Author's note: Thank you guys for the awesome feedback you've been giving me! It really makes my day….or night. Whatever;)
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I'm having a very weird dream. So weird that I know I'm dreaming. I gotta be. I mean, me and Michael Jackson are in a hot air balloon, just chillin,' and out of nowhere a helicopter appears. Like, it's gonna run into our balloon, shred it up, and we, me and Michael, are gonna die.
We start screaming. Michael's voice is higher than mine by about three octaves, but I can't even find it funny because…I'm about to die. Then the copter comes to a complete stop just seconds before crashing into us.
And that's not even the weirdest part. Charlie's hanging out the door of the copter and making this really loud siren sound. It's really aggravating actually, it kind of sounds like an –
Crap! My eyes pop open and I sit up straight. It's the alarm on Charlie's phone that's going off. It's time to wake up.
Ugh. It's four in the morning. I don't wanna get up. But I gotta. We gotta, because we have to get ready for picture day, and it's gonna take all of three hours to do so. Maybe even a little more than that.
"Vega, I'm trying to sleep!" Momma screams at me from her bedroom.
I jump a little. She must've been awakened by the alarm. I never wake Momma up unless it's an emergency. She's crazy cranky when her snooze time gets interrupted.
I glare at Charlie's sleeping form. She's on her stomach, facing me; I can barely see her face because it's so dark in here, but I still glare at her anyway. If the alarm is loud enough to for Momma to hear in her bedroom then why the heck is Charlie still sleeping?
"Charlie," I hiss while shaking her shoulder.
She doesn't budge. She doesn't even make a face indicating that I've disrupted her sleep. No low moans, no twitch of her nose, no soft snorts. Nothing! Jeez and Steve she sleeps like the dead.
I'm so gonna tell her she snores when she wakes up.
Yeah, I'm passive aggressive.
"Vega Zofia!" Momma shouts; and I really can't blame her. The alarm's still going off.
I sigh deeply and reach over Charlie to turn off the screaming phone on my nightstand.
Crap. I kinda wasn't thinking when I did that. If I had been, I would've realized that my ta-tas were gonna be resting on her back for a brief moment.
Not that Charlie cared. She slept through it; which is fine by me.
"Wake up, Charlie." I shake on her shoulder some more.
"No" she mumbles; then she turns over on her side, showing her back to me.
Finally, some kind of response! Just not the right kind of response.
I shake her again, harder this time because I'm definitely losing my patience. "Charlie, wake up."
"No." she repeats.
That's it.
I lean over her and brace my palm against my bed, right by her stomach. I have her trapped between my right arm and my body. Then I lean in close to her ear, my lips close enough to touch it if she so much as moves an inch. "Charlie, get up before I do something you won't like!" I hiss; the Jade in me coming out.
"Fine, I gotta wazz anyway." She grumbles without opening her eyes.
She rolls over, catching me by surprise when she pushes me on my back before climbing over me and out of my bed; which is completely retarded on my part because she's not moving very fast.
I could've pushed back. I could've prevented that from happening, so it was my own fault.
Still, I think I have a legit excuse for freezing up. Her thing touched me. It totally, it was just…Oh my god, I felt it! And she was right! So, so, right.
It's bigger than mine.
Dang it! She gets to be Michael Jackson.
I'm about to go into full pout mode when Charlie walks into my door.
I guess that's my cue to turn the lights on. I spring out of bed to do so and once my lights are on, I'm up. Like, up. Awake and alert as hell.
Charlie on the other hand, covers both her eyes, whimpers a pathetic, "No." and drops down into a heap on my floor, burying her head inside her pajama top.
I roll my eyes at her. She's worse than Ayla, Aiden and Momma combined.
I go to her and squat down in front of her. "Charlie"-
"No."
This is not cute.
I put my hands in her shirt and pull out her head. "Get your ass up!"
"Don't wanna," she wines, letting her head fall back like a spoiled brat. I get a little more irritated with her, but then she sighs and holds her arms out to me. I can't help the smile that finds its way onto my face.
I hook my arms under her pits and hoist her up. Once she's up, I turn her a bit so I can guide her to the bathroom. With all the hoopla I'm surprised I even remember that that's where she was initially trying to go.
"Okay Charlie, we're in the bathroom." I practically sing as I turn on the light. Charlie flinches and buries her face in my neck.
"You can't wazz with the light off. It's bad luck." I lie as I walk her over to the seat. She'll wake up faster if she could just get used to the light.
She takes her face out of my neck. "Fine. Put it down for me."
"Put what down?" I frown back at her.
"The seat."
"Why can't you do it?"
"Too much work." She slurs back.
I roll my eyes and put the stupid seat down. Then I try unlatching myself from Charlie's side.
She doesn't let me.
"Wait, wait, wait," she pleads, tightening her hold on me.
"What?"
"My pants."
My eyes narrow suspiciously. "What about your pants?"
"Untie 'em for me.'
Has she lost her mind!? If I undress her, my thing'll wake up so fast I won't even have the time to utter the "b" in beets. "No, Charlie. Do it yourself."
"Fine I'll just pee in my pants then." She yawns, plopping herself down onto the toilet.
Ugh, fine!
I yank her up and pull both her pants and her underoos down before letting her plop back down onto the toilet. I did it so fast I had no time to be embarrassed or to get a good look at her; so there's no blushing or stretching on my end. Speaking of stretching…
"I'm not tucking it in for you!" I announce before walking out of the bathroom and shutting the door behind me.
I wait nearly ten minutes for Charlie to come out of the bathroom. Well, I try to anyway. She's taking forever and I gotta wazz too.
I knock on the door softly.
No answer.
I knock again. There's still no answer so I open the door and there she is, asleep on the toilet. I roll my eyes at her. Early morning Charlie is so dang dysfunctional. I'm no longer surprised she needed me to pull her bottoms down for her.
I walk up to her, shutting the door behind me and I put a hand on her shoulder. "Charlie, wake up." I shake her gently.
"No." she pouts childishly.
Fine. I grab Ayla's shampoo rinse cup, fill it with cold water, and dump it in Charlie's lap.
She shudders and opens her eyes slowly. It takes her a bit of time for her eyes to focus on me, but when she does I feel so, so, guilty. She looks like a lost newborn puppy. With the huge watering eyes and the pouty lips and, and, then she speaks. She whines out this heart-broken, "Vega, why'd you do that?" and I just wanna give her a hug and promise to never do it again.
But I don't.
"To wake you up. Now get up!" I pull her up off the toilet, hoping she already did her stuff. "I gotta wazz and take a shower." I grunt and pull her over to the sink before making her wash her hands. "You have to shower too. Oh, and brush your teeth. Now stop wasting time!" I command, pushing her out of the bathroom and shutting the door behind her.
I wazz and get in the shower quickly; lord knows I wasted enough tine messing around with Charlie. I don't lock the door because it's not habit; but when I hear the sink turn on again, I freak a little. I peek around the curtain and Charlie's brushing her teeth…while I'm in the shower. Really?
"Charlie"-
"No." She mumbles irritably.
No? No what? She doesn't even know what I was about to say.
I squint a little, trying to get a better look at her. Then I roll my eyes and go back to my shower. Charlie's practically asleep again. It's like she's on autopilot. It's too bad she hasn't subconsciously learned how to keep the toothpaste exclusively in her mouth.
Gross.
"Is Vega in here with you!"
I shriek when I hear Momma's voice, involuntarily answering her question. I had no idea she was in here. She didn't even knock! Not that I would've been able to hide Charlie anyway. But still…
"Give a girl a little warning. I'm too young for heart attacks, Momma!" I poke my head out, hiding the rest of my body by the curtain.
Momma walks over and stands eye to eye with me. "Why's she in here with you?"
"She's brushing her teeth."
"Why's she brushing her teeth right now, while you're in the bathroom? Naked." She hisses back.
"Momma." I groan. Did she have to say the naked part? I nearly forgot that. Well, I didn't forget, forget. How could I? But me being naked doesn't seem like such a big thing while Charlie's two winks away from a snooze. And I haven't felt the stretch yet, so I guess my thing doesn't find morning Charlie all that enticing. In my book, that makes me safer now, even naked, than when I'm fully clothed and Charlie does something my thing likes…which is just about anything.
"Killing two birds with one stone Mrs. West." Charlie yawns.
Momma whips her head around, scrutinizing Charlie. And with good reason too. Charlie hasn't called Momma Mrs. West since she got here. It was Momz from the start.
"What are you up to?" Momma asks suspiciously.
"Nothing." Charlie shrugs before putting her head in the sink and resting it there.
If she goes back to sleep, I swear...
"Charlie." Momma calls.
"Ma'am?" Charlie mumbles, pulling her head out of the sink.
"Did you really just call me ma'am?"
Charlie's only response is a few disoriented blinks. She really is the most dysfunctional morning person I've ever come across.
"What's wrong with you?" Momma snaps.
"Sleepy." Charlie rubs her eyes as if to back up her answer.
Momma frowns. "Five hours isn't a lot, but it's enough to not act like this."
"Didn't get five hours." Charlie yawns. "Stayed up all night watching Vega sleep."
Oh my God! Tell me she didn't just say that. But the fact that my whole face is heating up kinda means she did. She really did.
"She's really beautiful," Charlie smiles lazily.
Oh. My. God!
"Charlie! Don't say stuff like that!" I moan.
"Why? You stretching?" Charlie grins. She's wide awake now.
Figures.
"No!" I squeak. It's a total lie; one so ridiculously unconvincing that I'd probably confuse a polygraph machine.
"Lemme see." She takes a step forward. A mighty bold step if you ask me, considering the fact that my mother is still in here.
"No!" I yell.
"Hell no!" Momma seconds, putting a hand up to block Charlie from getting any closer to me.
"What? Why not?" Charlie pouts. She actually had the nerve to ask that.
She's not gonna make it to her fifteenth birthday.
"Out!" Momma yells.
"Fine! I'll go eat breakfast." Charlie rebutals before leaving.
"Goddamn perv," Momma murmurs to herself once Charlie's gone.
I only have time to roll my eyes halfway before Momma grabs a hold of my jaw with one hand. Not too tight though. I can talk if I wanna.
"You're girlfriend's never coming over again." She says in a low voice. One that means she's oh so serious.
"She's not my…wait. You think she's my girlfriend?" I nearly smile. I mean, I would if Momma didn't have half of my face in her hand.
Momma lets go of my face and gives me this look, like she can't believe I just asked her that.
"What? We didn't ever…well, we never really talked about it." I say, trying to convince her that it was a legit question.
She's not buying.
She's still looking at me like I've sprouted a second head on my shoulder. Then leaves the bathroom, mumbling to herself the whole time.
I don't get it. Does that mean Charlie is my girlfriend now? Or not?