The Good Girl Plays the PLAYER

Chapter 25

It's been a while since we've had a proper family dinner at the table all together with everyone, just mum, my brothers and me. For one reason or another we seem to either be busy with other things, friends or just just had different time tables preventing us from being able to be together at the same time. Mum's work schedule was an issue as well, but now I guess I know why and as long as she's happy, I don't have an issue with it.

Mum went out of her way to get the house looking spick and span, not a speck of dust in sight, making it look like a showroom from some home magazine and when she gets like this it's best to stay out of her way. When entertaining she gets all stressed out and grumpy, hence why we all stay either out of her way or help her out. We all prefer to stay out of her way as she can get a little scary if we do the things she's tasked us with wrong.

Anyway, I've got to say she has made our home look extra lovely and the dining room is were she really put most of her efforts in. The table was decorated with the same colour scheme as the room itself, colours of Grey, Silver and white. Our walls were a brilliant white filled with silver framed paintings, pictures of us as a family and one large mirror directly behind the dining table. Our floors were throughout the house, a dark brown wood parquet arranged in a geometric pattern and it created a nice contrast with the whites and greys around the room. At the other end of the room we had from floor to ceiling windows and in the middle the patio doors, which during the day brought in plenty of light and the pretty view of our neatly kept garden.

Our table was long and rectangular, the legs made out of chrome, our dining chairs were grey velvet with matching chrome legs as the table it self. Mum placed a silver runner along the table, with a crystal vase of white roses placed in the middle, white place mats were evenly placed out with mums best white, silver trim china, grey napkins had been folded like origami in the shape of flowers beneath her precious crystal wine glasses and of course her silver cutlery was laid out perfectly next to each plate. She really went all out for tonight and this is because she brought with her a special guest, Karl her current love interest and lets not forget, her boss from work.

Had it been just family tonight, I'm sure things somehow could of worked out, or at least been manageable, but with Liam and Sydney here as well, I smell disaster. My Brothers as everyone knows already, are the overly protective types and any male figures coming near the women of this household is a no go area, making tonight's dinner awkward and difficult as it is, but when you add Liam my ex and my friend Sydney, Travis's ex in the mix, it's just the perfect recipe for disaster. Liam currently hates me giving me constant death stares at every opportunity and making me feel extremely uncomfortable, Travis can't seem to decide who to hate more between Sydney and Karl and finally Derrick who seems somewhat out of it, now that I think about it, he's been like that for a while now and it's starting to worry me.

Everyone is sitting in the living room with the TV on purely for background noise purposes, as no one is actually paying attention to it. We just seem to be sitting here, just staring at each other in silence, making this evening start off awkwardly. I want this evening to end as soon as possible, not to mention that Steven is supposed to call me tonight and I really hope he doesn't call at the wrong time, with any luck he won't call me at all, but that's unlikely as we have a date to arrange.

I can't sit here like this, doing nothing, unable to talk and so I get up, deciding I'm better off in the kitchen with mum and her stress self than this overbearing, stifling atmosphere. Helping her out with anything and her snapping at me for maybe getting it wrong has got to be better than this. I notice all eyes on me, like I'm some kind of beacon of hope leaving the room, except for Liam of course who just glares, but I make my move to leave anyway.

"Where are you going?" Sydney asks in a desperate tone while grabbing my hand, stopping me from leaving and making me turn back around to face her. "I'm just going to the kitchen to see if mum needs help" I reply in a soft hushed tone and she immediately gets up to stand next to me and says: