A Little Bit Older

Airplanes are my least favorite thing – I’d always had sensitive ears and for some reason the pressure from takeoff and landing would always give me the worst headaches. My supreme distaste for airplanes was the main reason why I never came back to the states that often after I moved to France. I had come back for Meghan’s wedding but other than that had kept most of my interactions with the family over Skype because it was just easier than flying all the way home. As a result, I was now holding my nephew for the first time in my life in a crowded airport parking lot.
“He’s perfect.” I whispered staring in awe at his little face.

“Hold still, let me take a picture,” Meghan laughed as Zack took my suitcase and put it in the truck of his car. He’d driven and stayed in the parking lot with Theo while Meghan had run in to get me once I’d finished with customs.

“God, now I know why Mom and Dad are always fawning over him. Jesus, guys, he’s just beautiful. Please tell me you plan to make more.”

“Just one for now. You’ll just have to make some of your own.” Meghan laughed before taking Theo from me to get him settled back in to the car seat.

“I don’t think I could possibly make anything that cute.” I smiled before moving around the car to get seated as well.

“How weird is it for your younger sister to be married with kids first?” Zack asked restarting the car after we all got situated.

“Only the weirdest thing of my life,” I joked before adding, “No, it’s not that bad. I realized after Ryan and I broke up that I was so not ready for the wife and motherhood thing.”

“That’s the biggest lie ever. You’ve always wanted to be a mom, Rube. You would be the best mom in the world.” Meghan chimed looking back at me with a steely glance. She hated it when I sugar cooked with my very much failed engagement and first try at family life because she’d been the one who had helped me put myself together after it.

“Second only to Meghan,” Zack chimed and her face melted into a soft smile. She was wrapped around his finger and I couldn’t help but laugh at her gentle expression as she loving gazed at him.

The rest of the ride passed quickly as Zack drove up back to Huntington Beach. I’d spent most of the car ride playing with Theo in the backseat and utterly being in love with his perfect little face.
Zack wasn’t wrong though. It was weird for me to see Meghan married with a kid before me. When I’d been engaged the first time, I had been so sure that everything was going to go perfectly that the possibility had never crossed my mind. After losing my first (and only) pregnancy, it hadn’t even occurred to me that there was a chance that Meghan could have her first kid before I had a chance to have mine. It, honestly, wasn’t until I was watching her walk down the aisle for her marriage that I realized she was getting to do all those things before me. Not that I held it against her, of course, she deserved to be happy just as much as I did. I think part of me still wasn’t ready to move on and try and have that special type of relationship again.

When we arrived at Meghan and Zack’s house, I was surprised by the size of it. I knew that Zack was in a pretty successful band and that the family wasn’t pressed for money, but I also knew that Meghan hated cleaning.

“Do you actually clean all of this?” I asked in awe as they lead me towards my bedroom.

“Nope,” Meghan replied popping the ‘p’. “Zack and I do the big shit like dishes and laundry, but we have a nice lady who comes once a week and dusts and vacuum and does all that tedious shit.” She tossed me a cheeky smile and I couldn’t help but smile back. She was literally the same shit-eating little sister that she’d always been.

“Why am I not surprised?” She swung open a door and led me into my bedroom.

“Why am I so awesome? Some questions just don’t have answers, babe.” She laughed before pointing out where I could find everything in my room.

“I had Zack put your boxes with like living essentials in the garage so this is just clothing in here.” She said gesturing to the two smaller boxes that sat in front of my closet door. I nodded looked around. It was a nice sized room with a Jack-and-Jill bathroom that connected through to a small office with a closet that would be big enough for my stay here.

“It’s perfect,” I appraised while nodding and looking around, “Very… yellow?” I added noticing the yellow walls, bed spread, and curtains.

“I hate beige. Everything was beige when we moved in. I couldn’t stand it. I just randomly color coded different rooms. Zack’s managed to make most of them less awful but we haven’t really done much here.”

“You color coded the rooms?” I asked raising my eyebrow at her before plopping down on the bed.
“Yea, you know, like every room was pretty monochromatic. It was like straight out of a weird creepy TV show or something. It was super spur of the moment for me.”

“You’re so weird. That’s something mom would do.” I laughed as she tossed herself next to me on the bed and she nodded.

“That’s exactly what she said the first time she visited! That’s when Zack decided to start making some executive design decisions.”

“Good! Someone should keep you under control. Where is he, by the way?”

“Boy bonding time. I think he and Theo are napping on the couch together. He told me we should take some sister time since I haven’t seen you in eons.” She sighed dramatically before rolling her body overtop of mine.

“Get off!” I laughed before pushing her onto the floor.

“Somethings never change.” She murmured lovingly from her position on the floor before we both started laughing.

We spent the next few hours reminiscing about our childhood. All the times I’d pushed her off beds, and into doors, and down steps and all the times she’d stolen my clothes, make-up, and shoes. We talked about our brother, Teddy, and all the mischief the three of us had gotten into as children. We laughed ourselves to tears at some points going over all the thing we’d done when we were younger. Meghan was four years younger than me but now that we were older, that didn’t feel like such a big deal. There were times when she’d been my annoying kid sister, but now I couldn’t be more proud of the woman she’d grown up to be.

There was a knock at the door before Zack walked in. “Hey ladies. The guys are going to come over soon for game night so I bought Chinese take-out.” He said holding out the two containers. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, Ruby, so I got you both Lo Mein.”

“You’re a saint.” I exclaimed rolling my head off Meghan’s stomach and pushing myself off the floor to accept the container of food. I had no idea what time it was – sleeping for most of the plane ride and now having a nine-hour time difference had altered my perception of time, but the smell of food made my stomach grumble regardless.

“Who all is coming? Do you want us to watch Teej?” Meghan accepted her container of take-out as well before sitting up and leaning against my bed frame.

“Just Matt and Johnny, I think. And if you want to come down and watch him, that’d be cool. Matt’s bringing the boys too so they can all hang out.” Meghan nodded and smiled.

“Awesome. Holler when they get here and we’ll come down.”

“Yes ma’am.” He winked at her and left us to our food.

“Explain.” I pressed once Zack had left the room.

“Matt and Johnny – band mates. Once a week, they’ll get together and play video games. Normally at Matt’s house but he’s in the middle of moving so it’s been delegated to our house. The rest of the guys haven’t babyproofed enough. The boys – River and Cash – Matt’s sons. Cash is around Teej’s age. River is a year or two older. They wreak havoc together, as boys do.” I nodded accepting her quick explanation before tucking back into my food.

“Sounds like boys.” I murmured in agreement.

“Yea, actually, now that I think about it…” Meghan trailed off and I looked at her with wide eyes recognizing her tone of voice.

“What are you thinking?” I hesitated to asked.

“Matt’s single now… His divorced finalized like four months ago.”

“No.” I said quickly not even letting her finish her statement.

“Ruby! You’ll love him!”

“Absolutely not!” I exclaimed. If Meghan had one bad habit that I couldn’t stand, it was her penchant for matchmaking. Specifically, matchmaking me. I’d been lucky to be an ocean away from her for so long and away from her efforts to set me up with random men.

“Just meet him. You’ll see. His kids are super cute too. Oh, my God, Ruby, if you two got together, you’d have a perfect little family!” She exclaimed and I shook my head before shoving more noodles in my mouth.

“No, no, we wouldn’t. You know why?” I asked through a mouth filled with food. “Because he’s got an ex-wife slash baby momma. It would not be a perfect little family. It would be a big complicated mess.”

Nothing I said was getting through to her though and her eyes were glittering with the mayhem I knew she was about to cause on my life.