You Call It Chaos, We Call It Family

Chapter 6

That Friday afternoon, Owen was working on setting up Lizzie's inflatable mattress in Mason's room. Brenda, being the one with more space, always kept it at her house and both kids used it according to their sleepover needs. The girl was spending the weekend with her dad, so all four had agreed to spend it together at Claire's apartment.

The two kids and Owen had just made it home. It was raining outside: both kids took their rain boots and coats off and placed them on the rug by the door.

With his girlfriend still at work, Owen was dealing with making sure Lizzie and Mason didn't kill Randall, her purple iguana. Brenda almost never let the kid let the reptile loose in the house, but they weren't at her house, so that meant it was okay to let Randall explore and get familiar with the apartment.

"Please make sure Randall doesn't poop all over Claire's living room!" Owen called out from Mason's bedroom, waiting for the mattress to be completely inflated. "I don't want her to leave me because her couch has nasty iguana crap all over it." He mumbled.

Owen was texting Claire in between tasks. He was sitting on Mason's bed smiling like a fool. There was nothing he loved more than when Claire sent him flirty texts while she was at work. They turned him on and he couldn't help pushing for a steamy conversation to blossom. He sometimes succeeded, and by the looks of it, it seemed that today it would escalate to his favorite kind of texts.

Owen was adjusting his bulge when Mason ran off into his room, his hazel eyes made contact with green ones for a second and then the kid went looking for his RC car.

Lizzie was holding Randall in the kitchen and Mason drove his car toy to stand by the blonde girl. She carefully placed her pet on the toy and Mason started to drive it around the kitchen as fast as it could go.

Both kids laughed loudly while Owen was so engaged in his sexting with Claire that he couldn't bother going out there and make sure they were behaving.

Randall fell off the car after a minute or so, and started to slide against the tiled kitchen floor, trying to run as fast as he could. He finally made it to the living room and climbed up the back of the couch against the wall. His heart pounded fast while his claws kept him clung to the fabric.

Mason and Lizzie started to look for him under the couches and the cushions but didn't have any luck, both kids brushing it off, thinking he would come out when he felt like it.

It didn't take them long to find something else to get distracted with, like an empty paper towel roll Claire had disposed of that morning. Both kids started to talk through it, laughing at how their voices sounded in it.

"Life is so boring when it's raining." Lizzie complained while playing with the roll in her hands.

"Maybe there's something here we can play with?" Mason shrugged, looking around to see what other stuff they could use and figure out a way to get distracted.

Lizzie shrugged back and started looking around, helping her best friend to come up with something. Mason smiled when he found some eggs his mom had bought for them to bake cookies with during the weekend.

"Hey Lizzie? Think fast!" Mason gently tossed her one egg and the blonde girl tried to hit it with the paper roll, but it ended up smashed on the floor.

She laughed, looking down at the cracked egg at her feet, and shook her head. "Try again! I'll hit it this time!" She adjusted and got into place, waving the roll over her shoulder.

Mason nodded his head and, grabbing another egg from the carton, he tossed it over. Lizzie swung the roll with all her strength and missed it. The egg once again ended up on the floor.