Chapter Sixteen

POV: Leanna

When Terry’s brother and his daughter arrived, I was surprised at how much they looked alike. Almost twins, except Terry was a couple inches shorter then his brother.

From what Terry told me, his brother was two years older then him and his name was Nick. His daughter was two, named Aure. As soon as the two came in the door Aure ran up to Terry and hugged his leg. Although she didn’t know me, she hugged me next as I was standing right beside Terry.

“Uncle Terry, guess what?” Her voice was light and playful, which made me smile as I watched the two.

Terry kneeled down so he was closer to her height. “What?”

“Daddy says we’re going to stay here for a sleepover!” He squealed in happiness, clapping her hands.

“Yep.” He ruffled her hair before grabbing my hand and pulling me down to the floor as well. “Do you know who this is?” The little girl shook her head. “This is my friend, Lee.” The little girl looked at me for a second before throwing herself at me.

“Hi Lee! I’m Aure.” She smiled looking up at me through clear, trouble-free eyes.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Aure.” I said, politely, playing with her.

The little girl giggled. “You’re nice. Do you want to play with me and Uncle Terry? We’re going to play Barbie.”

I hear Terry sigh beside me and look around as if to make so no one was listening or to make sure there wasn’t a Barbie in sight.

I giggled at them. There were some Barbie’s around however and Terry got to be the princess Barbie, while Aure and I were both faeries.

After playing, Nick had to take Aure up to his room to take a nap. When he got back him, Terry, and me all sat around and talked. He was the first one in Terry’s house to mention something to us about me and Terry’s relationship.

“So…” He said, dragging out the word as he looked at Terry and me sitting next to each other on the couch. “You two are more then friends, huh?” I felt a blush on my face and was about to say something back but he continued first, plopping down on the other side of Terry. “Aww… How sweet. My little brother finally found himself a girl. We are so proud of you! We thought you were doomed to be dateless –and friendless- till the day you died. I’m assuming you haven’t mentioned anything to mom or dad, yet? Perfect. No, fear, bro, I’ll let them know for ya.” With that and one last looked at us he jumped up off the couch and walked upstairs to check on Aure, or that’s what we thought.

Only moments later he returned downstairs with a disposable camera in hand. I was never one fond of having my picture taken. Pictures always made me look so much different then what I looked like in real life. So before he could take the picture I buried my face in Terry’s shoulder.

I heard the click of the camera and looked back at Nick just in time to the camera take another picture. I looked at him surprised then looked at Terry, who was laughing. I looked between the two before hiding on the other side of the couch as Nick handed Terry a camera now. Before long dinner was done and I went upstairs with Terry to get Aure.

She was sleeping for a couple hours by now and it was time for her to get up anyway. She still seemed sleepy all through dinner though.

POV: Terrence

After dinner, Lee and Aure went back to playing. This time they were playing tea with a plastic tea set my parents got her for Christmas. Lee had given me my gift right before dinner, but I haven’t given her hers yet.

I want to give it her when we go out later tonight with my brother. Hopefully, I’ll be able to ditch him for a few minutes to give it to her.

I look up when my brother enters my room and sits down on my bed. I quickly put the bracelet back in its box and put it back. The whole time my brother watches me with an amused expression on his face.

“You really like this girl, don’t ya bro?”

I look down, refusing to blush. “Yeah.” I say simply.

I hear my brother chuckle and I look over to him again. “Well, that’s nice. Just be careful if you do anything with her. Totally will ruin your social life to have kid, you know?”

I look away from him again, unable to keep the blush from my face this time. “I’m not like you, Nick…” I say quietly. I had never thought about anything like that and I didn’t like my brother bringing it up.

I can practically here the grin in his voice. “Yeah, I suppose… I was never much of one for being weird. I was always the social brother.” I shake my head and look back at him. “We still hanging out tonight? Me, you, and your girl?”

“You know, she does have a name, right?”

“Yep but it’s so much fun to tease you now that you finally got yourself a girl. A cute one too.”

I look over at him and shake my head. “Whatever. But, yeah, we’re going out tonight.”

My brother laughs as he stands and heads out the door. I can’t help but smile and shake my head.

I turn back to my desk to see a little box with a ribbon sitting on it. On the tag was the word ‘Terry.’ On the other side of the box was the initials SM. I look at the box more curiously as no one I know has the initials SM. Although I found it impossible something told me that this was from SM. Serenity Montgomery.

I open the small package. Inside is a small chain with a design hanging from it. The design looked like waves splitting as a sword pierced them. I didn’t usually wear this type of thing but something told me this was special and that I should.

Carefully I took the chain out and put it down over my head. The cold metal of the chain hit the back of my neck making me put my hand to it, trying to warm it.

After a while, Nick tries putting Aure to bed, but Aure, of course, refuses. “No bed.” She pouted as I watched Nick try and take her away from her and Lee’s tent on the floor.

Nick sighed and shook his head. “It’s time for bed, Aure. You can play with Lee and Uncle Terry tomorrow.” His voice tells her that is it to the matter but Aure continues to pout. After a few moments she stops pouting and just frowns.

“Fine, but Lee gets to read me a bed time story. Kay, Lee?” Nick was about to object but Aure was already dragging Lee over to the bed with book in hand. My brother just shakes his head.

“Alright, but make it a quick story. Lee and Terry are going somewhere and don’t want to be late.” Aure nods but is already flipping through the book of fairytales to find the one she wants to hear. Nick leaves the room, shaking his head. I stay and watch as Lee reads to my little niece.

Half-way through the story I leave to go find my brother, who is sitting at the kitchen table talking to dad. It sounded like they were talking seriously and I quickly turn to head back up the steps to where I left Lee with Aure. I stop outside the door when I hear Aure speaking to Lee quietly in a childish but not very quiet whisper.

“Do you like my Uncle Terry, Lee?”

I hear Lee giggle a little and when she speaks I can hear the smile in her voice. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t be staying here for the holidays if I didn’t.”

“That’s not what I meant. Do you really like Uncle Terry? He really likes you. Are you two going to get married? Maybe when you get married, you can have a baby, then I will have someone else to play with. I would have a cousin. It would be fun. Then you would be Aunt Lee. That would be nice.” Aure stops talking to yawn. I’m still standing still outside the door. I want to know what Lee is going to say, so I remain silent, but so does she. “Goodnight Aunt Lee.”

“Goodnight.” Lee’s voice is almost silent when she speaks. I peek into the room to see Lee kiss my niece’s forehead. When she sees me at the door, she quickly looks down to avoid my eyes and against her attempts to hide it, but I see the color appearing on her face.

I chuckle and wrap my arm around her shoulder, leading her towards the steps. “So…” I drag out the word and wait for Lee to say something, when she doesn’t I smile at her. “When’s the wedding?”

“I don’t know.” She said, a little unsteady. “I’ll let you pick.” Before I say anything back to her my brother calls us from downstairs.

“You too, come on. Mom and Dad just got back, so we can leave.” Lee runs down the steps still tugging my hand as he hurry out the door and into Nick’s car. I sit in the passenger’s seat while Lee sits in the back, next to Aure’s empty car seat.

As soon as we park the car my brother goes off to chat with a girl he saw standing by the entrance to the ice rink, where I asked him to take us.

Lee told me once that she went to an ice rink when she was little and really liked it, so what better place to give her the bracelet then there. I admit, I feel a little stupid worrying so much about this one gift, but I couldn’t help it.

I never skated before, I’ve never even roller skated in my life. Yet, here I was, on skates, on ice. Lee held my hand most of the time, keeping me from falling. The few times she let go, I fell onto the cold ice. And each time I fell I heard her laugh quietly as if trying not to let me hear.

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Right... not the best chapter... Nothing really happens and I had writers block for so long so it's been so long since I updated... I'm so sorry. Also, this is very short, so I don't even make up for such a long wait. I'm going to try and update quicker, more like I did when I started this back in Februrary... i get more homework this year and theres more stuff because it's my Junior year and all, but I really do have extra time when I could work on this. I'm going to really try and update more often like before. Once agian, I am so sorry this took so long.

A.H. Fenald - Thanks so much for reviewing.

Sapna-Shanti- Once again, thanks for reviewing. I'm in the planning of the sequel... truthfully... I have no plot as of yet for it, but I have and idea for it that might have something of a plot to it. Also, don't worry, you'll find out more about what happened to Lee's dad and sister in the next few chapters. There are about 4 more chapters and the epilouge left... maybe more as I have a habit of adding extra stuff that doesn't really need to be added. I based Aure a little bit off my 3-year-old niece, who can be annoying but she is so cute too. Sorry, no mistel-toe, but Christmas isn't over yet, so there still may be a chance a a cute mistel-toe scene yet. Take your time reviewing, I understand that rl can get busy sometimes

Tainted Petal - Scared? Really? Of what? I didn't think I wrote anything scary. Oh, well Thanks so much for reviewing.

Sincerity54 - Thanks so much. I'm glad you thought it was good

Once agian, I'm so sorry this took so long to update. I'll try and get the next chapter out ASAP.

Oh, yeah - I'm thinking of changing my name to match my name on Just wanted to let everyone know ahead of time that, if it's available, I'll be changing my name by the next update.