“And it begins,” Dad muttered. “Where the hell is Drew?”
“In the living room talking to my husband,” Piper said as she came into the room. “Apparently it’s quieter out there.”
Without another word, Dad took another full beer from the fridge and left, leaving only the girls and me watching him go.
“You didn’t even save me one cookie, Mom?” I batted my eyes owlishly at her.
My mother’s mouth twitched, then she walked to the cabinet where she kept her wine and extracted one single cookie.
My mother’s cookies were to die for, literally. There was a point in time where Ares, Rune, and I had fought to the death over them. I was fairly sure I’d actually been executed by Ares once while she was on her period when I’d tried to eat the last one. Luckily my mother was always there to revive me.
Splitting the cookie in half, I winked at Saylor and handed it to her before also getting a beer and exiting the room.
I left silence in my wake.
***
Saylor
“Wow,” Ares said, causing my eyes to move to her. “I never would’ve guessed had I not just seen the evidence.”
I took a bite of the cookie, and Memphis started to speak.
“There was this one time,” Memphis began. “That there was one cookie left.” She started to laugh. “Ares was about sixteen. Lock eighteen. He was being shipped off to the military the next day.” Her eyes saddened. “I made him cookies for the last time, and he shared them with Ares and Rune. Ares was in a really shitty mood because she’d failed her driver’s test, hadn’t gotten her driver’s license like she’d wanted, and couldn’t go out with her friends that night as a consequence. Well, she could go out, but she couldn’t drive them like everyone had planned.”
“Thanks for sharing this embarrassing story, Mother,” Ares said dryly.
My eyes flicked to her.
She didn’t look embarrassed, she looked amused.
Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun on top of her head, and tendrils of it were falling down into her face and tickling her ears.
I wished I could perfect the messy bun look like her.
She really had it down pat.
And God, she was so beautiful.
She looked like Ariel.
For real, if I had to imagine a life-like Ariel, Ares would be it.
She had bright flaming red hair that most people could never hope to achieve even after hours at a salon. Her skin was creamy and blemish-free, and staring at her now, I knew without a doubt that she didn’t have an ounce of makeup on.
“Anyway,” Memphis continued, pulling my attention back to her. “So, they’re divvying out their cookies. Ares starts eating hers. And throughout the night they’re almost completely eaten. Then their dad comes home from a SWAT call and eats three. One of Lock’s and two of Ares’.”
I could guess where she was going with this.
“They get up the next morning, and everyone is running around like a chicken with their heads cut off.” Memphis paused. “I’m like completely useless because I’m sending my baby off to bootcamp. Downy is trying to pick up the slack, but he was running on two hours of sleep. Ares is still pissy and hormonal and a general teenager about the night before. And Lock’s trying to get his shit packed because like always he forgot to do it the day before.”
“And then, I found out that my cookies were gone.” Ares started to giggle.
“And then she finds out that her cookies are gone,” Memphis agreed. “And she loses her fucking mind. She tackles Lock, and shit gets heated. She demands to know where the cookies are. And Lock has no fucking idea what she’s talking about. But like always, he’s always up for a fight with his little sister, so he wrestles her off of him. This goes on for freakin’ ever, and it’s only then that we realize that the power had gone out in the middle of the night around twelve, making all of the clocks close enough to the actual time that we don’t realize we’re late until Downy’s alarm is going off for him to go to work.”
“Yet at that point, Lock is pissed because I scratched his face and he’s going to have to go to his swearing-in ceremony with claw marks on his face, so he won’t stop even when both of our parents realize how fucking late we are.” Ares shook her head.
I’m giggling so hard I’m laughing.
“What happened then?” I asked, taking a bite of the cookie.
“Downy took Ares, started bellowing at Lock that it was time to fucking go, and we all leave with almost zero shit at all.” Memphis shook her head. “I didn’t even bring my phone. Couldn’t get pictures of them taking my baby away. Ares was grounded from hers so we made her leave hers there. Downy got called out for a SWAT call during the middle of it leaving halfway through. It was a disaster.” She paused. “All of it over a freakin’ cookie.”