Skipping Heartbeats

Watching Johnnie get ready for his date with Morgan proved to be interesting. He fretted around like a chicken, jumping at every sound. His nerves had apparently gotten the better of him and somehow Abigail found that amusing. She teased him about her not showing up. Bad idea.

Currently, she was trying to persuade him to leave the safety of the bathroom and finish getting ready. Anthony watched, amused, as Johnnie wailed inside the room about how he was going to screw everything up.

The front door was knocked on lightly and Anthony rose to answer it for the others who were more engrossed in Johnnie’s breakdown. Pulling the door open he was met with a small brown curly haired girl. She stared up at him slightly nervous and stumbled over her words, “I-is Johnnie h-here?”

“You must be Morgan,” he smiled and offered her inside.

She nodded to him and walked directly to the couch and sat down. Anthony almost sighed when he heard Johnnie whine about something else from the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” he told her before walking to the commotion.

Knocking on the door, he was met with a curse. “Morgan’s here,” he mumbled hearing Johnnie trip over something in the bathroom.

Abigail laughed and followed Anthony out to the living room where they immediately started talking about some new movie that came out. Anthony sat across from them, left out of the conversation and completely content with that, the movie they were discussing was something he hadn’t even heard of.

Johnnie slowly made his way out to the living while fidgeting with his shirts hem. Morgan rose from the couch like a startled doe and began stumbling over words. Anthony couldn’t decipher what she was trying to convey but calmly walked out of the room to make them more comfortable.

Abigail stated she was tired and was going to head home and left immediately, leaving the two in a silence. Anthony lay down on his bed and listened to the front door shut and an engine sputter a few times before turning over. A few minutes later another engine purred to life and the house became quiet.



Abigail flung open her front door and was greeted by her father cursing at the screen of the television and flinging the controller to the floor. “You know, that is prolly the reason you can’t win. The controller can only take so much damage,” she whistled while shutting the front door.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered picking the controller and setting it on the coffee table. “You hungry?”

“Yes,” she growled in tune with her stomach.

Her father raised his eyebrow at her, “then maybe you should make something.”

Abigail glared at her father who raised his hands in defense and headed to the kitchen and started digging around for something to create. Following him into the kitchen, she sat down at the table and watched him fuss over the stove.

“Hey Dad, can Johnnie, Morgan, the twins and Anthony spend the night tomorrow for a back to school party?”

Her dad seemed to think about it for a few moments before turning to her, “There won’t be any funny business, right? And who is Anthony?”

“Psh, yeah right! Anthony? I didn’t tell you? That’s the new exchange student who is staying with Johnnie. We were hoping to introduce him to the twins before school on Monday.”

Flipping the omelet on the stove he shrugged, “I don’t see a problem with it. Just make sure they help clean up the mess.”

Abigail smiled victoriously and set a reminder in her head to text Johnnie in the morning that they were on for the party.