Why Not Live?

Chapter Six - Introducing He Who Must Not be Named

Charly's POV

Like lots of times before Joey ended up staying the night at the apartment. They both fell asleep on the couch watching old reruns of Scooby-Doo. Charly didn't care how old anyone was, Scooby-Doo was cool. Like a dog that could solve mysteries, talk in that cute way he did by changing the first sound of a word to and "r" sound, and eat like a ton of food and never get fat? That has to be the coolest dog on the planet, cartoon or not.

Charly was the first to wake up, snuggled up on the couch next to her brother who was snoring rather loudly. She couldn't help but giggle when she looked at him. His mouth was hanging open, and a little bit of drool was trailing down his chin, threatening to drip onto his shirt any second. His perfectly styled blond hair was in a wild, untamed style that was the dread bed head. He looked positively adorable. In a gross, snoring, drooling, bed heady, big brother kind of way.

Charly struggled to disentangle herself from him and shoved off the couch. The boy was a hard sleeper. Feeling a bit evil, she quietly retrieved a pillow from the recliner and jumped on him, slamming the pillow on to his face and pushing it up and down. "WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD!" She yelled at the same time a startled yelp came from beneath the pillow.

It took all of two seconds for her to end up on the floor, with a irritable, disoriented Joey glaring down at her.

She laughed, and pointed at his face. "Nice drool, Mr. Bed head."

Joey glared harder and started scrubbing at the dried drool on his chin with one hand and reaching up to smooth his hair with the other. None of it worked.

He growled and stalked down the hallway, slamming the bathroom door behind him.

Joey had never been a morning person.

Wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, Charly stood up and headed to the kitchen to search for something to eat. She was starving.

She seriously considered the leftover spaghetti in the fridge before she decided to save that for lunch and went for some fruit instead.

She heard the shower going in the bathroom as she passed by it on the way to her room, banana in hand. She peeled off the tight, dark skinny jeans and snug gray sweater from yesterday and traded them out for a giant comfy t-shirt and a pair of fuzzy, Mickey Mouse pajama pants. It was gonna be one of those days.

She headed back for the kitchen and heard a knock on the front door, freezing her in her tracks. What if it was Nathan? Butterflies erupted in her stomach. Joey was still here and God only knew what would happen if the two boys met now. Leave it to Joey and he'd probably do everything from threatening to beat him silly if he wasn't careful with his baby sister, to spewing about her cancer. She shuddered at the thought.

Quietly, she tip-toed to the door and peeked through the peep hole to see Stacy standing there. A weird mix of relief and disappointment filled her. She opened the door and Stacy immediately marched into the door. She was a little thing, only 4'11" but she could make anyone squirm when she was angry. She had big, dark blue eyes, and a sweet smile. Her dark hair was up in a tight, twisty bun just like yesterday.

She laughed quietly, "Hi, Stacy."

"Who is he?" She asked, cutting straight to the point. So Stacy.

Charly rolled her eyes. Nathan showing up at the shop yesterday and then Charly talking to him the way she did had raised suspicion with Stac. Especially since it was a man she had never met. Charly had told her before she left that she would explain everything tomorrow. It was only eight o'clock in the morning and she had only just woken up, but she supposed this qualified for 'tomorrow.'