the front door and stepped into the house. "Hey!"

Seconds later, Ryan crawled into the front hall, followed by Wally. "Ash, Abby's here!" he called, scooping up the other little girl.

Ash stumbled tiredly down the stairs. When her eyes landed on me a huge smile lit up her face. "Abby!" Quickly, she ran back up the stairs to get dressed so that she could go off to school with Joey and Brady. I took Ryan out of Wally's arms.

"Brady ain't up yet, girl," I called up to Ash. "If you hurry, you can wake him for me."

The three-year old appeared only moments later, dressed in a pink top with a red skirt. Ash twirled around in a circle, letting her skirt flare out from her legs, and gave me a smile. "All ready!"

At the same time, Joey appeared at the top of the staircase, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. "I'll be over in like 10 minutes," he mumbled, before disappearing again.

I sighed and grabbed Ash's hand to set out back to my house. Once there, she ran up to Brady's room and seconds later some sort of loud squabble had broken out in his bedroom. "Get ready for school," I yelled as a reminder.

I placed Ryan in Brady's old high chair and gave her some cheerios to eat for breakfast. I leaned up against the kitchen counter and watched Ryan smack her chubby hands against the tray. I listened to the fight above my head begin to die down. It occurred to me how quickly we had solved such a big problem. We had all lost our jobs, essentially, but here we were, only days later, going about life. Because we were there for each other. I smiled. Nothing was more reassuring than the fact that I would never have to worry about there being something that was too much to handle.

A/N: Caramba! It's been forever! I've found that I've kind of lost interest in writing this story. So, this might end up being the last chapter, but I'm going to try for one more I think. Thanks for reading!

Oh, and if you could let me know what your favorite part of this fic was, it'd be appreciated. I've never done that much humor before, so it'd be interesting to see :D Thanks!

~Terra