The Hummingbird

Two heads jerked up at the sound of knocking upon the front door, and moved towards it.

“Who did you call?” Delilah asked curiously.

“Oh, you’ll see,” Vivian answered with a grin as she opened the door. “Chrissy, how are you?” she asked the brown-haired male on the doorstep, before launching herself at him in a hug.

“Vivian,” Christian groaned, “I told you not to call me that. Only Christian. And you’re hurting my ribs,” he added on, causing Vivian to pull back with an apologetic look on her face.

“Sorry,” she offered, a small smile on her face. “Blake, been busy lately?” she asked the black-haired male to the right of Christian.

Blake scoffed and rolled his eyes. “When am I not busy,” he asked mockingly, glaring in annoyance.

“Wow, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or are you just naturally moody?” Delilah asked warily.

“Oh, no,” Vivian said cheekily, “that’s Blake, au naturale,” earning a hard stare from Blake. “Lilah, this is Christian and Blake, friends of mine.”

“I have better things to do with my time so if you have nothing better to do but annoy me,” Blake turned to leave but Christian caught his arm and yanked him back.

“If I’m stuck helping them, then so are you,” Christian said in a dark tone.

“You make it sound like it’s such a chore to be stuck with two pretty girls,” Vivian said, rolling her eyes as she beckoned them inside the house.

“Pretty is a subjective term,” Blake mumbled under his breath. It wasn’t quiet enough though, Vivian whirling around to face Blake and tackle him to the ground.

“You wanna repeat that?” Vivian asked, wrestling Blake as he tried to get up, “Because I think you should apologize or we’ll have a repeat of last Sunday when I got you in a headlock.”

Delilah blinked and turned to Christian. “Do we split them up or?” she asked, letting her question trail off into nothingness as she watched the two on the floor roll around, but he shook his head

“Unless you want to end up being ganged up on, I’d leave them to sort it out themselves. Trust me, I’ve learnt from experience,” he muttered bitterly.

“Alright, well come on, I’ll show you what needs moving,” Delilah stated, walking down the hall and into the living area where her paperwork was.



After three hours of moving around unwanted furniture and sorting through items they wanted to keep for the business, they took a break.

“Lilah,” Vivian uttered from her position on the floor, “we have to plan the layout of the rooms, and where you’re going to stay.”

“Oh, right!” Delilah laughed, looking at Vivian spread-eagled on the floor. “Well, I’ve been thinking I’ll get the loft upstairs sorted and I’ll stay there,” Delilah pondered.

“You mean we have to move even more stuff? Aw,” Vivian pouted, already exhausted from the day’s hard work.

“You barely moved anything! We did all the hard work,” Blake said loudly, pointing to himself and Christian.

“At least all the hard lifting’s been done, now all that’s left to do is to redecorate and buy new furniture and linen.” Delilah tapped the pen she had gotten in against her chin as she made notes.

“Thank you Lilah, silver linings. Let me finish the rest of the notes, so you can take a look at the loft, see what needs to be done. Who knows, there might be some cool stuff that Aunt Lemay kept up there,” Vivian mused, getting up off the floor and moving to where Delilah was before giving her a push.

“Fine,” Delilah groaned, letting herself be pushed off of her chair, “I’ll take a look. Don’t think that I don’t know that you’re trying to get rid of me,” she looked pointedly at Vivian, giving her the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture.

“Well, I do only love you for your amazing art,” Vivian retorted, getting her back for the ‘I only love your for your baking’ comment.

“Touche,” Delilah pulled a face, sticking her tongue out at Vivian before leaving the room singing the chorus from ‘Let It Go’.

“Alright, now we can get to gossiping about the village,” Vivian grinned. “So Christian, are there any girls in the village you’re interested in?”

Blake sighed, getting to his feet. “I’m going to the loft, I can’t handle this girl talk.”

“That means we’re just going to gossip about you!” Vivian called out behind him as he made his way up the stairs, Blake throwing her the finger before disappearing from her sight.

“I guess we’d better get to planning the rooms, who knows how long they’re going to be up there,” Vivian muttered to Christian, taking a look at Delilah’s notes.