My Sunshine

Chapter 4: Winter

One of the few perks of being the good child in a family divided is that I always get a room to myself. My parents always get three hotel rooms. One for my dad and Ace, Lord knows what kind of chaos has been happening there. One for Lily and my mother, the trash cans always did seem to fill up with tissues in that room. And, of course, one all to myself.

"Get up loser, we're going out to breakfast." My oh so sweet brother said, waking me up by throwing a shoe at me.

"Ugh," I groaned rolling over, "how the hell did you even get in here?"

He held up a hotel key card. "We all have access to all three rooms, remember? Now get off your ass and let's go. The sooner we get to breakfast the sooner we finish and I can hit the beach for babes."

"Gosh, you're disgusting. No girl in their right mind would even spare you a glance. Now get the hell out of my room." I replied standing up and pushing Ace out, shutting the door in his face before he could say anything else.
                                 ~
It took about 2 hours for us to finally get going. Ace, being the dumbass he is, ignored mom and dad's request for us to dress nicely. He showed up in a muscle shirt and board shorts. It had taken a good twenty minutes of yelling for him to finally give in and change into khakis and a polo. Lily and I had worn sandals and sundresses, hers pink and mine yellow.

"Well isn't this nice?" Mom said once we'd sat down at our table. It was right beside a window that gave us a beautiful view of the beach. "All five of us, together eating breakfast. It's nice that we can all sit down and eat together instead of you three rushing to get to school every morning."

"Right. Let's try and wrap this up before 11:00." Dad said glancing at his watch. "I'm going to try and catch Ian Phillips for lunch. Hopefully I can get him to become an investor in the company."

"Dad, can you take a break from work for a second?" Lily asked angrily. "It was your idea to come out here for this 'family bonding' trip in the first place, so you need to participate too, not just us. We're not the only problem."

"So, the money I make to provide for you so you can have nice things is a problem now?" Dad said,
exasperated.

"She's right, Darrel. You're always working and we're supposed to be on vacation," Mom said. "Why don't you cancel lunch and we can all go somewhere together? How about surfing? That sounds fun!"

"Surfing with you people? Yippee, can't wait." Ace murmured sarcastically whilst rolling his eyes.

"I'm sorry, but no can do. Ian Phillips owns the Phillips hotel chain. You know, the hotel we're staying in right now? Trust me, reserving rooms in the Phillips hotel is not easy. Mr. Phillips got us those rooms specifically so that I could come to Santa Monica and meet with him."

"Wait, so this whole vacation was just another one of your business trips?" I ask, incredulous.

"You're unbelievable." Lily spits out, clearly pissed that this trip was just another one of Dad's tricks.

Mom couldn't even bring herself to speak, she was so mad. She simply got up from the table and left without a word, but not before throwing her napkin at Dad's face.

Ace, on the other hand, was not so merciful. He grabbed his glass of water and poured it on Dad's head. Did I mention Ace had anger problems? This time, however, I was on his side.
                                ~
After that disastrous attempt at a family breakfast, we all went our separate ways, none of us wanting to see another member of the Hastings family. I decided to just walk around the shops because I figured Ace would be on the beach and of all the people I did not want to see right now, Ace came a pretty close second to my father.

To other families it may have seemed like we overreacted, but this has been most every vacation we've had for as long as I can remember. Dad always finds a way to make it about his company and then he guilts us about money when we say he spends no time with us. To put it lightly, our family vacations are not the most fun out there.

"Hey, Sunshine!" A voice called from behind me.

I turned around to see Zach walking towards me, accompanied by two other guys. Both guys were pretty much as tall as Zach, just a little bit shorter, but they still towered over me. One of them had dirty blonde hair that came down to his shoulders and hazel eyes. The other boy had swept back jet black hair and electric green eyes.

"Hey, Zach." I said once he and his friends were in front of me.

"Whose your friend?" Blondie piped up, crossing his arms over his chest. Damn, intimidating much?

"This is my sunshine." Zach said swinging his huge arm around my shoulders and pressing me to his side. "Sunshine, this is Brent and Cason."

"Ah, the shithead that hit me with a volleyball." I replied, shrugging off Zach's arm even though I didn't really want to.

Cason laughed, his green eyes lighting up. "Yeah, that's me."

"Is that your actual name?" Brent asked, staring at me with his calculating hazel eyes.

"No, but I hate my name so Zach, here," I said turning to look at Zach, "decided my name should be sunshine."

"Ah, so you're Zach's girl of the week." Brent said, smirking. Wow, asshole.

"No, actually." I replied smoothly, giving my best fake smile.

"So you guys are just friends?"

"Nah, she's my girl, she just doesn't believe it yet." Zach chuckled, once again putting his arm around my shoulder. "We're heading down to the beach to surf, babe. What do you say?"

"I say, I'm not your babe." I push his arm off of my shoulder for the second time. At that, Cason and Brent burst out laughing while Zach just gave me a look of shock, clearly not used to girls rejecting him. Especially not in front of his friends.

"Wow feisty. If she doesn't want to be your girl, Zach, then she can certainly be mine." Cason said, flashing me a smile.  "Come surfing with us, it'll be fun, I promise."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zach frown at Cason's remark, but I just rolled my eyes. "I don't know how to surf."

"Well, then I'll teach you. Let's go, Sunny!" Cason came up and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, walking me in the direction of the beach.