Sullivan Siblings

XIX

"Oh, yay! So much fun!" Hollis sarcastically cheers in a monotone voice.

"Shut up," Emmett scoffs as he slides into the chair recently designated as his. He sits across from me, to Odin's left and Luke's right. After Lukas, it is Silas, then Hollis, and Ivan sits at the head. Levi sits to Ivan's left, then the spare chair, Manny and me.

Apparently, we are all much less likely to fight each other this way. Surprisingly, Ivan was right. Hollis and I constantly goad each other on and sitting on opposite ends on opposites sides really limits our reach.

"Scooch in!" Odin grins as he places the sequence board at his end of the table. Silas and Levi grumble but scoot their chairs closer to us. Hollis picks his up and sets it between Emmett and Odin and Ivan does the same between me and Odin, the only difference: he end up deciding I should be between the oldies.

"No!" I moan and slump into my chair. Ivan pushes the chair with me on it close to Odin, then squeezes in beside me. "Why do you do this to me?"

"Yeah, nobody puts big baby in the corner." Hollis adds on to my complaint.

"Do we have to?" Silas grumbles, slouching in his chair with his arms crossed. Odin glares at him and tosses a bag of red chips at Ivan, a bag of green chips to Emmett and keeps the blue chips for himself.

"He's mourning Jess big time tonight, guys," Luke informs us. It earns him an elbow to the ribs by Silas.

"Dude, shut up!" Silas slumps even lower in his chair. His left hand runs through his thick brown hair and folds the longer strands over to the left.

"Emmett, Levi and Huxley on a team." Odin completely ignores Lukas and Silas. "Lu, Manny, me. And Hollis, Silas and Ivan."

"What game are we playing?" Manny asks, trotting up the stairs. Odin, Emmett and Ivan all divide the tall stacks of cards and start shuffling them.

"The kind you play." Hollis is quick to answer and snickers at his words. He is the only one to do so, although Ivan's lips twitch in a quick smile.

"Emmett's already cheating!" I call out the middle triplet. Then, I make the gesture that says 'I'm watching you', my middle and pointer finger pointing at my eyes before I jab my hand in his direction.

"Puh-lease," Emmett scoffs and rolls his eyes. "As if." But now, Lukas and Hollis are watching as he shuffles cards so I don't see the flick of his wrist as he tries to hide a card up his sleeve.

"I got quite a few parents to sign the petition for longer skirts," Ivan speaks up. Hollis snickers while I slump in my seat and cross my arms over my chest. Ivan and Odin are so mean. No one else is that old school! "Mrs. Grace, as well."

"Poor Lana," I moan. It earns a sharp warning look from Odin that I ignore. She already wears clothes her dad won't approve of at school and the game days she actually gets to, she can't anymore. Mrs. Grace is trying to score brownie points with her stepdaughter by not ratting out her wardrobe choices.

"We still have to bring it up to the school board." Ivan shrugs. He sets his stack of cards on the table in front of me and Odin picks them up. Emmett holds his stack out for Odin to shuffle all the cards together.

"I hope it doesn't go through," I murmur under my breath. Of course, it's at the moment none of my brothers are talking and the rain storm has abated.

"If it doesn't go through, you'll be off the team," Odin quickly retorts. I slump lower in my seat, embarrassment making my face burn red, until he kicks harshly at me feet to make me sit up. I side eye Ivan to get his take on Odin's statement. He nods along, some sort of ugly looking, constipated grimace on his face.