Take A Breath

About a week after their stay in the hotel, everyone (including Elvis) was back in Downers Grove preparing for Christmas. After hearing about the incident at Eastern, Marty’s Grandma Shirley decided that she wanted to spend Christmas at their house and see her grandchildren, so that made them all on edge a little. They also had to figure out where everyone was going to sleep, now that the couch in the living room was taken.

It ended up not being a huge deal: Marty and Nick slept in her old room, Bobbie slept in her own room across the hall from them, Grandma Shirley took the living room couch, Scott slept in his own bed, Barb slept on the couch in the dining room, and Joe slept on the couch in the basement. Kevin and Danielle had made last minute plans to go and spend the holiday with her family, so that made it a little easier to arrange where everyone would sleep while they were in Downers.

A few days before Christmas Eve, Manda came over to exchange gifts with Marty, Bobbie, and Lily, and the girls decided to decorate the small tree together. The Popelka family had two trees that they put up for Christmas. The bigger of the two went in the dining room and no one was allowed to touch it except for Barb, who decorated it with hand-crafted ornaments from her grandmother. The smaller went in the living room, and that was the tree that Marty and Bobbie decorated together every year. This year, Manda and Lily decided to help them with it while listening to music and drinking hot chocolate. They had agreed to make a day out of it, so Bobbie and Manda invited their boyfriends over to spend time with them and Joe and Nick.

After the tree was decorated, the girls exchanged gifts with each other. As Marty opened her last gift, she started laughing.

“A Cubs pennant!” She cracked up. “It was funny; I was looking at Bobbie’s stuff the other day and telling myself how I really need a Cubs pennant to counteract her Sox pennant. Now…I have one! We really do read each other’s minds.”

Manda had also gotten her a game called Category Challenge. None of them knew what that game was or how to play it so the girls immediately set it up on the ground in front of the big tree and Barb sat on her couch and watched them play. The rules of the game were pretty simple, and the girls figured it out pretty quickly, but the boys still chose not to play. Instead, they watched them scream at each other over their answers and rules so they waited until none of them were looking and snuck out the front door.

Once they were safely away from the house, they started laughing.

“They’re insane!” Joe laughed.

Luke sighed. “Nick, that’s the woman you are married to. Good luck.” He laughed along with the other guys.

“Yeah, well, I think I will hide the board games from a while.” He grinned as he drove them to get food.

Nate nodded. “I thought that with Lily, Manda, and Marty being in college now they would be a least better than the girls in my grade, but no! They are as loud, if not louder, than the girls in my grade.” He paused. “Not that I am complaining…”

They came to a red light and Nate stopped as he realized Joe and Luke staring at him and Nick glaring at him through the rearview mirror. “What?”

“Dude, that’s my sister!” Nick exclaimed.

Joe nodded. “Yeah I think we have to have a talk with you, Nathan.”

Nate stared at him and Joe just stared back with an unreadable look on his face. Nate sighed; obviously that wasn’t the right thing to joke about when it came to his girlfriend’s brothers-in-law.

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Marty laughed as she sat next to Lily on the couch. “They better bring us some food when they come back.”

Bobbie looked at her. “How much do you want to bet they don’t?”

The three older girls smiled at her and agreed with her. “Yeah, they probably won’t.” Lily agreed as she started playing some music videos On Demand.

“So Manda….you and Luke are getting closer.” Marty smirked.

Manda chuckled and blushed. “Yes we are.”

Lily stared at her. “That’s really all you’re going to say?”

Manda shrugged. “What? We’ve been dating for a little over four months, and we instantly clicked. He different than the other guys I have liked or dated, you know? I think….I don’t know; I think maybe we could go all the way.”

“Manda!” Bobbie shrieked but they laughed.

“You know what I meant. I think maybe…we could end up married at some point.” She corrected herself.

Lily looked at Marty. “Look what you and Nick did. You are giving hope for people to get married young…even this freak over here!” She motioned to Manda.

They all laughed and Manda threw a pillow at her. “Shut up!”

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As the boys ate their food, Nick and Joe grilled Nate. “We don’t want to freak you out, but we kind of are Bobbie’s brothers now…this is our job.”

Luke just grinned as he listened to them ask a bunch of questions to the now slightly-frightened teen.

“So what grade are you in?” Nick asked, trying to be casual and not totally scare him.

“I’m a junior.” He replied quickly. “And yes, I play football.” He answered as he saw Joe looked at his letterman.

They nodded. “That’s really cool, and kind of funny; a cheerleader and football player.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Look, we just want to make sure you don’t hurt her. She’s my wife’s sister and that means she is our sister. If you hurt her, we hurt you. Understand?”

He nodded. “Definitely. I would never hurt her, at least not intentionally. I like her too much.”

They seemed satisfied with that answer and he was glad that they didn’t ask anything too awkward after what he said in the car.

“So Nick, I have only gotten bits and pieces from Manda. How long have you and Marty been married?” Luke finally spoke up.

Nick swallowed his food. “We got married in March last year, over her spring break. So it’s been less than a year.”

“I don’t want this to come out sounding girlie, or whatever, but how did you propose to her?” He asked and Nick stared at him for a second before continuing.

“We’d been dating for a bit over a year when I asked her. We had surprised her for Christmas and I stayed for New Years. We were at a party at Mary’s house, I am assuming by now you’ve met Mary, and we stepped out and I asked her just after midnight.” He chuckled. “She thought I was breaking up with her and then cried even more when she realized what was really happening.”

They all laughed and finished their food. Luke realized Nick was still looking at him and cleared his throat. “So maybe we should be getting back. I’m sure we are going to hear it for running off.”

Nate and Joe, completely oblivious, agreed and stood to go pay. Nick motioned for them to go and said that he and Luke would catch up.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” He asked Luke.

Luke looked and him and shrugged. “We’ve only been dating for a few months, but…we have both brought it up a few times just casually. I can really picture her as my wife, you know? Like I realize we haven’t been going out for very long but I just know that I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I can just picture it. So yes…I have been thinking about it.”

Nick smirked. “That’s exactly what I felt with Marty. Even though we had been going out longer than you and Manda have been, I felt that way too. Let me guess: you feel like you can’t imagine a future without her in it. You love hanging out with the guys, but at the end of the day you can’t wait to go and see her. And even when things are going terrible for you, she is the one person who can change that with just one glance. Am I right?”

Luke nodded. “Yeah and I have been worried because we are still in college and we are so young and what would people think…but then I look at you guys. You and Marty live in two completely different states for a long time and yeah, it probably isn’t easy but you are doing it and you are still so in love with each other. And, you have so many more people’s opinions riding on you when you got married and you were younger than we are now. I mean, if you guys can do that, Manda and I could handle college, and our families’ opinions, right?”

Nick nodded. “You’ve thought a lot about this, haven’t you?”

Luke smiled. “Yeah, I have. I mean…Manda is a crazy girl, but she’s my crazy girl. Does that make sense?”

“Completely.” Nick grinned at his new friend. “And when you decide to move forward with this, call me. I can help you out a lot.”

“Thanks, dude.”

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When the boys got back to the house, they found the girls in the living room setting up a movie. As they walked further in, they saw that Marty’s Aunt Laurie, her godmother, had also joined them.

“Hey babe.” Marty smiled as he sat next to her. “Thanks for bringing us some food.”

The girls all stared at the four boys, who now looked worried.

“I’m going to Heather’s.” Joe said quickly and turned, hurrying back out the door.

Nick paused. “Oh. We…uh…”

The girls all laughed and Marty shook her head. “It’s fine. Dad made his orange chicken stuff. We figured you guys wouldn’t think of it.”

“Yeah, and now we are all going to watch our movies! We finally found a night to do it.” Barb smiled at them.

Their living room wasn’t too big, so they had to all spread out in order to be comfortable. Nick and Scott had pulled the smaller couch out so it was easier to see the TV. Nick and Marty curled up on that couch, Grandma Shirley was laying on the couch so Lily took the single spot at her feet, Scott reclined in his chair with Barb, Bobbie and Nate sat in front of the small couch and Bobbie leaned against her sister’s knees, Aunt Laurie sat in the cushioned chair that they had brought in from the dining room, and Manda and Luke laid on the ground in front of the TV. Once everyone was comfortable they were finally able to watch both ‘Christmas Vacation’ and ‘The Grinch’, both of which were a tradition in the Popelka household.

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The next morning, Nick and Joe woke up before Marty and Bobbie and decided to help Scott put last minute decorations up outside.

“Are you sure about bringing Nate back with you guys?” Scott asked them.

They nodded. “It’s really no problem. They won’t be staying in the same house, and our mom’s kind of excited about it.” They smiled.

“Are Kevin and Danielle okay with him staying there?”

Nick nodded. “Oh yeah, it’s fine. They are excited and happy to help. We would have had him stay with us, but obviously with Bobbie being there, not a good idea.”

Scott nodded. “Good thinking.”

They were about to start putting up more decorations when they were hit with a few snowballs. They turned quickly and saw Marty and Bobbie standing at the door, laughing at them.