Art of Breaking (Michael Clifford)

to be, or not to be a professional mover

NOVA'S POV

The flat was  huge.

That's all I could think about. I thought it was going to be this tiny little apartment and Dom would have to sleep in the living room or maybe we would have to share a room -which would be awkward because he's my brother and I really don't want to know what he does during his "private time" and- wait what am I even talking about?

Anyway, it was much nicer than I was expecting. The record company provided it, so I guess I assumed they would want to limit their spending on a new employee. They don't even know if this will all work out or if my mom is even that good at what they hired her for...

BUT I GUESS THAT IS NOT THE CASE.

They spared no expense.

It was very modern. Decorated in mostly whites and wood, there were a few splashes of red that I knew my mom would appreciate. (Red is her secret favorite color, despite telling everyone that it is purple. Which is something I never understood by the way, if you like a color, why hide it? It's not something anyone even cares about.) It was basically a blank slate. Nothing was particularly set in stone, so we were able to make it " ours" as we saw fit.

Knowing my reluctance to come here in the first place, my mother offered me first choice of the rooms. None of them had been decorated yet either, and we were told that we would have free reign over the decoration of our rooms. We could even paint them if we wanted, which was another thing I was not expecting. I know most apartments, in the States at least, frown upon making any permanent changes to the rooms...

Despite having the opportunity to be an immature brat, and pick the master bedroom out of spite, I chose the one with a connected bathroom and a big window instead. I knew my mom and brother were having a tough time with the move and dad's passing as well.

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We all spent the night in the living room on the couches together. The rooms were fairly well furnished already, and all our boxes had already shipped and were in the storage room, but I think we all needed to have some family time after flying half way around the world.

Everyone was majorly jetlagged after the flight, but it was only 2:00 in the afternoon when we arrived in London, so Mom, Dom, and I forced ourselves to remain awake by watching movies. Plus, Mom had work in two days (and hopefully we could discuss that internship) so we all wanted to get our sleep schedule figured out as soon as possible...

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Deciding to decorate our rooms and pick our paint colors before moving everything into the rooms (who would want to unpack all the boxes and then have to take everything out of the room again once we figured out how we were going to decorate?) Dom and I set to work moving out the basic furniture. 

Beds are heavy.

Dressers are heavy. 

Desks are heavy.

Nightstands are...not really that heavy, but super awkward to carry.

I was already exhausted and I hadn't even taped off my room or picked up the paint cans from the hardware store. O.o I feel so bad for the movers that had to put all this stuff here in the first place. I can't believe some people have to do this as a job, I would die. Or get some killer arms. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad? I-

"-Nova, are you talking to yourself again?" 

Wow, my brother is so smart. It's not like I'm sitting here on the floor of my empty room by myself or anything. Nope. Definitely not. Obviously my imaginary friend Paul is right he-

"Nova!"

"What? Can't you see I am busy here? I am trying to decide if it is worth it to become a professional mover, if I can get some killer arm muscles. Hey, what do you think?"

"I think you're crazy. How are we even related, much less twins? I'm athletic, you're not. I'm social, you're not. I'm cool, you're not..."  He smirks at me.

Honestly, I think the whole 'smirk' thing is usually pretty attractive on guys. But Dom ruins it every time. He thinks he's so cool, and he has (or had I guess) all his stupid friends, but whenever he tries to act like this all I can think of is when we were little and he was afraid of the dark so he slept on my floor for three weeks.

"Um excuse you, you're the one who came here, and you're being rude. Did you have anything to actually say or did you just come to verbally abuse me and get punched in the shoulder?"

"Oh! Right! Yeah, anyway, Mom wanted to go back to the living room to talk about the internship thing. I'm not sure what exactly, but I think she might be going in tomorrow instead, but still bringing you in a couple days. But yeah, she wanted to talk to you."

*sigh* I haven't even started painting and I'm already being pulled away.

Kinda like I was pulled away from my senior year of high school...

At least we are doing all of this crap during the summer. This way I don't have to move half way around the world and then get shoved into some stupid uniform for school. 

Wait. I was doing something wasn't I?

I look up and Dom is still there looking at me like he is two seconds away from having me committed. 

Hey what can I say, I have an active imagination.

"Oooookay. Well I'm just gonna go then.." Dom scurries back to his room shaking his head.

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I walk into the kitchen to see my mom sitting at the bar scrolling through her laptop.

"Hey Mom, what's up?" She looks up quickly and shuts the computer. 

I raise my eyebrow (yes, ONE eyebrow, aren't I cool?). What was she looking at that she was so startled to see me?

"Oh nothing, sweetie. Just work stuff. They sent me some information on one of the groups I will be working on. When we get your internship figured out in the next couple of days, you'll probably be taking my place for some of the stuff while I do the more particular things. Is your room coming along? Did you decide what colors you will be doing? Are you a little happier to be here? I know you were a little disappointed to hear that we would be living in an apartment- wait, what was it that they called apartments here? I know it's something different, it's just on the tip of my tongue..."

"They call it a flat mom."

I avoided her questions about how I liked it here. I would stop complaining about moving here, because it was over and done with and there is no point being miserable and annoying about the situation., but they couldn't win me over with the room. I still wasn't thrilled to be here yet, although I could see potential. Once I get used to the city outside, the apartment I could see myself enjoying it here. After all, I'm getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to test out my dream job and get some real experience.  

"Dom said you wanted to talk to me about the internship? He said you have to go in tomorrow and I'll be there sometime later this week. Is that all you had to say about it or is there more?"

Mom looked back to her laptop, comtemplating something. "No, sweetie, I think that is all. I just wanted to inform you that we will go in the day after tomorrow to get everything officially figured out. But it seems your brother already did that for me... Finish up preparing your room for paint, and we can go find a new pizza place?"

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A/N 

Picture of their "flat" on the side.