A/N: [July 7th 2024]

September 26th 2023

Chapter 269
We Ask For Plates

Two days after Nellie and Gracie Hunter had turned twenty-one, it was Megan Orlando's birthday. The second of Riley and Dylan's four children would be having her seventh birthday just over a week before the Friar triplets had theirs. Maya and Lucas had it all, across their August Girls season. Children's birthdays, siblings' birthdays, granddaughters' birthdays, and friends' daughters' birthdays. They were all as fun as they were hectic in their own ways, but this last one was the only one that wasn't so directly tied to them, and they had to appreciate it for that. They got to go and help their friends prepare for a party, hang out for a while, maybe help them put out a few fires if something suddenly went wrong and set them in a panic… In this instance, with the Orlandos, well… They'd known them both long enough now to know that was more than likely to happen. So they went out there, and they joined in the decorating, and the cooking, the baking, the cleaning, the entertaining of the children… Megan was off with her grandparents at the moment, Cory and Topanga keeping her both entertained and clear of any surprises that might be spoiled.

It had been some time now since their friends out in Houston had relocated to the old Zvolensky house in Austin. They no longer had a two-hour drive between them, their kids went to the same schools… but the distance had been part of their routine for so long that, when they did show up anywhere, they'd still have this look to them, subconsciously, as though they were thinking 'wow, that was quick.' And it was never not funny to the rest of the group.

They'd arrived now, with the kids joining the Orlando and Friar junior turtles out in the yard while Sophie, Chiara, Asher, and Ray joined the other two couples in the kitchen. This stretch of the August Girls season was just a chain from kid's party to kid's party to kids' party among the Turtles. In five days' time it would be one of theirs having her birthday, and then three days after that, it'd be the triplets… It was a good thing that they were still in summer, as far as the kids were concerned, so they had more chances on their side to not have to delay too much if at all. It was easier now that the kids were older, so they told themselves, but other times…

"Giulia doesn't want her party at the house," Sophie reported with a sigh.

"How come?" Dylan asked.

"She says she wants to go to Chubbie's, but I don't believe that's the reason, I think it's those girls in her class," Chiara frowned, and her friends tried not to laugh. Giulia and her siblings for sure had two parents who were more level-headed when any of them needed protecting, and two parents who were most likely to wreck a path to whoever had hurt their babies. It just so happened that they didn't have one of each on either side. Their fathers were the peacekeepers, and their mothers… oh, they would not hold back.

"She doesn't want them to see you live in a giant house?" Rosa guessed, siding on their half of the divide in a heartbeat when she and Jenna arrived and were caught up.

"It would change how they see her," Jenna declared, and Sophie slowly nodded. She'd been the one growing up in this house before her children; she knew how that dance went. "They'd use that against her, pretend they were her friends or making her feel like she didn't belong with them."

"Whatever she decides, we'll be there with her," Rosa vowed, and Asher tapped her arm and gave a grateful nod. She would have been protective of their kids regardless, as she was with all the junior turtles, but then with all of them, the Zvolensky-Mantovani, the Garcia-Choi, it was different. She had brought one of theirs into the world, they had made her family, and she accepted the title with honor.

"We're not late, are we?" Morgan asked when she and Paul arrived, both with arms loaded in bags and boxes of which they were soon relieved.

"Birthday girl is still a while away, you're fine," Maya assured her fellow teacher and bandmate.

"Good, good," Morgan sighed.

"That worried, huh?"

"No, not that," the music teacher groaned.

"What's up?"

"We sort of ran into your boss while we were at the store," Paul filled in, and the question was answered. Leave it to Sandra Davenport to wreck her staff's mood simply by existing in their vicinity. They didn't think she went out of her way to be around just to keep them on their toes, but also it sounded just like something she would do.

"Did she see you?" Maya dramatically asked. No way was she going to let that woman ruin this day for all of them, intentionally or otherwise. It got a chuckle out of Morgan, so that was something at least.

"I don't know, not that I saw, but… Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, not today," Morgan huffed, brushing the subject off and pressing her hands together before turning to Riley and Dylan. "How was Meg this morning?"

"Existential crisis," Riley reported.

"At seven?" Asher asked.

"Her kid," Maya pointed out, and Asher slowly nodded.

"Good point."

"Ha, ha," Riley stared at them, but even she couldn't keep from smiling.

"Someone told her that she was going to be a big girl now, and suddenly she doesn't know if she can still play with all her toys," Dylan explained.

"Someone needs to go and explain that they're going to tell her that every year and she shouldn't change a thing if she doesn't want to," Sophie shook her head as she set herself to stacking up the plates that would go outside.

"My parents will have done that today, I think," Riley nodded. She looked like she very much wanted to hug her baby girl, her second girl, and like no amount of her formal training would have kept her from boiling this sentiment down to 'you'll always be my little girl, tell me their names.' The ribbons she'd been trying to fix for the past three minutes were definitely getting the brunt of that before Dylan finally came and took them from his wife's hands and started to untangle them.

"I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she said she wanted to go to school with me for a day," he told Maya and Morgan, and they both chuckled, imagining Coach Orlando and his mini assistant coach.

"Tell me you got her a hat," Morgan pleaded, and Dylan's smile was priceless.

"Hat and jacket," Riley let her know, and if they weren't looking forward to the start of school yet, that would have done it.

"I have this image in my head, Davenport trying her 'winning' smile on Honey the Third," Maya added, and her tented hands substituted an evil cackle very well.

Zay and Nadine and the whole Babineaux crew arrived next, and as Mia, Gigi, and Isaiah went to join the kids in the yard, their parents added their presents to the growing pile before lending their hands to the efforts in the kitchen.

"Got a question for you guys," Zay started almost as soon as he walked in, addressing the Friars and Orlandos. "Am I biased as a teacher?" They blinked, then laughed. "Oh, I knew it. I knew it," he shook his head to himself, and Nadine caught him by the arm before he went and started pacing.

"What's he going on about?" Dylan asked, grinning.

"He thinks he's been giving preferential treatment to your kids, and he feels bad about it," Nadine explained, her tone how silly this sounded to her, as it should. "Thinks he's been unprofessional."

"Is he serious right now? Zay, man, come on," Lucas shook his head at his oldest friend.

"Hey, you know me, I'm an open book, and I got to thinking, with how happy I was to see that Connor was going to be in my class this year," he gestured toward Asher and the others. "Maybe I gave the other ones a break when I shouldn't have."

"If you ever 'gave them a break,' did they deserve it?" Maya challenged.

"Sure… I think so? See, I don't know anymore, I'm telling you. Biased," he pointed at himself.

"Silly," Riley imitated him in rebuttal. Zay tried to frown at the very notion, but he knew there was no point to it.

"Alright, but I'm going to keep myself accountable, yeah? And if I ever go over the line…"

"We will turn our backs on you and leave you to your shame, sound good?" Sophie asked.

"What? No, don't do that," Zay scratched at the back of his head.

For once, it wasn't the distance between Dallas and Austin that made it so that the Minkus family arrived last of all. Actually, they'd arrived the night before and had been staying in the big house already, but they'd had to go on some errands of their own once they were here, so they'd taken off right after breakfast. They stepped into the kitchen, where Ada and Bertie greeted their aunts and uncles before heading into the yard. To look at the two of them, at fourteen and twelve respectively, there was absolutely no doubt who their parents were, in looks especially for one and temperament for the other. Bertie might have preferred to stay in the kitchen with the adults, but his sister had convinced him to come along.

They had a good life in Dallas, the four of them, but their friends knew that they sometimes felt stuck, like they would be happier either being in Austin with the rest of them, or going back to New York, where they had been until they'd relocated for work. They would support them in whatever they chose, of course, though they couldn't pretend they didn't have a vote set in their hearts already.

A very 'covert' call from Topanga alerted everyone that Megan would soon be back, which meant that everyone needed to be ready to welcome her. The so-called existential crisis looked to have been pushed well out of sight as she came along, a picture of her mother as a child except for an inherent… Dylan-ness to her face when she smiled. It was the strangest and most precious thing they could have seen.

She'd had a great time with her grandparents so far, but she looked even happier when she found herself surrounded by her parents, her siblings, and her great turtle family. Soon, her friends from school, and from blue group would be along, and the Orlando house would be alive with activity. Whether or not the birthday girl's parents and her turtle uncles and aunts ended up gathered by the hoop, tossing the ball around, well, time would tell, but it was generally a safe bet. Even if it wasn't the same Orlando hoop as when they'd been growing up, it was still the Orlando hoop to them, and that was almost sacred to them, wasn't it? Megan and her siblings, the Friar girls, the Babineaux, the Houston transplants, the Minkus kids, they were all forming their own history with that hoop. Not all of them played, but even if they didn't – because they were too little, or because they didn't want to, there was still something about being there, together, and if that wasn't one of the best things their parents had passed on to them, they wouldn't know what was.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners