|23| Remaking Old Memories

Brooklyn's POV

We pull up in front of my dads old house and we all get quiet. It looks the same as it did the last summer we all spent here with him. There were new flowers planted in the garden and the house had a fresh coat of paint on it.

"Wow." Emily says.

"A lot of memories here." I say looking up at it.

"Makes me really miss dad."

"Yeah. Me too." Everest says.

"I think he would be really happy to know we're doing Alex's birthday here this weekend." I say as we all start getting out of the car."

"Makes it feel like he's here with us." Emily says as she gets the kids out of the car. Another car starts pulling down the lane.

"Who's that?" I ask.

"Probably mom and baby brother."

"Really?" I ask.

"You didn't really think mom would pass up a birthday party on Hawaii did you?"

"Yeah I guess not." I grab my bag out of the back of the car and pick Jessie up.

"What's up party people?!" My youngest brother says as he gets out of the drivers side of the car.

"Uncle Peyton!" Alex says running over to him.

"What's up birthday boy? What are you now, like twelve?"

"Nooo. I'm gonna be six!"

"Six? Oh my GOSH you're old."

"Not as old as you."

"Ouch." He says with a laugh. I just smile and go up the stairs to the front door. Everyone else follows and we all go inside.

"Is this the same furniture?" Emily asks. I put Jessie down so she can run around.

"Yeah. I told them that they could keep it just in case they ever needed to stage it again. The only thing different is the bed frame in mom and dads old room because I took that and the bed frame in my old room because that's the bed frame in Brooks room at the house." Everest says to me.

"So everything is still the same Emily and I's old room?" I ask.

"Should be. Bunk bed and the queen bed should still be in there. I think this weekend me and Peyton are gonna sleep in my old room, don't worry Peyton, I brought an air mattress for you. Emily and ... and the kids are gonna be in the room with the bunk beds, mom will of course be in her old room, and Brook can take the spare room."

"Why does she get her own room?" Peyton asks.

"Because I'm cooler than you. Plus I'm gonna be sharing the room, don't you worry."

"With who? There's no one else here."

"They're clearly not here right now. He will be here later."

"He?" Peyton and my mom say at the same time.

"Correct." I start walking to the room, trying to avoid the conversation they're about to start, but I couldn't get away soon enough.

"Who is this, 'he'?" My mom says.

"His name is Steve. You will meet him later."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"That would be correct."

"I mean there is a perfectly good couch out here he should sleep on."

"Why would he do that when there's a half empty bed in the guest room."

"Because-"

"Mom, she's 26. Leave the poor girl alone." Emily says. I smile at her.

"I'm gonna go put my bags in my room." I say.

"Did I hear you say Steve is coming?!" Alex says popping around the corner from the kitchen.

"Yes. He will be here in a few hours."

"Yaaaay! I love Steve!"

"He's met Steve?" My mom asks me.

"I mean he's been at my house the past week. We all had dinner with him the other night."

"And he was there this morning when I woke up." Alex says.

"That's enough sharing for today buddy." Emily says putting her hand over his mouth. My mother is the type of person that believes people should be married before they should even hold hands...maybe not that but she's very type A about that kind of stuff. I go into the guest room and set my bags down next to the bed. I couldn't believe how the house looked almost exactly like the last time I was here. It felt so weird being here after all of this time, and my dad not being here.

After a couple hours of everyone getting settled in and my mother playing 200 questions about Steve, we all decided to walk down to the beach and swim for a little bit. We set our towels on the sand and my mom sits down in the one chair we had down there. The hammock we used to all try and sit on was still hanging between two palm trees a few feet down the beach.

"Man, remember when all four of us used to fit on that thing?" Peyton says with a laugh.

"You think we can still do it?" Everest asks.

"No." Emily and I say at the same time.

"Oh come on you party poopers. Let's just try! Good photo opportunity."

"Peyton, it will break. There is no doubt about that." Emily says.

"Come on." Everest says. Emily and I look at each other and sigh.

"Fine." Emily says. "Hunny, if this works out, take the picture before we all die." She says to her husband. He just laughs and we all walk over to the hammock.

"Okay, guys first. That will be the real test." I say. The boys just laugh jump onto it. "Don't do that you idiots! The goal is for it not to break!" I say.

"Yeah yeah. Come on." Everest says. Emily sits down next to Everest and I sit down next to Peyton.

"Hurry and take the picture before this thing breaks." I say. We all smile and ... takes the picture. We all quickly stand up and look back at it.

"Told you we'd be fine." Peyton says.

"Shut up." I say with a laugh.

"I brought boogie boards. Who's ready to race??" Everest says as we walk back to our towels.

"Me!" Peyton says.

"Ladies?" Everest asks us.

"Yeah, I'm down." I say.

"I don't even know if I can still do it." Emily says.

"Oh come on. I'm sure grandpa could even still do it."

"Yeah whatever. Give me a board." We all grab a boogie board and run out to the water. The little kids and Michael stayed in the shallow part so the kids could play. We spent a while falling into the water off of the boards and racing to the shore. Emily and I gave up way before the boys did. We sat out on our boards at the spot right before the water breaks, watching the boys embarrass themselves. I look up to the beach and see somebody walking down the path onto the beach. "Well, I guess now is better than never for mom to meet him." Emily says to me.

"I guess. Here goes nothing." I say taking a deep breath. I paddle to shore to meet Steve standing there smiling at me.

"How was it?" Steve asks me as I set the board down.

"Little cold. But I kicked the boys ass's so that was a plus."

"I'm sure you did." He says smiling at me. He gives me a quick kiss before Alex runs up and soaks us both with a water gun.

"Alex!" I say trying to turn my back to the water stream. I wrap my arms around Steve and turn him so he's taking all the hits.

"Why are you using me as a shield?" Steve says laughing.

"Because I want to!"

"Darn, I'm out of water." Alex says before running back down to the water.

"Guess you'll just have to take your shirt off now." I whisper into Steve's ear.

"I'm sure you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Little bit. Yeah." I say scrunching up my nose and smiling. "Before that though, I should probably introduce you to the rest of the family."

"Probably." He kisses me one more time and we walk over to my mom.

"Mom, this is Steve. Steve this is my mom."

"It's lovely to meet you, Steve." My mom says standing up and shaking his hand. "I would give you a hug, but you're a little wet."

"Yeah, haha it's okay. It's nice to meet the lovely woman who raised this beautiful lady."

"It was a struggle, but she turned out pretty good." My mom says with a little laugh.

"I'd say so." Steve says.

"And the guy that Everest is currently trying to drown out in the water, is my youngest brother, Peyton."

"He looks exactly like Everest."

"Yeah, and they both are a spitting image of my dad. It's crazy. And then Emily and I don't look a like at all."

"You two look more alike than you know."

"Yeah, people keep trying to tell us that but I don't believe them. Let me take you up to the house and show you around so you can get out of this wet shirt and bring your bags in."

"Sounds good."

"We'll be right back." I say to my mom.

"Auntie, can you bring my other water gun back down?" "Please?" Alex asks me.

"Yeah. Is it in your room?"

"Yeah. I think it's on the bed."

"Okay. I will grab it."

"Thank you!" I smile at him and grab Steve's hand and we walk back up to the house.

"You're mom seems nice." Steve says as we walk up the stairs.

"Yeah. She's pretty great. She can be kind of a pain in the ass sometimes."

"Seems like a typical mom thing." He says with a fake smile.

"Haha, yeah I guess so." I open the door and we both walk in. "It's a little messy already because there are 400 of us, but this is the house."

"It's really nice."

"Yeah, my dad worked really hard on it."

"Did he build it himself?"

"Yeah. I mean he had help from friends and stuff, but it was all his idea."

"It's amazing. He did a good job."

"Yeah. He really did. And down the hall to the left is the guest room, which is where we are, the master bedroom, the boys old room and Emily and I's old room."

"I mean I'd say you could give me a tour of them, but i'm more interested in our room." He says with a smirk.

"Yeah, me too. You're smart." We go into the first door on the right and walk into the guest room. There was a queen sized bed up against the wall to the left with a couch right next to it. A dresser on the wall straight ahead and a tv on the wall across from the bed.

"Very nice. I like the view of the beach out the window."

"It is a very nice view. There's even a little terrace."

"Oh perfect."

"Very perfect." I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his waist. "I missed you."

"You saw me this morning." He says with a little laugh.

"Only for like 2 seconds. And we got interrupted."

"We did, didn't we?"

"We did. I have an idea."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. It's a good one. We get you out of this wet shirt, and I think we should probably pick up where we left off."

"You know, I think that's a very good idea. Just so I know what I'm about to get myself into here, did you bring-"

"In the side table drawer."

"Oh my god, you're amazing." I just smile and crash my lips onto his. I move my hands down to the bottom of his shirt and start lifting it up, getting it over his head and throwing it on the ground. We fall back onto the bed. Steve lays down, looking up at me, his eyes full of lust. I sit down on his lap and his arms reach up and untie the string of the top of my bikini. He slowly slides it down my arms and sets down on the floor next to the bed. He looks me up and down with a smirk on his face. He sits up and kisses my chest. I grab his face and he looks up and me and smiles. I crash my lips onto his and he flips us over so I'm on my back. He starts kissing my neck, causing me to throw my head back. I wrap my legs around his, sliding my leg down and back up. I move my hands to the button of his pants and start unbuttoning them. I slide them off, and kicks them onto the ground.

Steve lays next to me as we are both trying to catch our breath. I look over at him and laugh.

"What?" He says, not being able to help to laugh back.

"Nothing. I just am really glad I'm here."

"Me too." I roll over and kiss him. "Alex is gonna wonder why it took us a twenty minutes to find his water gun."

"He'll be okay. I was starting to wonder why we had to wait a week to do that."

"You make a good point. We could go again."

"We could, could we?"

"I think we could." He says  as he starts leaving little kisses down my neck.

"As much as I would love that, we will get interrupted since we've been gone so long. I know my family to well." I say as he continues to kiss back up my neck to my lips.

"Fine." He says kissing me once more. "We can do it later, when everyone else is in bed."

"Oooo, like sneak you into my room, and try and be as quiet as we can so no one hears us."

"Oh my god, it'll be like we're young again."

"That's so hot." I say with a little giggle.

"I'm already excited."

"You're crazy. Let's go." I stand up, letting the sheet fall off of my body, exposing every bit of me. I grab my bikini off the ground and look up to notice Steve was still laying in the bed, staring at me. "You are ridiculous, McGarrett." He just grins at me.

"Will you tie the back, please?"

"Of course." He stands up and grabs the strings at the top and ties them. Every time I felt his finger tips touch me, shivers shot down my spine. I could tell he noticed by the way his fingers were now wondering around the back of my neck. I clear my throat and turn around to face him. He gives me a smug smile and walks away to grab his swim trunks out of his bag.

"You're a tease."

"I learned from the best." He says winking at me.

"I'm gonna go get the water gun before I make you untie these strings."

"I mean I don't have a problem with that." I just laugh and walk out of the room and go across the hall to grab the water gun off of the bunk bed.

"I was starting to wonder if you died or something." Emily says walking into the bedroom. I knew someone would come up here looking for us.

"Couldn't find the damn squirt gun."

"Oh I'm sure. Usually things in plane sight are very difficult to find."

"You're telling me." Emily turns around and looks at Steve as he was closing the door to our bedroom. She looks back at me and raises her eyebrow. "What, was he supposed to change in the living room?"

"It takes you guys twenty minutes to change and find a water gun?"

"Exactly. I'm glad we're on the same page." I walk past her and pat her on the shoulder. Steve comes out of the bedroom and I hand him the water gun.

"I'm jealous!" Emily yells to me as Steve and I walk out the front door.

"Do I want to know?" Steve asks.

"No."

"Okay." He says with a laugh. I see him check his phone, but he had a worried look on his face.

"Everything okay? I ask.

"Of course." He puts his phone in his pocked and grabs my hand as we walk back down to the beach.

"Here you go buddy." I say handing Alex his water gun.

"Thank you!" He grabs it from me and runs to the water to fill it up.

"You wanna get in the water?" Steve asks me.

"I do indeed. You just can't get your cast wet."

"Yes mom." I quickly kiss him and drag him out to the water.