Caught Up // Rio

Chapter I

"𝙷𝙾𝚆 𝙸𝚃 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃𝚂"

𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐀
•••

"Pleeeease!" Haylee and Kaylee begged me for the twelfth time.

They were the seven-year-old twins that I babysat, and right now they wanted me to let them watch Annabelle. To be so young the two of them loved scary movies, I on the other hand hated them. Like who wanted to watch a possessed doll kill people? Plus her name sounded too close to mine.

"No, y'all are going to have nightmares. And I refuse to be responsible for y'all being up all night." I shook my head.

I was actually talking about myself, but they didn't need to know all of that.

"No were not. Come on Ana, just one time?" Haylee pouted, plopping down on the couch.

"I said no."

"What if..." Kaylee started before she whispered something in Haylee's ear.

Haylee began smiling and nodding her head. I squinted my eyes at them. Every time they whispered something to each other they always found some way to bribe me, but not this time. I was the adult and they were children. I wasn't falling into their trap anymore.

"I hope you both know whatever you're trying to bribe me with isn't going to work," I stated matter of factly, folding my arms.

"Not even Starbucks?" Kaylee smirked, putting her hand on her hip.

"Starbucks?" I raised my eyebrow.

They knew Starbucks was like my second home. I went there every morning to get myself a large Java Chip Frappucino.

"Go get it, Haylee." Kaylee instructed.

Haylee got off of the couch and ran down the hall, coming back seconds later with a $50 Starbucks gift card.

"Where did you guys get that?"

"Grandma got it for dad on his birthday, but he doesn't like Starbucks. So we got a deal or what?"

I looked between the two of them before looking down at the gift card. I bit down on my lip thinking hard about their proposition.

Would you rather have nightmares or free Starbucks?

"Deal." I finally spoke, taking the gift card from Haylee's hand.

Just because they wanted to watch the movie didn't mean I had to. Squealing excited they both climbed on the couch and switched the channel to Annabelle. I quickly got up and walked to the kitchen. Peeking inside of the oven, I checked on the Christmas cookies the girls and I decided to bake.

The holiday was still over two weeks away, but we needed something to occupy ourselves. Since the cookies still needed about fifteen minutes to bake fully, I closed the oven and walked over to the sink.

The dishes we used to prep our cookies filled up the sink, so I ran warm water to wash them. Once the sink was full I started washing the dishes, sitting them in the dish rack to dry after I thoroughly cleaned them.

Washing dishes only took about five minutes since it really wasn't a lot to wash. I then cleaned off the counter and stovetop just so Mr. Collins, the twins' dad, had nothing to do when he got home.

He was a detective so he spent most of his time downtown at the station, or solving cases around the city. Lately, he had been coming home a little late since he and his team were working on a big case.