Dance In The Rain

~9~ Worst Emotion

I decided to give an update today instead of waiting until next Friday, because when I woke up this morning to over 200 notifications of votes and kind words, it blew me away.

Thanks for all the love already

Enjoy a bonus update❤️

A knock on our door has Tate rolling his eyes as he continues scrolling through his phone. When Holden opens the door, he makes eye contact with me and gives me a small smile.

"Can I come in?"

"It's your house," I say as I cross my legs on the mattress.

"It's your house now too, Annie."

"Speaking of, what's the WiFi password? The LTE here sucks balls." Tate asks from his bed.

Holden turns toward Tate and gets a funny look as he shifts uncomfortably.

"Don't tell me you don't even have WiFi. You're a teacher!" He spits.

"No, I do."

"Ok great—One normal thing about you...What's the password?"

Holden sighs and scratches his cheek. "OneDay091018"

Tate raises his eyebrows. "What kind of a password is that?"

Holden chuckles softly and shakes his head. "Just put it in your phone, dork."

Tate types it in and shakes his head. "It's not working."

"What do you mean?"

"The password, dipshit. It's wrong."

"Maybe it's the person who typed it in wrong...I know what my password is."

"1Day091018, that's your password, right?"

"...yeah"

"Holden, it's not working."

"Let me see," he sighs as he reaches his hand out for the phone.

"You're not touching my phone," Tate snaps.

"I'm not gonna go through it, man...I was just going to type it in for you."

"I know how to type, man, and it's not working!"

"Did you spell out One?"Holden sighs, looking like he's getting irritated.

"What?"

"One. O-n-e. OneDay...."

I can tell from Tate's face that he didn't do One right, but is refusing to acknowledge that as he types it in and then stays silent.

"Working?" Holden asks after a minute.

Silence is all that's heard from my crabby brother on the other bed.

Holden rolls his eyes as he turns his attention to me. "Chippy came by. Need help putting this on?" He asks as he hands me a little jar of white cream.

"I can do it," I say as I take a generous amount and lather it in, unable to reach the really tender places on my back.

"Can I help you, Julianne? Or if you're uncomfortable, can you let Tate help you?" He asks after a few minutes of watching me struggle.

I finally give in and turn, brushing my dark hair to the side and exposing my aching skin.

Holden makes a sad noise under his breath when he sees what I feel...The blisters already forming.

He carefully rubs the mixture into my skin, and somehow I feel immediate relief. He reaches all the places I couldn't, and then after a minute he screws the lid back on.