11// ~Game~

When we got back to their house, Morgan parked the car in the garage and we all got out and headed inside. I was shocked again at how big and fancy it was. It wasn't the typical 'modern' house where everything was grey, black, white, and plain, it was the type of fancy that looked live in. Although most of the stuff had a darker color and there was a lot of black, it still had character to it. Life.

"Want me to show you your room so you can put your stuff down first?"

I nod to Athena and follow her when she starts walking. We go down a hallway and up a set of stairs and down even more hallways. I don't know how I'm not going to get lost in this place! It's like a big maze!

I've never been to a corn maze before, or any maze actually. I wonder if I would be good at getting through it. Oh what am I thinking, I probably wouldn't be able to find the exit on my own. It would take me days and days!

That would be super duper scary!

We finally stop walking and she opens the door for me, allowing me to head in first.

"Woah...it's beautiful!" I say probably a little bit too loud for inside. Setting my small bag onto the ground, I open it up and take tootsie out of the bag. I hold her under my arm and jump onto the bed, squealing and bouncing up and down! "Oh...my...goodness...I...love...it." I say in between jumps.

"Alright alright I know you're excited and I'm very glad but let's not jump on the bed okay, it's not very safe."

I stop jumping and sit down on my butt on the end of the bed pouting. "Okay." I mumble.

"Good girl. You ready to head downstairs now?"

I nod my head and hop off the bed, placing my feet onto the ground. "Ready." She grabs onto my hand and begins to walk out of the room. "Wait." I let go of her hand and run back to the bed, grabbing tootsie who I had dropped when bouncing earlier. I run back up to her and grab her hand again, looking up and smiling at her. "Okay, now I'm ready."

She smiles back at me and starts walking again. Good thing she's here or else I would be lost by now.

We make it back to the main living area where Morgan and Dani are sitting on the couch, chatting.

"You got everything set in your room honey?" Dani asks me.

"Uh-huh, it's super pretty in there!"

"Well thank you. So, do you know what you want to do. We can just chill out or we have a bunch of board games we can play, or is there something else you want to do?"

"Mmmhhh." I think for a second before replying. "Can we play a board game please?"

"Of course, if you look on the bottom shelves right over there next to the tv there are a bunch of choices you can choose from."

I walk over to where she pointed to and crouch down on the floor, looking through the games. There's chutes and ladders, monopoly, twister, candy land, sorry, life, wow they have a bunch! They could make a room in the house be a board game room! After looking through all of the games I decide on playing candy land.

I pick it up off the shelf and carry it over to them, holding it up in my hands. "Got it! Can we play this one please?" I smile at them.

"That's a perfect choice sweetie, let's put it down on the table here and we can get started." Morgan tells me.

I place it down onto the coffee table and we all sit around it as I open up the box and get everything out. I wait for them to pick out what color they want, but Dani lets me choose first. "You can pick out the color first, which one do you want?"

"Oh, um, I think I'm gonna choose...yellow!" I shout and hold it up in the air.

"Alright, inside voices though please." Dani reminds me.

I apologize and try to forget about it but it makes me sad. I hope they don't think I'm a bad girl. I try my best to listen and behave. Sometimes I just get to excited and forget some things, like when i ran down the stairs at my house. I know it's not that safe but I forgot all about it in the moment. They don't seem mad at me or anything though so hopefully they aren't secretly in their heads.

"Are you gonna pick out a card Ara?" Morgan says.

Oops I got distracted. "Ya, sorry." I whisper before grabbing the card and holding it up.

"Woah, what color is it?" Athena asks me.

"Blue!"

"Wow, okay then move your piece to blue."

I do and then look back at her for her turn to grab the card. "Good job. Alright I guess it's my turn." Athena picks up the card before moving her character to the color she got.

The game goes on for about 20 minutes before Morgan wins the game.

"You won! Good job Morgan!" I hold up my hand for a high five.

"Thank you sweetheart." She gives me the high five and we start picking up the game.

I don't get mad when other people win and do good. Why should I? Sometimes I've seen people get really mad when they lose at something, and I guess it can be a little sad if you tried super duper hard, but when you lose it means that somebody else and got to feel really happy!

We pick up the game, placing everything neatly back into the box and I pick it up, bringing it over to the shelf to put it away before any of them can beat me to it.

You always have to pick up, and put your stuff back where you found it from!

I place it onto the shelf and skip back over to the living room. All the girls have now moved onto sitting on the couch, so I sit down as well. I don't say anything at first, waiting until one of them speaks first.

"We can go hang out outside if you want. The weather's going to be okay for the next hour or so before it starts to get dark and cold." Morgan offers.

"Sounds good to me!" I exclaim.

The other two agree as well and we make our way outside. They have a whole outdoor seating area and kitchen, and then a giant pool with a water slide! That looks like so much fun! The view from the house is also super pretty, and the sun is about to set soon so the sky is beautiful.

They decide to sit down on the lounge chairs adjacent to the pool, and I follow suit, sitting down on one of the chairs as well.

"It's so pretty out here." I saw in aw.

"Thanks, ya it took a lot of designing and many edits of what would go where but we're happy with the outcome." Morgan says, looking around the backyard and smiling.

I stand up and walk closer to the pool, just a few feet away from the edge.

"Careful honey, what are you doing?" Athena asks me.

"I'm just looking." Sitting down next to the pool I lean over the edge to look down in the water before pulling back quickly, not wanting to fall in by accident. "How deep is it?"

"It goes from three feet to six feet. Why, you want to go swimming one day?" Athena responds.

I never learned to swim really. I guess I was never taken to classes when I was younger and when I got a little bit older I never went anywhere that required me to swim. Plus I didn't have a pool in my backyard or anything. Thinking about it now, it probably wasn't the best idea to walk into the water a little bit to pet the duckies before. Well...oops!

"Well maybe...but I don't really know how to swim." I pout slightly and turn towards them, still sitting on the ground next to the pool.

We sit around for a little bit until Morgan decides she's going to go turn on the grill and start dinner.

She makes some grilled chicken that had been marinating in the fridge since last night apparently, and I'm not sure what sides she's making. I guess we'll see!

I move off of the ground and we all decide to sit in the area near the outdoor kitchen that way we can all talk and Morgan can be in then conversation while she cooks. Maybe one day I can help her cook! I'm not that good at it but sometimes I like helping Grammy in the kitchen, and I'm pretty good at baking cause you just follow the directions and make sure you measure everything the right way and there's no way you can get it wrong!

I mean there is a way...but it's a bit harder than cooking in my personal opinion.

We continue our conversation while Morgan finishes up dinner. When she's almost done cooking and has the chicken off of the grill and onto a serving platter, we finish up our talking.

"Do you want to help us set the table?" Athena asks me, as her and Dani get up and head inside.

"Yes!" I jump up and follow behind them. Dani reaches into the cabinet and hands me a stack of plates while she moves to grab the silverware. Athena goes to another cabinet beside the stove and gets glasses out, and fills them up.

Dani walks into the dining room and I head after her, placing her plates down in their respective spots and Dani sets down the silverware.

After we finish, Athena walks in and puts the glasses down next to the plates. Two of the glasses have some sort of brown liquid in it, one is in a different type of tall glass with some red maybe juice in it, and the one she puts near my seat has what looks like apple juice in it. Yay! I love apple juice!

Morgan waltzes in and places the platter of chicken on the table, followed by the sides. She made some carrots and mashed potatoes. Not my favorite but not too bad. Hopefully I can get away with only eating a little bit, hehehe!

We all sit down, but before i have a chance too, Athena grabs the plate that is in front of me and starts putting food on it for me. She puts a piece of chicken on the plate and cuts it up into pieces before picking up the plate again and placing a small scoop of carrots and potatoes on the plate next to the chicken.

She returns the plate back in front of me. "Thank you!" I whisper a little quietly but she still hears me.

"You're welcome sweetheart." I wasn't going to say anything but if she hasn't cut up my chicken for me...let's just say it would have been embarrassing. I'm not the best at it. "Make sure to eat all your carrots before the rest of the food so you don't get full and not have your veggies okay?"

I pout, trying to hide it, but I can help it. Of course she has to remember. "Okay." It comes a little sad.

She smiles at me gently and we all begin eating, me with my carrots first. I finish eating those and move onto my chicken.

"Good job honey." Dani says from across the table, making me blush.

I eat almost all of the chicken before I get full and push away the plate a little, setting my silverware down on the table next to it. "I'm full."

"Alright, that's okay sweetie, you did a good job on your dinner. How about you go and put your pj's on while we clean up and we can hang out a little before bed? Does that sound good?" Morgan suggests.

"Uh-huh." I nod my head. "Thank you for the dinner, it was super duper yummy!" I say before getting up to head upstairs.

"You're very welcome sweetheart, I'm glad you liked it."

I head upstairs to get ready before we hang out and go to bed. I'm so excited to sleep in this bed tonight, it looks so cozy warm!

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Sorry if this chapter wasn't the best, I feel like it's worse than the others! Hopefully you guys like it! I'm planning on next chapter being a mixture of cute and sad.

Question for this chapter is:

What is your favorite color?

I really like a bunch of different colors, but if I had to choose I would probably say pink.

Bye bye, have a good day!

- lauren 💕