Charlie,
"Stop for McDonalds!" Sam tried, still holding his cup of coffee from our last stop at McDonalds in our ride.
He poked his head into the front seat, and I was happy it was no longer me.
Last night, we worked out the plan to pick up Sam and Kate rom Birmingham, and it involved an early morning. Though Aiden was actually only allowed to drive in California, we ignored that rule and had him drive because Sam was too tired.
Ever since, Sam had asked to stop for coffee every time he saw a place where we could.
"We just did!" I moaned.
"But I need coffee."
"But you have coffee," Aiden told him.
"But I need more!"
Aiden rolled his eyes and drove past the McDonalds.
"Come on! You guys woke me up at five!"
"You said we would meet them early, not us."
"But-But…"
"We're not stopping again," Aiden put his foot down, taking another turn.
After spending so long driving through back roads or small towns, the crowded roads of Birmingham felt weird, and I missed being able to drive basically as fast as we wanted and not have to deal with other drivers who might have a problem with it.
"If Charlie asked you to stop, you'd stop for her," Sam muttered.
"You're acting like you're five, Sam," I smirked, and Sam crossed his arms.
"You're five!"
I started laughing.
We were a pretty close family, I suppose. Uncle Malcolm, Aunt Dana, Kate, and Sam had been there for all of the important moments in my life, and I was there for them, too. With Kate and Noah, you couldn't really tell they were cousins as much as close friends who might just be in love with each other.
But you could tell a mile away Sam and I were cousins.
Somehow, I made Sam immature and he gave me this crazy laugh.
"If you keep this both up, you're both five," Aiden smirked at me, and I hit his shoulder.
Aiden smiled as he faced the road again, and I turned back to Sam, who was pouting as he looked at his cell phone.
"So, which lucky girl are you texting? The model, Amy? The wanna-be actress Emily. Or someone new?" I smiled at my much older cousin.
Sam crossed his arms, though he still had a small smile.
"Why is it that you and Kate always hate the women I see?"
"We don't hate them. We might like them if they stayed past a month before you left them. We don't actually know them, you don't even know them. What if you just let the perfect girl for you go because you didn't give it enough time?" I asked, giving him the same speech he had gotten from either me or Kate a million times.
"I dated Ginger for six months, I'll have you know," Sam crossed his arms indignantly.
"When you were seventeen!" I shifted to wear I could keep looking at him.
"Hey, that is a big commitment for a guy that age."
"Which you haven't made since."
"I'm young, I'm not ready for a mortgage, kids, a wife, school fundraisers."
"Right, because as soon as you start dating, you end up working for school fundraisers and buying a house."
"You are so much like your mother," Sam got closer to me, "Such a smarta-"
I was lunging to hurt Sam when the car suddenly pulled to an abrupt stop that made me fall back and Sam go forward for a moment.
"Sorry, didn't see the red-light," Aiden smiled sheepishly.
Aiden was one of the best drivers I had ever seen, though that wasn't exactly the best considering how horrible my family was known for being when it came to driving. We could get away from anyone, which was great, but we couldn't turn that off when we were just driving down the street.
Aiden followed traffic laws, kept everything peaceful, and he didn't make mistakes like that.
And it seemed like this was his way of telling us to shut up.
I looked back to Aiden, rolling my eyes, and I moved back to where I was sitting in my own seat.
We drove in silence through Birmingham for a while.
It was a pretty city, though I didn't pay much attention to it. I just kept staring at the horizon, wondering how much longer we had until we reached LA. There had been so many stops. How many more would there be?
Deep inside, I prayed that there would be a lot. That we might spend our entire summer with stops before we got down to it.
I was so busy in thought that I barely noticed when the car pulled to a halt until Sam startled me with breaking our silence.
"Ha, we're early. I'll go find them," Sam smiled proudly, and he jumped out of the backseat, going off to the hotel we had parked by.
I rolled my eyes, pushing my hair behind my ear.
"So, does Sam know?"
"Know what?"
"That is little sister is in love with his best friend, and that his best friend is desperately in love with his little sister."
"Oh my gods," I laughed, "You know! You just met them, but you know! And they don't freaking know!"
"By the way, who is PixarRules4?"
"What?"
"On your brother's cell phone. He was talking to someone for like an hour, I couldn't help but notice it over his shoulder yesterday."
"He tells me everything, but nothing about Pixar…" I thought about it.
"Just don't tell him, I don't want to be the stalker."
But it was a little bit too late.
I was like a lot like my mom, and one thing I had gotten from her was her curiosity and her focus on a certain mission, especially with my brother. And my certain mission was now finding out who PixarRules4 was and why he was talking to whoever they were.
As if Noah could sense his little sister was on a mission to dig into his business, he got into my sight.
Noah and Kate were smiling at us like they had been gone for a week, and Sam was teasing Kate as if he had been parted from his baby sister for months instead of the few hours we had been separated.
Noah hurried over to my side of the car, opening the door, and he hugged me tightly.
"Hey, Shorty," he kissed the side of my head.
"You're in a good mood. Anything happen?"
Noah blushed.
"No, Charlie. Now shut up," he nudged me.
"I didn't say anything. You made that jump."
Noah smiled, kissing the top of my head.
Noah,
I didn't lie to Charlie when I said nothing happened.
Nothing happened, honestly. And that was exactly it.
We came close to something happening. I desperately wanted something to happen. But the phone went off for the call I had been wanting forever but didn't want then.
I took it as a sign. It was a reminder of why I had never said anything before. Life was pulling us different ways. My step-mother was her aunt. My little sister was the cousin she adored. My best friend since I was about four was his her big brother.
There was no way we could really do this.
It had be immoral or something.
Despite the fact that logic came back to us and we ended up spending the night renting a movie and eating pizza, we were still pretty awkward. Kate sat on one side of the car in the backseat, typing on her cell phone with her headphones in. Sam was in the middle, falling asleep with a cup of coffee in his hand. And I was on the other side, behind Charlie.
I wasn't exactly sure where we were going. We had it plugged in the GPS for LA, and we were planning on stopping whenever. We passed through neighborhoods, through towns, through cities, through states.
It was a little depressing, going into what could be our death.
Our silence wasn't bad, I guess. Not to Aiden, Charlie, or Sam, I suppose. But it was killing me, and Kate noticed it, too.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I was brought out of my thought by my cell phone buzzing in my pocket.
PixarRules4: Hey
I smiled.
SoccerGuy18: Hey, what's up?
PixarRules4: Road trip, too. There is this silence between Green and me. We had to share a room last night when we stopped. And I guess we almost did something. But at the same time not. I don't know. How is your family trip going?
SoccerGuy18: Same. I was honestly about to kiss Dianna, and then her brother called after stepping out to pick up pizza. And Nat is my best friend. I couldn't do that to him.
PixarRules4: Life sucks, right?
SoccerGuy18: And Lucy thinks something happened between us, and she is determined to find out what exactly it is.
I glanced up to my little sister to see that she was looking back at me through her mirror, and she raised her eyebrows, which just made me shrug like I didn't know what she was thinking about.
Charlie was the perfect example of a meddling sister.
She had the smarts to figure things out, the adorableness to make you think she was innocent, and she knew how to control my love to her.
She smiled like, "Just tell me, Noah."
But I just looked back to my cell phone.
PixarRules4: Your little sister? I was once the annoying little sister. Who am I kidding? I still am the annoying little sister.
I smiled.
SoccerGuy18: So, where are you guys going? We are headed to LA
PixarRules4: LA, too.
My fingers sat on my screen, hesitating as I realized we were both going to be in the same place.
Should I ask?
I wanted to meet her. I wanted to know this person, to move on from Kate. To find this someone else.
But am I ready to let go of Kate yet?
I have basically been in love with her my entire life, though I only saw it when I moved out. I couldn't just shut her out, though she tried and succeeded to shut me out. I wasn't sure I was ready to just move on from it.
I glanced over at Kate, and it hit me all over again.
I wasn't ready…
SoccerGuy18: Cool. Which state are you in now?
PixarRules4: Not sure, I'm not driving. So I stopped paying attention
SoccerGuy18: Same here.
Kate,
Sam was still grumbling about how it was only ten and how we should be driving on because it was a long way to LA. The woman at the counter didn't seem to care, so neither did.
With the help of Charlie, I had said we should stop in some random town because we were all tired. Sam, who had slept all day, disagreed, and we had all fought over what to do for about an hour before we finally forced him to stop and get a hotel in Odessa, Texas.
Even though we all wanted to stop, I ended up taking the blame for having to stop with my brother, which I didn't mind. He was my brother, and, by definition, was always mad at me.
By the time Sam was finished, Charlie was about to fall asleep on my arm after about two hours of her complaining that Sam's snoring kept her up all night. He walked over to us, looking around like he was wondering where the two guys went.
"Aiden and Noah are parking the car and getting our stuff," I explained with a shrug, and Charlie blinked her eyes open and stood up straighter.
"So, what are room arrangements?"
"What do you mean?"
"Sam wants full of his bed instead of sharing with Aiden or Noah," Charlie explained.
"Girls together. And there is like a couch in the room or something. One of you sleep on it."
"I'm not sleeping on the couch."
"I never said you have to."
"But I'm the oldest and people always pick me because they think I don't need sleep like they do. But I do. I need more sleep."
"No, it's because you sleep in the car," I smirked.
Sam was sticking his tongue out at me when the two boys returned with our stuff. Aiden was carrying his and Sam's. And Noah, being the guy we always picked to do stuff like that, carried mine and Charlie's along with his.
"Girls together, guys together," Sam explained like the leader he always thought he was, "We're in 304. They are in 306. Let's move."
Noah rolled his eyes and let out a smirk, which just made me smile.
We piled into the elevator.
Aiden was exhausted, leaning on the wall. Charlie was leaning on me. Sam was trying to look like the leader, though Noah looked more like the leader at the moment.
But he always did to me.
He had the right way of standing, proud and strong but not unapproachable. He was carrying the ladies bag's, which gave him about a million points if you ask me. And he just had that look about him, like his dad I guess.
In the magazines he had been recently featured in for his new job, they explained him perfectly. They said he had perfect crystal blue eyes, high cheekbones that were too-die for, a killer smile, and the combination made your knees go weak. They said he was talented and was on his way to good things. His posters were on the walls of teenage girls, and, while it felt insanely weird to share him like that, I was proud of him.
He got the future he wanted. Manchester United already had him on their radar, and everyone said it was only a matter of time before he would be on their team.
I didn't know how I could ever let him go like that though….
"Here's your key," Sam handed me our room key.
"Thanks."
I put the key in my front pocket, and, before Charlie could get comfortable again, the elevator opened for us. We piled out, searching for our rooms, and Aiden let out a goodnight wave as he went into his room and landed on his bed.
Sam's hand caught the door for him and Noah, and Noah shrugged.
"I'll take their stuff in."
"Whatever," Sam pulled the door where it would stay, and I smiled my thanks to Noah as I opened the door for us.
Charlie quickly claimed a bed, landing on it with a thud and pulling a pillow over her head. Noah carefully put our bags down where I asked, and he kissed the top of Charlie's head goodnight with a gentle smile.
My heart melted for a moment, and I smiled weakly at him, thinking back to how I should have kissed him last night.
But it was too late…
"Thanks, Noah" I smiled as I walked him to the door, and he nervously smiled, too.
"Oh, it's nothing. Um…" he seemed to forget what it wanted to say, so he just shrugged, "I'll just see you in the morning. Do you want to drive?"
"Uh, sure," I shrugged awkwardly.
"Good night," he nodded, and he left to his room.
Charlie got up and walked over to us as she was grabbing a pair of pajamas.
"That was just sad, Kate. Now is anyone going to tell me what happened in Birmingham?"
"Nothing happened."
"Is that the problem?"
"What?"
"You two were alone for a night. No siblings or family members at all. All alone in a hotel room for the night. And nothing happened. Is that what's wrong?"
"Go to bed, Charlie."
"You're not answering my question," she sing-sang as she started for the bathroom, and I rolled my eyes.
