Made In America

1

"Ryan, have you seen the vaccum cleaner!" my mom shouts up stairs disturbing my sleep.

"It's in the closet where it's supposed to be!"

My stepbrother and stepfather are moving in today. My mom is super stressed about making the house spotless. This is the fifth time she's vaccumed in 24 hours.

They lived in North Carolina until this point. My mom met my stepfather at lunch in the city. His buiness was expanding to Austin so he spent a lot of time here. When the expansion was complete they were looking for some to take charge of it. He asked my mom to marry him, she said yes, he took the job offer, and now here we are.

I've meet my stepfather or Rick, as he lets me call him, a few times before. He's really cool. I've never met his son before. All I know is that his name is Hunter Anderson and he is 3 months older than me.

I get up out of bed and go to my bathroom attached to my room and get ready for the day. Its actually a Jack and Jill bathroom, but the only on who uses the other bedroom is Peyton, one of my best friends.

It's just past 9am and Hunter and Rick won't get here until after 1. I send Peyton a quick text to meet me at the sign ready to cool off and then run downstairs to grab the keys to my Jeep.

I write my mom a note that says where I'm going and leave it on the fridge for her to see when shes done cleaning. I walk to the garage and get into my white Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. I like to keep the doors and top off. I start it up and drive out of my neighborhood.

Ten minutes later I am pulling up to the city limits sign where Peyton and Austin are already parked in Austin's black Jeep with the doors and top off. Austin is my other bestfriend. He wasn't named after the city, but his parents thought that his name was a funny coincidence when they moved to our town just outside of Austin, Tx ten years ago.

"Ready to hit the falls?" I ask.

"Hell yeah," Peyton says, "but im riding with Ryan. Austin's driving scares me."

"It's not that bad," Austin says defensively.

We laugh and start driving to the highway. Peyton insists on blasting throwback music the entire time. 30 minutes later we pull into the McKinley Falls state park parking lot. We grab our towels and walk to the falls.

Once we make it to the falls, we strip out of our outer layer and head into the cool water. Its a hot August day and the water feels refreshing.

We stay at the falls for over 2 hours before we get out. We rinse off at the campground shower house before we drive back.

Peyton and Austin decide to stick around for a little bit. We are in the game room playing COD. Austin is losing and is not happy. I'm sure you can hear his shouting at my neighbors and they are like a mile away.

"Ryan, come greet Rick and Hunter!" my mom shouts.

I pause the game and walk out into the foyer. Peyton and Austin are peeking through the shades on the door to the game room.

I see Rick and a boy I assume is Hunter stands next to him. I greet Rick first. I turn to Hunter. He's almost 6 feet tall and has short brown hair. I say hey and he does the head nod greeting thing back. I can tell he's not thrilled to be here.

"Ryan, how about you, Peyton, and Austin help him move his stuff up to his room," my mom suggests

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Hey guys. I had the idea for this story a while back when I was struggling with my other book. Tell me what you think 😊