I Heard You Were Kind of a Big Deal

"You really don't know who that was, do you?"

Charli looked at Frankie like he had five heads.  "Who who was?"

"Your kindly stranger..." He said it like she had trouble understanding English.

"No, should I?"

"Aw, come on!  You didn't even get his number, did you?" An arched eyebrow confirmed it.  "Ha.  This is great."

"Whatever you say, Franklin."

The trip home was faster than Charli remembered.  Tuesday afternoon traffic was on their side with the schools out for the summer and in no time they were pulling up in front of the small family home she'd grown up in.  Again, she was bouncing.  For however much she dreaded coming home, the excitement of seeing her dad out weighed the foreboding of seeing her mom every time.  As soon as Frankie stopped his truck, she was out on the side walk, rushing to meet her dad who was already half way across the lawn. 

"Hey Pop-pop," she squealed as she jumped into his arms.  He looked just like Frankie, Brandon, and Garry, all well over six feet, bright blue eyes with varying shades of red hair and beards.  Her and Drew, her youngest brother, had also inherited their father's blue eyes but took the rest of their much smaller, darker genes from their petite mother.

"Hey baby girl!  Took ya long enough." He gave her a good squeeze and started dragging her into the house.  "Your mother has been worried sick.  You were supposed to arrive a whole five minutes ago."

Charli snickered as she followed her dad through the front door, leaving her brother behind.  Her father was well aware of how dramatic his wife was and found it completely hilarious.  He knew she had a tendency to love a little too much and that it weighed most heavily on Charlotte, so he tried to make light of it when ever the chance presented itself.  Her Dad was one of the most laid back people she'd ever met so it was no surprise that he was the perfect counter balance to her high-stung mother.

Making a break for it with her bags, Charli made her way down to the basement before any of her  brothers or other family members noticed her.  With Garry's wedding in a few days, the small house was guaranteed to be overflowing with Evans. It was sure to be claustrophobic for a couple of days considering that most of her uncles and cousins were similar in size to her older brothers.  It was best to sneak away now, before the whole world noticed her, than to try to get away after her mom made a scene about her arrival.  She was hoping her dad would cover for her but most likely he'd just rat her out and her mom would send one of her brothers down to drag her out of her cave.

She and Frankie had shared a bedroom as kids.  It worked out just fine until about middle school when they both wanted more privacy. In a four bedroom house with a family of seven, there weren't too many options until Garry graduated college and moved out of the house.  By then it would be Charli and Frank's freshmen year of high school.  Both of their parents agreed that that wouldn't work, so they cleared out a small section of the unfinished basement and Pop-pop and Granddad spent two weeks finishing up a small room for Charli with a big ole closet.  They'd expected her to flourish into a dazzling beauty queen with a wardrobe to match but with four brothers and her dad as influence, the closet was really just full of sports jersey's and equipment.  Now that Charli was in her mid twenties, she'd come to terms with that fact that though she was always fairly pretty, she'd always be one of the boys and she was happy with that.

Flopping face down on her bed she let out a sigh.  It was nice to be home and she was more than happy to be done with the traveling.  She'd originally planned to only come home for the wedding as she was teaching two weeks of summer school toward the end of July but between her mom and Frank and their purchase of a some extra plane tickets, they'd convinced her to stay for the whole summer sans the two weeks back in the windy city for school.  The main reason she hadn't been home last summer was money, she worked a part time job in the summer to cover what her savings wouldn't, but with an offer to work a couple of days a week at Brandon's wife's bakery she had no excuse this summer.  She'd stayed in Chicago as long as possible, waiting till just before the wedding to fly out, but now she was stuck for pretty much the rest of the summer.  On the bright side, there would be a trip to Granddad's lake house almost every weekend.

"Charlotte Eleanor, how is that boy of yours?  When are you going to bring him home?"

Charli groaned.  It had already started and dinner hadn't even been served yet.  She knew once her mom got started, it wouldn't end.  Not until she could find some reason to escape the house or at very least the dinner table.

"Yeah, Charles," Drew called out with a laugh.  "How is what's his face?  Bob something or other, wasn't it?"

"His name was Bill, thank you, Nancy Drew.  Mah, we broke up like a year ago.  How about this wedding though?  Aren't you excited to finally see Katherine's dress?"  Charli tried to change the subject to the dress that Katherine had been keeping seriously hush-hush.

It didn't work.

"Oh, its just lovely.  She invited me with her mother to the last dress fitting.  I can't wait to see you in your own white dress.  Hasn't there been anyone since Bill?"

"Ha!  Little Charles Barkley in a white dress?  Yeah right, Mah!  Isn't that like a sin or something, ya know, to wear a white dress when you’re a sloot?”

Charli elbowed Frankie in the ribs.  There was no need to make a shitty situation worse but her brothers and cousins lived for torturing her, the only girl of the eleven of them.  Their mother had been trying to marry her off since she was roughly thirteen.  Good Irish girls got married and made babies.  Its what they did.  Her mother was even beyond pleased when she'd found out that her little Charlotte was taking the perfect mother's job.  Teaching was perfect.  Summers and holidays off with the kids and being home to cook dinner every night for her future husband and babies.  Never mind that Charli could hardly cook well enough to feed herself, let alone a whole family. Her mom had never quite come to terms with the fact that Charli hadn’t gotten hitched right out of high school. She’d had enough trouble finding boy willing to talk to her let alone date her at that age. She’d had 10 Evans’ goons watching her every move. Now that she was on her own in Chicago, she was more concerned with her career and her students to really worry about dating. She had plenty of fun as single girl in the big city, her best friend Julia made sure of that. Marriage was very low on her list of things to do.

Several failed attempts to change the subject left Charli just a little bit more than grumpy and she finally gave up and started shoveling food in her face as soon as grace was said to save herself from having to answer any more embarrassing or invasive questions.  Eventually topics switched to the wedding and stayed there.  Somewhere in the middle of bachelor party talk, she was able to sneak away without anyone beyond Frankie and her father noticing. 

She was laying on her back looking up into the leaves when she heard who she thought had to have been Frankie climbing up into their old tree house.  No one else was quite that stealthy, a creaky rung her only warning of his approach. She’d used to come up here to hide from her brothers as a kid, the high ground being the easiest place to defend herself from.  As a teenager, she'd brought a boy or two up there to avoid the inquisition that would have happened if she brought him into the house.  In more recent years,  she'd come up here to drink with Frankie when the house got too crowded with all of the grown up Evans boys.

"Hey, Char, you alive?" Frankie called as he climbed the last two rungs. 

"No."

"You know she loves you.  Probably more than she loves the rest of us."

"I know," she grumbled not moving from her spot on the little porch.  "That's part of the problem.  If she paid more attention to you assholes, she might not drive me so crazy."

"Well, it doesn't help that she has wedding fever.  She'll tone it down some once the big day is over and she starts getting on Garry and Kath about spitting out some babies."

Charli snorted.  Garry was almost eight years older than her twenty-five.  They thought at thirty-three him and his long time girlfriend, Katherine, would just live in sin forever and never make it official. Especially since neither one of them planned on having children.  Both the oldest child of large families, they claimed to have already raised enough children for a lifetime, neither of them feeling the need to have their own.  The thought of them being tortured over something just as unlikely as her imaginary wedding brought her no small amount of pleasure.  She couldn't wait to add fuel to that fire.

"Hey Pat," Jacqueline called from behind the door with a soft knock.  "Are you awake?"

Patrick groaned and rolled over to look at the clock.  It was 9:30.  Fuck.  He was supposed to meet his sister at the park an hour ago for the run he'd promised her.  This was his time off, but there was not point in slacking.  It would only hurt him in a month or two when he'd have to try to undo a summer of poor decisions in a couple of short weeks.  

"Shit," he cursed, hopping out of bed.  "Yeah.  I'll be down in a minute. Help yourself to anything in the fridge... If there even is anything in the fridge."

He heard her laugh and walk away as he started digging through his bag for some shorts and his running shoes.  He really should have unpacked when he got in yesterday, but lets be honest, he wasn't the most organized person in the world and it was the first day of vacation.  Taking a nap had been the only thing on his agenda.  With some digging, he finally found what he was looking for and dressed quickly.  He was on his way into the kitchen when he heard his sister swearing. 

"Oh, shut the fuck up.  Don't give me that crap. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I'm a bitch and I'm being completely unfair.  Look I have to go.  I've got better things to do than listen to your shit, Adam, you know, like gouge out my eyes."

There was a pause in what Patrick assumed was a lovers quarrel, though as a rule he didn't really involve himself in his sisters' personal lives.  He did when he was younger but now that he was already the local media’s favorite topic, he didn’t need anyone feeding them any gossip that could be twisted against him. He’d said some fucked up things to guys who’d messed with his sisters in the past, things that if he said now, would definitely come back to bit him in the ass. He cleared his throat and walked into the room.  Jackie looked up and smiled at him holding up a finger to indicate she'd only be a minute more.

"Look, I can behave myself in public and I seriously hope that you can too.  If you ruin this day for them, someone is going to murder you and I doubt it will even have to be me."

Pat couldn't remember Jackie ever being quite so feisty but she was always passionate about the things and people she cared about.  Who ever Adam was didn't concern him too much.  He knew if she needed anything she'd ask but beyond that she could definitely handle herself.  He'd made sure of that before he left home.

After hanging up the phone, she flashed him another grin, and started for the door, giving him no chance to snag anything for breakfast.  All of the Kane children were extremely competitive.  If she thought hunger pains were to her advantage, she'd starve him.  He'd just have to show her why he was a professional and she was a lowly college student.  A quick stretch and a short warm up, and they were off.  Slow to start out, they headed in the direction of the park where they were originally supposed to meet up.  They had created a routine throughout the years.  Jackie set the pace to the park, they ran a couple miles through the paths and trails moving toward Pat’s pace and then stopped for water and sat on the swings before racing home, the loser bought lunch. 

They had been catching their breath on the swings for a couple minutes when Jacqueline asked completely out of the blue, "Do you keep a suit here?"

"Yeah, that grey one mom likes," Pat answered before immediately becoming suspicious.

"Are you busy Saturday afternoon?"

Pat didn't like where this was headed.  He could think of a handful of places where he'd have to wear a suit and he didn't want to go to any of them.  He shook his head anyway.

"If I win the race home, will you do me a favor?"

"Well, seeing as you're definitely not going to win, that's a deal I can make.  In fact, don't even tell me what it is, no need to waist your breath."  With  smirk, Pat stuck out his hand to shake on it.  Jackie got up, gave his arm a quick shake and instead of going to adjust her sneaker like Pat thought she'd bent down to do, she grabbed his left foot and flipped him backwards off of his swing.

"Famous last words, fucker!"

By the time he'd gotten to his feet, she was well on her way toward the park exit.  Fuck.  She was fast.

Though Patrick ran regularly and skated even more than that, Jacqueline had to have been running sprints in her spare time.  The race had been stacked against Pat from the very start and he'd had no clue.  By the time he got to the entrance of the park he knew there was no way he was going to catch up to his little sister.  Being the sore loser that he was outside of the eyes of the media, he decided to walk the rest of the way back and make Jackie wait on his porch.  He really should have known better.  Jackie was just as competitive as he was.  That's why she'd always been on his team when they'd played anything against their sisters as children.

It occurred to Patrick as he made his way up the driveway that whatever Jackie wanted was going to be something he really hated.  She wouldn't have  broken out her apparent secret weapon for anything less than miserable.  He used to have to play dolls with his sisters to get them to play soccer in the basement with him, it seemed their manipulation was never ending.  It definitely couldn't have been worse than playing house or doll.

Probably.

Maybe. 

Fuck.

Definitely.