A Red Queen Black Friday

To Build A Home

"What's up, bitches?"

Mom's familiar voice flows through the house, and everybody inside does a double-take.

But no. It is in fact Mom.

A moment later, she and Farley come strolling into the kitchen pushing Target carts piled high with small kitchen appliances. With a closer look at the carts, I see a fancy-ass vacuum, a Roomba, and a very nice knife set.

Shade looks at his mother quizzically. "You know you're not supposed to take carts from the store, right Mom?"

Mom brushes him off. "Don't be such a wet blanket, Shade."

And then she and Farley are turning around, mentioning that they have more to bring in.

Julian, Carmadon, Davidson, and Sara look on from their familiar places at the window seat, sensing unlikely competition in Farley and my mom. Up until the duo had come in, the quartet's Black Friday haul had been by-far the most impressive between their Bed Bath and Beyond, Barnes and Noble, and Kohl's purchases.

Meanwhile, Ella, Tyton, and Rafe are arguing to Shade why, in spite of cheating, they shouldn't be disqualified from the contest.

"You honestly expected us to go grocery shopping? In a store?" Rafe groans. Twenty grocery bags litter the center island in the kitchen, and Ella, Tyton, and Rafe are currently bent over them, trying to figure out where everything should go in the empty cabinets. "Besides. We've created a new sensation."

Sitting on the kitchen counter, I roll my eyes. There were far too many screaming teenagers in the driveway when I got home, throwing themselves at the TikTok trio and yelling tearful goodbyes. It was the strangest sight I had ever seen. "Nobody forced you to be part of the competition."

Nobody has the heart to tell them that they were never part of the contest anyway.

Bree, Tramy, and Cal, meanwhile, have also returned from Best Buy with a suspicious number of flat-screen TVs, computers, an iPad for Mom, and a thousand other things.

"Put your legs into it, brother," Maven calls from beside me as we watch Bree, Tramy, and Cal emerge from the entryway, hauling a gigantic frontloading washer between them.

Yes. Somehow, the three boys managed to get five flatscreens, a washer and a dryer, and several other boxes containing goods from Best Buy inside of Tramy's old rickety pickup truck.

"I am putting my legs into it," Cal growls as he passes by us, walking backward with his dancer's grace. The laundry room is down a hallway past our main living room, and I suppose it's the furthest room from the driveway in our house.

"No need to get aggressive, Cal," Bree comments, grinning as he purposely shifts some of the washer's weight out of his hands and into Cal's. Bree and Tramy are having the time of their lives forcing Cal to haul heavy objects through our snowed-in driveway and up and down stairs. The three could've taken one of our side doors to get to the laundry room in half the time, but I don't have the heart to tell my boyfriend that. "Oh, and after we get the dryer, we should go help the Ashley Furniture Homestore delivery men. They'll be here soon. It's cold outside, and we don't want them to be out there forever."

Just before he vanishes around the hallway, Cal gives me a pleading look. Bree and Tramy chuckle, happy to see how close they are to breaking him.

Maven, sipping at the bottle of red wine that was on our grocery list, swallows a mouthful back before looking at me. "I'm going to have to be roaringly drunk for when the delivery men start trying to arrange my furniture."

Thomas, on the other side of Maven, chuckles. "Those tasteless imbeciles, right, Maven?"

Along with the delivery men, Maven will have Gisa and Evangeline to contend with. The two are already all over the place, going from one room to the next with their fancy clipboards as they make their final assessments