Do It For the Memories

Dinner (9/4)

As soon as we got inside, Alex ran up to his wife, Lisa, and pulled her in for a kiss and Jack and my dad went into the kitchen to see if there was anything they could help with, and Max pulled me to the living room to join the rest of the kids. Izzie and Grace were stretched out on the couch, with the two younger girls sitting in front of them, and Mark was sitting in front of the fireplace cuddling with some girl I hadn't seen before, and Sean and Dee were in the dining room setting the table.

Max waved to his sister and immediately plopped down on the floor and I sat next to him before moving to lie down and he just smiled and put my head in his lap and started talking.

While he was talking I glanced up and saw Jack leaning over the sofa and grinning. So during a lull in the conversation I sat up and whispered to Max, "You know, this probably isn't helping, like, all the parents' theory that we're going to end up dating, right?" 

"Who cares?" Max said, then mumbled something else that I missed as Cass came in to tell us to go sit at the table.

He then gently moved my head off of his lap and stood up while I continued to lay there trying to figure out what he said until he stretched out his hand to me and said, "Need some help?" and helped me off of the floor.

 Once I was standing he grabbed my hand tighter and pulled me into the dining room so that we could sit together. And he took the seat across from Jack and I sat across from his mom, Lilly, and she smiled at me.

Eventually everyone was sitting, my dad sitting between Zack and Rian, and Alex was sitting on the other side of Jack, with his wife sitting next to me. Slowly the platters of food started getting passed around the table and Max and I just whispered back and forth while we waited and sipped our drinks.

~~~~~~~~~

After awhile we finished our dinner and joined in the pre-dessert buzz of separate conversations and at one point I felt a gentle nudging around my ankle. At first I ignored it, assuming that it was another case of Alex's aim being a little off while trying to get Lisa's attention, but then the nudging got more persistent. So I finally turned my attention away from Max and saw Jack looking under the table, so I decided to kick at his foot a little. When my foot hit his he looked up at me and I raised an eyebrow at him and he stole a quick glance at his son, who was turned around talking to Sean, and nodded towards the kitchen. I nodded and stood up and followed him into the kitchen.

As we leaned against the counter Lilly looked up from the pie she had been cutting and gave Jack a bit of a suspicious look, to which he responded with the most angelic look he could muster and she just shook her head and started carrying the pie into the dining room. As she passed by us he reached out an arm to stop her and kissed her softly before letting her keep going. He then returned to leaning against the counter and smiled at me.

I sighed and said, "Look, if this is about me and Max, then you can forget about it, we're just friends, ok, Jack?" He looked at me sadly, and I almost wanted to start crying, it was the same look Max would give me whenever I said I didn't want to do something. I sighed and said, "Sorry that came out so snappy, it's just felt like ever since the month after I got here and started hanging out with Max you've all been trying to get us to get together and I just feel weird about it." 

Jack stayed quiet for a while before picking me up to put me on the counter and said, "Sorry kiddo, I guess we just got over excited when you two started spending so much time together. I'll talk with the rest of the guys about it later."

I nodded at him in response before saying, "Hey, Jack, it's really nothing against Max at all, it's just the fact that I've only lived here for a few months, so I'd rather just make friends for now, you know?" 

He laughed a little after I said that and said, "Are you just saying that because I'm his dad, or are you being for real?"

 I rolled my eyes at him but laughed as I answered "Both, Jack, both. Now, come on, I want a piece of that pie before someone eats it all." He grinned in response and helped me back down before taking the lead as we walked back into the dining room.

As I sat back down Max nudged me and whispered, "What did my dad want you for?" I bit my lip and looked back over at Jack, who was now sitting by my dad and joking around as Sean and Dee had taken his and Lily's spots to better talk to Max, both of them now lost in their own conversation. 

I sighed and looked down at the table and whispered, "He was going to ask about us, and I'm just tired of them all acting like we're going to end up dating, mainly since I haven't been here too long, so I kind of snapped at him."

I noticed Max shyly look down before he replied to me and missed half of what he said as I began to wonder if perhaps it wasn't just our parents and uncles who were wanting us to be together. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After dinner was over and the table was cleared and the kitchen clean, we all split up and I went off to a more isolated part of the house to write. Eventually I heard my dad calling my name from downstairs and finished my sentence and gathered my stuff to go to him.

As I walked down the stairs I heard Max saying, "You know, she's probably somewhere writing. Our English teacher gave us a journaling assignment for the whole year. Plus we have to actually write it in an actual notebook, so she's obviously eating up the excuse to use one of her like, 500 empty notebooks anyway."

I rolled my eyes as I reached the bottom of the stairs and said "I do not have 500 notebooks Max." 

He just smirked at me and said, "I hardly ever see the same one twice."

I shook my head and ignored him as he followed my dad and I out the door and crawled into the backseat of my dad's car. He blabbered on the whole way home and once my dad had pulled into our driveway and shut off the car he climbed out and ran down the street to his house yelling, "See you tomorrow!" before disappearing around a bend.

I followed my dad inside and set my backpack on the couch after handing him all the paperwork he needed to fill out and sat on the floor and watched tv for a while before heading up to my room. 

I still had a couple of boxes in the corner of my room that I have yet to decide what I am going to do with their contents. I half-heartedly gazed into them for a few minutes, searching for the inspiration to just go ahead and find homes for everything, before flopping onto my bed. I flipped through the notebook I keep under my pillow for the sake of recording dreams and midnight ideas, searching to see if what to do with those boxes had been recorded in there, before getting lost in the memories of the dreams I had found it worthwhile to write down after waking from them.

Eventually, I gave in to my yawns and my dad's warning that I had to be up even earlier tomorrow because we were all going somewhere to get breakfast before class and went into my bathroom to get ready for bed.