Little Miss Payne (On Hiatus)

Chapter 3

Those boys are so easily distracted. The teams for Mario Cart has switched and now it’s Harry and Zayn versus Liam and Louis. Niall walked over and sat next to me on the couch. I looked over at him as began to speak.

“So, you glad Liam’s back?” he questioned, pointing his head to Liam. I smiled immediately before answering.

“Yeah. I really missed him. You know, he’s my only sibling and we’re incredibly close so it means a lot to me that he gets to be home for a bit.” I smiled and folded my hands in my lap. I noticed Liam looking over at me and when I looked up, he turned his focus back to the screen where the game was. I raised my eyebrows at Niall and he just shrugged. Just at that moment, my mom came down the stairs to let everyone know it was time to eat.

As a goodbye meal, since the trip was tomorrow, my mom had made everyone lasagna. This was Liam’s favorite and the smile was evident on his face when noticed it sitting on the table. We all took our seats around the table and began to fill our plates with the steaming pasta. After a bit of small talk and the sound of forks hitting plates, we all cleaned up our dishes and Liam offered to do the dishes. He just told me to take the boys back to the basement and finish playing the game. I agreed and began walking towards the stairs.

“So Ashleigh, why don’t you take a turn now?” Louis said as he handed me the white steering wheel.

“Uh, I’m not very good at this game.” I was slightly embarrassed about this. Although Liam was the champ when it came to this game. I only played a few times and Liam beat me each time.

“Come on, how bad can you be at a virtual car-driving game?” Zayn laughed while walking over and sitting on the floor next to me, a steering wheel identical to mine was in his hand.

“Oh you’d be surprised.” I laughed quietly. “You ready Malik?” I looked at him, trying to use my most intimidating face. Apparently it wasn’t that great because everyone bust out laughing. I joined in as the game started. The little timer on the screen counted down and Zayn drove off the start line incredibly fast as I just slowly did.

“You know there’s not really a speed limit.” Zayn poked me in the arm and chuckled. I glared at him and then sped my car up. And how did that turn out? Not good. I crashed into pretty much every object that was possible to crash into.

After Zayn beat me to the finish line by a landslide, all the boys looked at me.

“I guess you’re right Ashleigh, your car was a wall magnet pretty much.” Niall stated. Liam had just come down the stairs and joined us.

“What’re you guys up to?” he questioned, looking at everyone.

“Zayn just killed Ashleigh in a race.” Harry had to fight back laughter while telling Liam. I walked over and hit Harry in the arm and walked back over by where my brother was standing. He put his arm around my shoulder as I yawned.

“You tired Ashleigh?” he asked while looking at me. I was a little tired but I didn’t want to interrupt their night so I just shook my head. Liam nodded and walked back over to the game. They all got into teams while I took a seat on the couch next to them.

~~

After the boys raced at least 20 more times, I could feel my eyelids starting to get heavy. I began dozing when I felt a pair of arms pick me up. I didn’t fight it and just relaxed in their grasp. I found out Liam was the one carrying me when he set me down in my bed and put the covers over me. Ha. I’m sixteen and I’m being tucked in by my older brother? Ah well. I’m tired and that means I don’t have to do it.

“Night Ash. Love you. See you in the morning. Remember, the trips tomorrow so you’ll have to be up kind of early.” I heard him whisper to me as he shut my light off.