Chapter 2

"This is all your fault," Danny ground out as Steve and Aaron, one on each side, helped him across Nonna's living room and lowered him gently to the couch.

"My fault?" Steve said incredulously. "How was it my fault?"

"I wasn't talking to you," Danny said as he shifted around trying to find a comfortable position. "Which is shocking because any time I get hurt it's almost always your fault, but in this one particular case I was talking to Angela."

"This should be rich." Angela rolled her eyes. "How was it my fault?"

Danny pointed at her. "You got inside my head. You and your ridiculous need to win."

"My ridiculous need to win?"Angela picked up the throw pillow off the love seat. "You must be looking in a mirror."

She took a seat on the coffee table facing him.

"Are you going to smother me?" he asked.

"Don't tempt me." She fluffed the pillow then placed it under his head. Her voice softened. "Do you think you need to go to the hospital?"

"No," he said, realizing once he was inside the house that he was actually more embarrassed than hurt. "I just got a tailbone stinger. It only hurt so bad because it's so cold out."

"Good." Angela pulled the afghan off the back of the couch and covered him up. "Because if you were really hurt I wouldn't be able to make fun of you, and if anything ever deserved to be made fun of it's that little ballet you did on the driveway. I mean … a couple of times I thought you were gonna be able to save it. You looked like a newborn pony trying to stand. But then your feet went out from under you and you came crashing down."

Aaron covered his laugh with a cough.

"You're mean," Danny grumbled.

"Are you gonna call mom and tell on me?" Angela teased.

"I don't need to," Danny smirked. "I'll tell Nonna."

"Nonna was watching out the window along with Grandma Ang and Aunt Deb," Angela said confidently. "She saw exactly what happened. She knows I was nowhere near you."

"You were inside my head," Danny growled.

"The driveway is out of bounds, you know that." Angela smirked. "It's been that way since we were kids. And why is that?"

Danny mumbled something under his breath.

Angela leaned closer. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that."

"Because it gets slippery at night!" Danny said, his voice getting louder. "But I would never have been on the driveway if you hadn't gotten inside my head. I was trying to make sure there was enough distance before I threw."

2 hours earlier

"It's pretty dark out there tonight so let's make sure we're extra careful," Angela said as all the participants began to don their coats, hats, boots and gloves in preparation for the snowball battle.

"Are you worried, Angela?" Danny said. "Because you can just forfeit now if you want."

"Hardly." She scoffed. "I was just remembering that time when you hit Jimmy Petruccio square in the face because he was wearing a black coat and hat and you couldn't see him. He ended up with two black eyes and his nose was swollen for weeks."

She looked around at all of the snow gear she'd brought over for the warm weather crew from LA and Hawaii to borrow.

"After seeing that as a kid you'd think I'd have bought more colorful coats and hats when I got older." She took note of all the dark colored coats around her and gave Danny a meaningful look. "Just be careful is all I'm sayin'."

Present

"I just wanted you to be careful so no one ended up like Jimmy," Angela said guilelessly.

"You said it to throw me off my game," Danny insisted. "You were trying to get inside my head."

Angela snorted a laugh. "I didn't have to try very hard."

"And by the way," Danny turned towards Steve. "Where were you? You're supposed to have my back. I was out there on the perimeter on my own. If I'd had a little support I wouldn't have had to run for it and wouldn't have ended up straying onto the driveway."

"I … I was protecting our base," Steve insisted.

"You were staying over on the far side because you were afraid to launch an offensive against Carrie," Danny accused.

"Why would I have been afraid to go after Carrie?" Steve asked.

Danny looked at Carrie who had a definite smirk on her face then back at Steve. "You tell me."

2.5 hours earlier

"Maybe just for once you could curb your competitive nature and let someone else have a chance to win," Carrie told Steve as the two of them, along with Catherine, finished putting away the leftovers after dinner.

"You need to talk about being competitive," Steve said.

"It's hard to win when you stack the teams," Carrie grumbled. "You have Danny AND Catherine."

"You picked John and Angela," Steve pointed out.

"You got to pick first." Carrie placed a stack of containers in the refrigerator. "That gave you an advantage."

Steve shrugged. "You lost the coin toss."

Carrie wiped down the sink and rang out the sponge. "You know what I was just thinking about the other day?"

"After all the years we've known each other I can be fairly sure I never have any idea what you're thinking," Steve teased.

"After Elizabeth found out that Nonna had insisted John and I stay here instead of in a hotel, she mentioned that this year everyone was going to share their favorite Christmas memory and she was going to put them all together in a book," Carrie said. "And it got me thinking about that one Christmas in Spain. Remember?"

Catherine blushed and Steve stared at the floor.

"You guys hadn't seen each other in what? Six months?" Carrie's eyes sparkled with mischief. "We met up in that bar and you were in such a hurry for some alone time you ducked into what you thought was an empty supply closet?"

"We remember," Steve said.

"Except it wasn't a supply closet, was it?" Carrie smirked, clearly enjoying herself. "It was a private room where they were holding a surprise party." She shook her head. "Thankfully you weren't completely undressed when the lights came on and everyone yelled 'Surprise!'."

"That's not your favorite Christmas memory," Steve insisted.

"It depends on what kind of mood I'm in when it's time to pick one," Carrie said.

"How did I get caught in this crossfire?" Catherine chuckled. "Besides, after the futon incident I doubt my parents would be totally surprised by that story. Considering how many sailors were in that bar that night they may have already heard it."

"Maybe." Carrie shrugged. "But I'll bet Nonna hasn't."

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "You're threatening to tell Nonna an embarrassing story, which by the way would embarrass Catherine as much as me, unless I throw a snowball fight?"

"Not throw it," Carrie said. "Just back off on the mission planning a little and make it a more fair fight."

Catherine rubbed Steve's arm. "She would never tell that story in front of Nonna. She's trying to get inside your head."

Carrie smirked. "Time will tell.

Present

Nonna bustled in from the kitchen followed by Gabby, Grace and Kendra carrying trays of hot chocolate and cookies.

How are you feeling, nipote?" She asked Danny.

"Better." He sat up. "I just needed a few minutes."

"The others are getting their winter things off and will be right in," Nonna said. "Some hot chocolate is just what everyone needs. Then we can all sit and talk and add some more memories to our book."

"Who ended up winning?" Aunt Deb asked as she and Grandma Ang came in from the kitchen.

Steve cleared his throat. "Umm.. it was a draw."

Carrie and Angela high-fived each other.

"Fine. We'll call it a draw," Danny agreed. "And now we never have to talk about it again."

"Well maybe just a few more times. Kendra caught the whole thing on her phone," Grace said. "We already sent the video to Uncle Chin and Auntie Kono."

Danny dropped his head to his chest. "Why am I not surprised?"

THE END

Find all our stories (in chronological order!) on our website: marirealmcroll dot wixsite dot com backslash real-mcroll

Or in the McRoll in the REAL World community here on fanfiction dot net Find us on Tumblr: mcrollintherealworld dot tumblr dot com

You can join our mailing list by emailing us realmcroll at yahoo dot com with: Add me, please! in the subject line. Or just drop us a line to say hi! We love hearing from our readers.