An irish Lovestory - the summer of Life

Happy Birthday

A few days later it is finally Luke's birthday. Early in the morning Carlotta is already on her feet to prepare the party. Although she knows that Charlie is not one of Luke's best friends, she has asked him to help her. He has also agreed to do so immediately and is puttering around the garden and house together with Carlotta while the rest of the family is still asleep. They also let Helen sleep, because although Luke and Helen also get on very well, Charlie still knows him better.
When Luke gets out of bed at half past nine, the house and garden are completely decorated and the kitchen already smells of cake. Carlotta sneaks upstairs to quickly put on something sensible, because the cooking apron isn't good enough for her after all. Luckily, Luke's parents have said that they will leave after breakfast and that they will have a free house, but they shouldn't overdo it. Carlotta has promised Gustav and Maria that she will look after Luke, so they can go away for a long weekend without worrying.

So she quickly puts on a pretty summer dress and puts on a little make-up until she goes to Luke's room to wake him up. Charlie, in the meantime, has gone to his house to have breakfast and lie down again, as the night is going to be long.
On quiet soles, Carlotta sneaks up to Luke and puts a cupcake next to his bed, lights a candle and wakes him up with a tender kiss. Luke returns the kiss and pulls her close, but Carlotta interrupts him before he has started. "Not now," she says softly, facing the open door. Maria Giesmas darts across the corridor and Gustav isn't long in coming either. Together with Chiara, who for once is also already awake, they congratulate him. Chiara lies down again, if she has to babysit for the weekend, she wants to make it to the end. The others go out for breakfast. Luke, however, is not allowed to look outside yet, so that he doesn't find out about the party that has been planned for him. The fact that his parents are going away for the weekend is nothing special to him, so he thinks nothing of it. Although he finds it a little strange that they are going away on his birthday of all days.
He spends the morning with Carlotta up in his room and eats a few cupcakes. Around half past twelve the doorbell rings, but when he opens it, no one is there. He thinks it is a prank and goes to Carlotta in the kitchen, but she is not there. When he looks into the garden, many of his friends are standing there with presents in their hands, some have party hats on and still others already have bottles of champagne and beer in their hands. Chiara sleepily staggers over to the others and starts to sing.
As soon as the song ends, Charlie and Helen pop a confetti cannon from above. Standing in the shower of confetti, Luke grins awkwardly. One of his mates hands him a bottle and together with the others he toasts. Only Carlotta and Chiara don't drink anything, because they want to be as careful as possible and after Carlotta's last birthday there's no way of knowing whether Vera won't come over here with her henchmen and turn everything into rubble.
When the doorbell rings again, Carlotta quickly opens it and suddenly finds herself face to face with a tanned boy. "Marco! What are you doing here?" she asks. Her exclamation has caught the attention of Helen, who comes into the kitchen. When she recognises Marco, she runs, jumping into his arms. Carlotta turns around, leaving the two of them alone, and goes back outside to Charlie. "I didn't know you wrote to Marco," she whispers to him, but he waves it off. Actually, it was important for him to meet up with Marco too, now that he's on an exchange in Germany with his school. As luck would have it, Marco goes to the friends' parallel class in the next few months.

Charlie goes inside and finds his sister and Marco there, still hanging on him with the joy of the unexpected meeting. He briefly considers going back out, but then steps into the hallway and clears his throat briefly. Immediately the two break away from each other and take a few steps apart. Marco looks at Charlie a little confused. Although they were best friends, he doesn't recognise him right away. Helen watches the two and looks at Marco meaningfully. Charlie has changed a lot in the last five years, becoming two heads taller and a lot more muscular. In addition, his formerly straw-blond hair has turned quite dark and his facial features have also become more masculine. Since he and Helen are fraternal twins, he can't recognise him from that either. But when Marco looks closer, he recognises his former best friend by his eyes. "Charlie?!" he says, stunned. He nods and takes a step towards him. A few steps later the two are standing right in front of each other and Charlie takes Marco in his arms.
"I was such an idiot. I just wanted to protect Helen and completely forgot that it was Helen's decision too. Can you forgive me?" begins Charlie. Marco nods and shakes his hand. Helen stands by and watches the two of them. Marco asks, "Friends again? Even though things went wrong between us?" and Charlie smiles. How long has he waited for the two of them to see each other again and hopefully get along.
The moment of reconciliation is ever interrupted when people are heard yelling in the garden. Immediately the two run outside with Helen to see what is going on. Although the weather forecast said it would be fine, it starts to thunderstorm. Everyone tries to get into the house and in the end only Carlotta, Luke, Charlie, Helen and Marco are left outside. "Man inne Tünn, we actually wanted to make you a nice eighteenth birthday, but no, of course the weather isn't playing along!" curses Carlotta. Luke puts his arm around her and says that she can't help the weather. Chiara has meanwhile briefed the guests a little so that the house stays intact. Carlotta goes inside in a bad mood and helps Chiara. Marco and Luke greet each other and Helen and Charlie go inside to open the buffet.
As if the storm wasn't enough, the doorbell rings, but Carlotta doesn't have the nerve to open it. Without further ado, Helen goes and opens it and comes face to face with Vera. "I'm sorry, but it's for invited guests only!" says Helen and slams the door in her face again. Offended, Vera takes off. "You'll see me again and then you won't forget me so quickly!" she shouts to Helen through the closed door, but she ignores it. She knows what Vera can do and that she will do anything to break Luke and Car-lotta up.
Although the weather throws a spanner in the works, they celebrate the day exactly as planned, only indoors.
Around three o'clock, the cake is cut, the candles are blown out and later there is dancing in the large living room.
The day is drawing to a close, but the party is far from over. Charlie has prepared a few drinking games, to which he can also encourage Carlotta and Chiara. Soon Chiara is hanging over the toilet bowl and Carlotta is also spinning a little, but that is no reason to just leave. It's the alcohol that makes the evening particularly funny and when Marco and Helen dance a salsa on the table, the joy is great. Charlie had imagined it a bit differently, but as he has already got Carlotta drunk too and actually still had them all halfway under control, it is now his fault. Luke drinks with the boys from his old and current class like a world champion and he seems to be doing pretty well too. Only when Diego, Jonas and Niklas are so drunk that they start hitting on Carlotta does Charlie intervene. But actually he doesn't have to, because in the meantime she was in Chiara's bathroom taking a shower. So she can think completely clearly again and pulls Diego towards her, only to slap him. He immediately becomes almost completely sane again and apologises to Carlotta with puppy dog eyes.

When Carlotta goes into the bathroom with Helen a few hours later to put her in the shower, Chiara is still sitting in the bathroom. She looks as if she has been crying in between. "What's wrong Chiara?", Carlotta asks her. Chiara looks up. "I should be careful that nothing gets out of hand here. Then I get bottled, then you, and now you're bringing Helen up here completely finished as well. Can you maybe finish the whole thing? I can't take it any more, I'm tired and I'm still completely stuffed, although you can't tell! Oh and please, on water Boarding." Carlotta nods, hands Helen into Chiara's care, with the order to hold the cold water jet over her head until she is back, and goes downstairs. She briefly confers with Charlie and Luke, who both realise that everything is getting out of hand, and then climbs onto a table.
As no one listens to her when she tries to talk normally, she starts shouting: "Shut the fuck up! Everyone who is completely drunk is going to take a cold shower once, the rest of you are going straight home! The party is over!" A few of the guests look at her in offence, but Luke confirms what she says and so soon twenty people are half staggering out of the house while another fifteen stumble up the stairs and head for the bathrooms. Fortunately Marco, Hugo, Petra, Anastasia and Elea have agreed to help sober up and so they go into the bathrooms in pairs so that one can hold the water on the drunks in the shower and the other in the bathtub.

Chiara also goes to shower, but only after the others have finished.
When the last of them are half sober and have left the house, Luke puts his sister to bed and then cleans up the remains of the party with the others.

Later Hugo takes Charlie, Helen, Petra, Elea and Anastasia home and then drives himself home. He was one of the very few who did not dare to drink alcoholic beverages and was therefore able to help the most.
The first birds are already chirping when Luke and Carlotta also fall into bed, exhausted. They managed to get changed and Luke checked on Chiara again. Marco has also stayed the night, as he doesn't want to face his exchange family with a flag just three days after arriving.
"That wasn't quite what you planned, was it?", Luke asks Carlotta quietly. His head is also still spinning and he is struggling to keep himself half awake. Carlotta shakes her head. This is not at all how she imagined it, but now the evening is over and, despite everything, it went quite well. She presses a kiss to Luke's mouth and almost throws up. "Dude Luke, you can smell your flag ten kilometres into the wind!" she says and turns around. On the one hand she knows she won't get a wink of sleep tonight because of the smell, but on the other hand she is also glad because this way she will catch it every time Luke has to go to the bathroom.
But her worries are unfounded, he doesn't have to go to the toilet and Chiara is also only heard going to the toilet once during the night.
The next day they sleep late and when Carlotta wakes up it is already afternoon. She is so exhausted from the last day and the days before, where she also slept very little, that she gets a piece of cake, eats it and then goes to bed, where she sleeps until the next morning. She is woken by the front door slamming into the lock. Maria and Gustav Giesmas are back again. Carlotta is immediately wide awake and checks on Chiara and Luke, who are both still asleep and who, it seems, took a shower yesterday. There is no longer any smell of the alcohol they consumed and, with the exception of two somewhat battered-looking houseplants, everything looks as it did before. In the meantime, Marco has also left the house on his own and gone to his exchange family.
She goes downstairs and greets Luke's parents, who are happy to see Carlotta so fresh. "Did everything go as planned?", Gustav asks her. Carlotta shakes her head. "It started thundering, so we couldn't celebrate outside either. Then we went inside and everything stayed intact here, only a vase and two houseplants got a bit demolished." Carlotta looks down at her feet and quickly stands on the carpet. Someone has had the clever idea of smoking a cigarette in the house and there is a small burn hole in the carpet. Luckily, Luke's parents don't seem to have noticed, because they go upstairs and unpack their bags.
They spend the rest of the day alone and Carlotta uses the time to talk to Helen on the phone again. She says she's fine and her parents were happy that she was finally drunk at almost eighteen. They talk on the phone for a while, then they have dinner and, strangely enough, everyone goes back to bed, although at least Carlotta, Luke and Chiara have slept through the weekend. They all keep quiet about what actually happened and no one asks any more questions.