Fake Girlfriend

Calvin left us alone after Cole’s comment, glaring from a distance. I just smiled and brushed him off. Cole didn’t seem too bothered either, but perhaps admitting that he truly had no other place to spend Christmas didn’t bother him so much. I noticed him look around vigilantly until he saw his sister, and then he relaxed as she waved at him then ran up the stairs with the triplets.

I didn’t realize I was staring at him, smiling, till he looked over and his forehead creased as he frowned. “What?” he asked.

My smile grew. “Nuthin’. What was my dad saying to you?” I asked.

He snickered and scratched his head. “He was just asking a bunch of questions. My grades in school. My job. How long I’ve been ‘dating’ you. What I think of you.”

I laughed. “Oh yeah? And what did you say to that last one?”

Cole just smirked.

“Not going to tell me?” I asked, cocking my eyebrow.

“Nope,” he answered, sticking his tongue out.

“Jerk,” I joked, elbowing him in the side.

He was laughing and followed me as I walked away towards Mike. He was talking to my mother, possibly about me, but they stopped when Cole and I came over. I smiled. “Talking about me?” I guessed, cocking my eyebrow at Mike.

“Just about how you’re doing in school and such,” my mother said with her usual soft smile. “I have to say, baby, I miss having you around. I’d ask you to come home, but that would be very unfair half way through your senior year.” She bit her lip. “Sorry, that was selfish of me to say.”

I frowned sadly. I knew how much my parents missed me. Then, I remembered something. “Wait, I have something to show you!” I said, smiling suddenly. I took my mother’s hand and dragged her over to dad, took his hand then led them both into the small office in the house. Cole followed quietly behind us. I pulled my laptop from the bag I had been carrying and set it down on the desk. After turning it in and putting in my password, I looked to my parents with a smile. “I know you guys miss seeing me, and I miss seeing you, too, so I had an idea,” I said.

“What’s that?” my father asked, with an amused look.

I opened up video chat on my computer and gestured at it. “Look,” I said, and my parents leaned in to look at the screen. My parents were pretty tech savvy, so I knew this wouldn’t be too mind blowing. “It’s video chat, so I’d be on my computer and you’d be on yours, and we can see each other. It’s not much, but it’s better than phone calls. I’ll have Belle help you install it at your house.” Belle was a girl who lived across the street from my parents. She was a year older than me, and last summer when I had spent most of my time at my parents’ house, we had become friends, and now, we were online pen pals via email.

My mother smiled. “Oh, that would be great!”

I grinned. “I thought so, too.”

Dad ruffled my hair. “Always thinking outta the box,” he said.

I laughed and shook my head.

Suddenly, Mike peaked into the room with a grin on his face. He was wearing his snow jacket and a hat with ear flaps. “Bumblebee, we’re starting a snowball fight outside. Come on,” he said.

Grinning like my uncle, I grabbed Cole’s arm, and he, Mike, and I all headed out of the room immediately. Cole was chuckling as I dragged him to the coat room, right next to the back door.
“Snowball fight?” he asked me as Mike headed outside ahead of us.

“Did you bring gloves?” I asked him, not minding his questions.

“No,” he answered.

I dug through one of the drawers in the coat closet and tossed a pair of Joshua’s gloves at him. “Hat?” I asked him.

“No, but I don’t really need one…”

I threw a hat at him. I laughed. “You don’t know how this family does snowball fights. Trust me. You’ll need one.”

Cole laughed again. “Okay?”

I led him outside where most of the family, not including Josh and his wife and my parents, were already standing around. Even the triplets and Joy were dancing around in the snow, chanting “Snowball fight! Snowball fight!” I could see Cole smile at his sister getting along so well with my cousins.

Nico looked up at us on the back porch and grinned. “Well there are the slowpokes.”

I laughed. “Sorry.”

“We’ve pretty much separated ourselves into teams already,” Raul said. “Thisbe, you’re on my team. Thisbe’s boyfriend—“

“Cole,” Nico put in.

Raul waved his hand at his brother. “Yes, yes. Cole, you’re on Nico’s team.

And so, the team I was on consisted of Raul, Calvin, Luke, Joy, and Samuel. Meanwhile, the team Cole was on consisted of Nico, Mike, Sasha, Regina, and Sandra. We walked over to our respective forts, of which were made before hand, as always, and I looked over at Cole and waved. “You’re going down,” I mouthed at him, when he finally looked over.

He snickered. “As if,” he mouthed back.

I stuck my tongue out at him and turned back to my team.

Calvin, of course, was making the orders. “Sam and uh…”

“Joy,” I told him.

Joy giggled. “That’s me!”

“Okay. Sam and Joy, you guys are in charge of making snowballs and keeping up the fort. Can you do that?”

“Yup!” Joy chirped. Sam nodded.

“Good. The rest of us, you know the drill. Just don’t get hit,” Calvin said.

Raul laughed. “Look you, such a tiny leader,” he teased. Luke and he laughed.

“Shut up,” Calvin said bitterly, turning a little red.

“You guys ready over there!?” Nico called from their fort.

“We were born ready!” Raul called back, still laughing.

“Let’s do this then!” Mike called out.

Joy and Sam were already working away at making snowballs, and on the other side, Sandra and Sasha were making some, too. I grabbed two, one in each hand, and strolled up to the empty space between our two forts. Immediately, a snowball came flying my way but slow enough that I could dodge it easily.

“Did I hit you?” I heard Regina ask.

I laughed. “Not quite! Better luck next time!” I joked.

Regina laughed from her perch on top of the fort where she sat. No one wanted to be the mean one to hit the blind girl with a snowball, so she was never worried about getting it. All she did was try to hit people by following the sound of their footsteps, as she once explained to me.

Distracted, I almost missed it when Luke called out to me. “Watch out, Bumblebee!”

Nico’s snowball almost hit me in the shoulder before I stepped aside and chucked my own instinctively. My snowball hit him in the leg. “You lose!” I said, sticking my tongue out at him.

“Well, shoot!” Nico said. He jogged off to the porch and sat on the stairs, brushing off the snow from his pant leg.

I watched him go, satisfied.

“Hey Thisbe!”

I looked over at Mike, expecting a snowball from him. However, he was empty handed, and I frowned. Another snowball flew by me from behind, missing me but not by much. I whipped around looked over at Cole.

“Darn,” he said.

“How could you miss that?” Mike shouted from where he was standing, cracking up. “She was so close to you!”

“I never said I had great aim!” Cole called back.

“Yeah. You have terrible aim,” Mike said between laughs.

I have to say, I was surprised to see Cole and Mike suddenly getting along so well. Here they were, laughing and acting like old friends. I couldn’t help but smile. Cole cocked an eyebrow at me. “Getting the hang of this, huh?” I said to him.

He smirked again. “It’s just like paintball,” he said with a wink. “You’re just lucky I didn’t have another snowball on me, or you’d be toast.”

I laughed. “Cole, there’s snow all around you. You could’ve made one.”

He chuckled and strolled up to me. “True.” He took my hand and helped me to my feet. I gave him a weird look. I don’t think I ever saw him so carefree before. He grinned. “I’ll get you next time,” he said.

“Hey! Quit it, you two lovebirds!” Raul shouted, laughing.

The fight went on for a good half an hour. In that time, Sandra got her brother, Sam, out, and in return, Joy got Sandra out as well as Sasha. Regina also got Luke out—mostly because he was making a lot of noise. And Calvin went up to her and tagged her with his snowball, getting her “out”, as she simultaneously got him out with her own snowball. That just left on my team Raul, Joy, and me, and on the other time there was just Mike and Cole.

“Watch out, Thisbe!” Little Joy said to me while I was standing by her as she made some snowballs. My back was turned to the other fort.

I spun around and ducked just in time to see Mike’s snowball whiz passed me. I looked over a Mike, who was wearing a frown of disappointment. “You missed,” I said.

Suddenly, Mike ducked, and there was Cole behind him, grinning mischievously. “I won’t,” he said right before he whipped a snowball in my direction. I fell back on my butt, half shocked, as the cold icy snowball hit me in the face. It didn’t hurt that bad, and I knew Cole hadn’t meant to get me in the face, but I suddenly had an idea. Already on my butt, I fell back on my back into the snow and stayed completely quiet, sparing a glance at Raul whose eyes flickered, as if he had just figured out what I was going to do.

Mike and Cole, who were originally laughing, became completely silent.

“Thisbe?” Cole asked, sounding a little worried. I kept my eyes opened just enough to see him, but not enough that you could tell they were opened. “Thisbe?” he said again, dashing over to me. He knelt by me and shook me slightly. “Thisbe?” I almost felt bad at how worried he sounded.

“Bumblebee!” Mike called, coming to my side as well.

I could see in my slight vision Raul and Joy coming quietly behind the two, each with a snowball. I opened my eyes and smiled. Mike and Cole first looked relieved, then confused, and then realization hit them. Just a moment too late. Joy dropped her snowball on her brother’s head and Raul dropped his on his brother’s.

“We win,” I said, still lying in the snow.

Mike snickered, standing up and shaking the snow from his head. “That was cruel, Bumblebee. Scared me for a second,” he said.

Cole was frowning at me, and I knew it wasn’t because he just lost.

I frowned back. “What?” I asked him.

“That wasn’t funny,” he answered.

“I didn’t say it was funny. I was trying to make you lose,” I said, smiling.

“I… thought I actually hurt you…” Cole was beginning to look really upset. “I was really worried…”

I propped myself on my elbows and looked up at his sad eyes. “Well, it did hurt, actually,” I joked, trying to keep a smile so that he would smile, too. When I realized it was no good, I frowned. I sat up and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make anyone worried.”

Cole nodded.

“How about we all go in for hot chocolate,” Mike said, trying to break the sudden tension. “I, for one, am freezing.”

I got up. “Sounds good,” I said. I looked at Cole. “Let’s head in.”

“Ok,” he said. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. Instead, he was staring at the ground.