Unravelling

Chapter 19 - Chicago Calling

"Hey, baby girl," Sean greets me as he picks up his phone. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hi, Sean! How are you doing?" I ask with a wide smile.

Now that I have my own phone, I can video call someone whenever I like, and that is as often as I can. Most of the time, it is with my friends, since not all of my brothers are the greatest fans of said feature. Sean usually humours me and I always enjoy it very much when I get to see his face while talking to him.

"I'm good, thanks. And you? Ready for the weekend?"

"That is a bit of a tricky question to answer," I reply somewhat mysteriously.

My brother gives me a slightly concerned look, clearly wondering what I am on about.

"Don't worry, nothing really bad happened. But Alex announced that tomorrow will be our annual "Gardening Drill" and, as you can imagine, that does not exactly excite me – or any of the others."

I pull a grimace, which makes Sean laugh heartily.

"Well, in that case, I am for sure glad that I didn't choose this weekend to come for a visit."

"You were only just here a couple of weeks ago," I remind him, rolling my eyes.

His chances of accidently showing up when we have do get our annual gardening chores done are therefore slim to none. Also, I suspect that Alex would have given him a heads-up, should he really have considered visiting when this is on the agenda. Or he would have moved the Gardening Drill to another weekend.

Actually...

"I have an idea," I announce.

"Let's hear it."

"How about you decide on short notice that you want to come for a visit, like, last minute? I am sure Alex could be persuaded to postpone our chores by a few weeks. Preferably by a whole month."

"You'd still need to do them though. There's no time like the present, right?"

I hate it when he sounds so reasonable.

"But it would still be better for me if it were in, let's say, three weeks," I insist.

"And why's that?"

I wonder for a moment whether to tell him about my deal with Jack, where I had to promise to do his chores for a month. My mind is made up quickly, since I am sure that it will at some point become the topic of conversation in our family chat group anyway.

"I kinda...lost a bet against Jack, and now I have to do his chores...for a while," I tell him a little white lie.

Obviously, I am not going to tell him what the real reason is for me doing Jack's chores.

Again, Sean laughs, but this time it is because of the miserable expression that I have put on when telling him about my predicament.

"Surely that does not involve special chores weekends like Gardening Drill," he placates me.

Oh, he has no idea.

Of course, Jack made sure that I understand that he is not in the least bit inclined to do any of the chores himself that will be assigned to him. My protest was futile, because I know that he would not hesitate for a second to tell Alex and my other brothers about my mishap at the festival last weekend. I am not willing to risk that, so I guess I will have to buckle down and get it over with. With a bit of luck, I might even survive. Or maybe I manage to make someone feel bad for me and get them to help me out. My sight is firmly set on Jordan in that respect.