The 2015 R.L. Mathewson Chronicles Collection Read online

  “Do you want to come with us instead?” Jonathan asked as he walked past Jessica and gave one of her long braids a playful tug.

  “No,” she sighed softly.

  “It's going to be fun,” Sebastian said with an encouraging smile as he tossed his baseball glove to his twin and sat down on the bed next to her.

  “I know.”

  “But you want to go see the movie,” he guessed.

  “I guess,” she said with a shrug that he wasn't buying.

  “You guess?” Jonathan teased with a chuckle as he sat down on the bed on her other side. “You haven't stopped talking about going for the last month and you made us go to ten different stores looking for the perfect dress.”

  Sebastian thought it was closer to twenty stores, but he didn't say anything. He was too busy watching his sister and trying to figure what had changed since yesterday morning when she was driving them all crazy by talking about this thing and yesterday afternoon when they'd walked her home from school, wondering why she looked so sad.

  “Im not going to wear the dress,” she said, shrugging as she reached over and took the baseball glove from Jonathan so that she could toy with the leather strips binding the glove together.

  “Why not?” he asked, putting his arm around her small shoulders. “You looked so pretty in it.”

  “I’m too old to play dress up,” she said, sounding all too serious for a little girl going to a special showing of Frozen.

  “You’re seven,” he gently reminded her with a soft squeeze of her shoulders. “Since when is that too old to wear a princess dress to the movies?”

  “Since Kelly Sanders told everyone that only babies played dress up,” Jessica said with another one of those shrugs that he was beginning to hate.

  “Why do you care what she says?” Jonathan asked, taking her small hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “You love that dress, Jessie, and you’ve been looking forward to this for the past month.”

  “Besides,” Sebastian said, jumping in, “everyone knows she’s a brat. Go put on the dress and have fun. Don’t worry what that little brat says.”

  She risked a glance up at him. “Do you think it will make me a baby if I wear it?”

  He chuckled as he reached up and gave one of her braids a gentle tug. “No, I don’t think it will make you a baby. I think you’ll have a better time at the movie and party if you wear that pretty dress mom bought you.”

  “But what if Kelly calls me a baby?”

  “Do you really care what she says?” he asked with a teasing smile.

  Her lips pulled up into a shy smile. “No, not really.”

  “Then I suggest you go get ready for your party,” Jonathan said, giving a gentle shove that had her jumping off the bed and rushing towards the door, smiling for the first time all day.

  “Have fun at your game,” she yelled with a smile as she raced out the door, leaving them sitting there, mulling things over.

  “You know they’re going to pick on her, don’t you?” he asked his brother.

  Jonathan looked over at him and smiled. “I know they’re gonna try.”

  Sebastian nodded, sighing heavily as he got to his feet. “Then I guess we don’t have a choice.”

  “No,” Jonathan said with an exaggerated wince as he stood up, “we don’t.”

  *-*-*-*

  “What are you, like five?” Kelly asked with a sneer as she gestured towards the pretty princess dress that she loved.

  “No,” Jessica said, reaching up to fix her tiara, “I’m seven.”

  “Then why are you wearing that?” Jennifer, the chubby little girl that followed Kelly everywhere, asked, copying Kelly’s tone and sneer.

  “Because I like it,” she said with a shrug. “Why do you care?”

  “We don’t,” Kelly snapped. “We’re just wondering why you’re dressed like a baby.”

  “I’m not dressed like a baby. I’m dressed like Anna,” she said, sounding firm when all she wanted to do was find her mother and go home. As much as she loved her new dress, she was starting to regret wearing it, not because she was embarrassed, but because Kelly and her annoying friends hadn’t left her alone since she’d walked in the door ten minutes ago.

  “Yeah, like the rest of the babies,” Kelly said, gesturing around them to all the little girls who had dressed up as Anna and Elsa.

  “It’s a Frozen party,” she pointed out, moving to step around the annoying girls when Kelly stepped in front of her, cutting her off.

  “You look really stupid in that dress,” Jennifer said, earning a mean smile from Kelly.

  “Really stupid,” Kelly added loudly, drawing the attention of everyone around them as she crossed her arms over her chest with a smug smirk that had Jessica wondering if she’d made a mistake.

  “Who comes to see Frozen in jeans?” a familiar voice asked with a snort of disgust as a large tan arm was thrown over her shoulders.

  “Obviously someone that doesn’t really want to go to the after party,” Jonathan said as he joined him right around the time that she realized that her brothers were both wearing crystal blue princess dresses.

  “Obviously,” Sebastian said, reaching up to adjust his tiara as he gave her shoulders a slight pull that had her moving with him toward the snack counter where it appeared her father, Uncle Jason, Uncle Jared and about twenty other Bradfords stood in line, wearing various Frozen princess dresses and looking like they had no where else in the world they wanted to be.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she allowed him to lead her past Kelly and her stunned friends.

  “Taking our sister to see Frozen,” Sebastian said with a slight wince as he reached up and shifted the dress.

  “What about the game?” she asked with a wobbly smile as Mathew, wearing a dress similar to hers, joined them.

  “There will be other games,” Jonathan said with a shrug as they joined their father and Uncles in line.

  “Besides,” Sebastian said, still adjusting his dress, “everyone that wears a Frozen princess dress gets free admission to the party.”

  “And first dibs on the dessert table,” Jonathan added with a wink as she decided then and there that Bradfords made the best brothers.

  A Very Bradford Easter

  “This is probably the saddest thing that I’ve ever seen,” Danny said, sighing heavily as he set the brakes on his wheelchair.

  “They’re not really going to sign up to do this, are they?” Jodi asked, shooting another nervous glance towards the tables where nearly two dozen Bradfords stood in line, waiting to sign up for the town’s annual Easter Egg Hunt.

  Danny watched as his brother Garrett pointed out something else on the flier to the poor man that had been trying to explain for the past hour that this event was intended for children. “Yes, yes they are,” he said with a resigned shake of his head, accepting the fact that this would probably be the last time any Bradford was allowed at a city sponsored event.

  “And why exactly are they doing this?” she asked as she placed her hand on the curve of her large stomach where their twins were growing and carefully sat down on his lap.

  “Because they’ve been allowing teenagers to enter and none of the little kids have been able to find any eggs,” Haley explained as she walked over and handed Jodi a small bottle of apple juice.

  “Last year the kids were so excited about coming here. We got here an hour early, signed up and waited for nothing. As soon as they blew the whistle a half-dozen teenage boys stormed the woods and scooped up every single egg,” Zoe added with a sigh as she joined them, placing her hand on the slight swell of her belly as she sat down at the picnic table next to them.

  “Dad tried to talk some sense into the City Council, but they won’t put an age restriction on the hunt,” Haley said, pushing her glasses back up her nose while they watched the Bradford men as they each donned the set of bunny ears they were handed when they signed up.

  “The guys asked the kids if they
’d rather have an Easter egg hunt at home, but they said they wanted to do this with their friends,” Zoe explained as Danny wrapped his arms around his wife and placed his hand over hers where it rested on her belly.

  “The other parents complained too, but the Council wouldn’t hear it,” his mother explained as she joined them, shooting Jodi a warm smile as she sat down next at the picnic table next to Zoe, putting her arm around the younger woman’s shoulder.

  “So, to keep it fair, the guys decided to give the smaller kids a hand,” Haley explained as they watched every Bradford align himself with a child as a group of teenage boys, shoving each other and acting up, tried to push their way to the starting line.

  “At least this should prove entertaining,” Jodi murmured as they watched Jason and Trevor come between the roughhousing teenagers and the smaller kids stumbling over themselves to get out of the way.

  “Everyone ready?” the Mayor asked, shooting a nervous look between the Bradford men and the teenage boys, who’d given up trying to cut in front of the line and were now shooting nervous looks of their own at all the large men partnered up with small children.

  “Yes!” the kids cried out in unison, smiling hugely as they got ready to run as fast as their little legs could carry them.

  “Go!” the Mayor yelled and just like that, they were off.

  Danny watched as the kids ran for the field and woods, yelling with excitement as they pounced on the plastic eggs littering the field with a Bradford of their very own trailing after them and stepping in whenever a teenager tried to swoop past the little kids and grab the eggs. The men ignored the teenagers who were smart enough to go off to the side and grab those eggs, but the others who tried to swoop in and grab the eggs just as one of the little kids reached for it…

  “Hey!” one of the teenagers yelled in outrage as Sebastian and Jonathan swooped in and blocked him as he tried to grab the egg their little sister was reaching for.

  “That’s not fair!” another teenage boy yelled as Jason stepped in and blocked him from taking the egg away from the three-year-old girl that he’d partnered with.

  “Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” the little girl said as she picked up her egg and placed it in the bucket that Jason dutifully held for her.

  “I was going for that egg, man!” another yelled as a little boy dressed like Superman hugged a pink plastic egg to his small chest as he jumped up and down with excitement as Trevor blocked the kid.

  “This isn’t fair!” another yelled, gesturing to Aidan as who stood there, glaring down at the kid as an adorable little girl wearing a fluffy pink dress waddled past him, hugging the blue plastic Easter egg she’d managed to pick up before the kid could steal it from her.

  “At the very least, the City Council will probably place an age restriction on the hunt next year,” his mother pointed out as they watched the teenage boy, who’d made the mistake of trying to pluck a green egg away from the little boy that Lucifer had partnered with, started crying hysterically at whatever it was that his brother had said to him.

  “Then again, they might just decide to cancel it next year,” his wife mumbled thoughtfully while they watched as another teenager was reduced to tears when he tried to come between Uncle Jared and little Matthew as he picked up a golden egg.

  “That might be for the best,” Haley said, shaking her head in disbelief as Sebastian and Jonathan took exception to another teenage boy trying to steal an egg from their sister.

  “I let it go! I let it go!” the teenage boy cried out as-

  “Not again,” Zoe said, sighing heavily as she stood up, keeping her hand on her belly and headed for her boys.

  “I’ll get the first aid kit,” Haley announced, sounding bored as she headed towards the sign-in tables where the Mayor and half the town stood, staring in horror as the twins made sure that the boy sobbing hysterically and begging for mercy never made the mistake of trying to get between them and their sister again.

  “Not the face!”

  “Even if we don’t get banned,” he started to say, cringing when the twins focused their attention on a teenager trying to grab an egg from their little brother, “we might want to reconsider doing this at home next year.”

  “That probably would be for the best,” his mother murmured in agreement as the twins reduced another teenager to tears.

  A Mother’s Day Surprise…

  “Do it,” Matthew bit out, narrowing his eyes on him as he tried to stare him down, but since Jonathan had a good six inches on his little brother, he simply shoved Matthew away and focused his attention back on the book that he was trying to read.

  “Go away,” he said when Matthew came right back and commenced with his glare.

  “No.”

  “Are you really going to make me hurt you?” Jonathan asked around a yawn, already bored at the prospect of beating his little brother up.

  “Are you going to help us?” Matthew countered, intensifying his glare.

  “No.”

  “Then I guess the answer is yes,” Matthew said, not really sounding all that concerned about his impending wedgie, but that probably had something to do with Jonathan’s twin brother Sebastian standing behind him, adding his own glare into the mix.

  “You need to do it,” Jessica said, folding her arms over her pink princess t-shirt as she tried to out-glare their brothers and force him to get off his ass and do something that he was morally opposed against. Well, that and for safety reasons, because once word got out what he could do, his life would be in jeopardy.

  “No, I really don’t,” he said with a simple shake of his head as he did his best to find the spot where he’d left off, but his siblings weren’t having it.

  “Do it,” Sebastian said firmly as he snatched the book out of his hands and tossed it aside.

  Sighing heavily, Jonathan sat back against the headboard and gestured at the sad attempts that his siblings had done in their mother’s honor.

  “Why can’t you just give her those?” he asked, gesturing from a wrinkled homemade card covered in glue to the plate of burnt toast that Matthew had placed on his end table.

  “Because we love our mother too much to do this to her,” Sebastian said, taking a sip of the orange juice he’d hand squeezed for their mother and cringed.

  “You know what will happen once they find out that we’ve been keeping this from them, don’t you?” he asked, wondering if his siblings really had any idea, or cared for that matter, what this was going to mean for him, for all of them.

  “I don’t care,” Matthew bit out. “I’m sick of living a lie!”

  “Me, too!” Jessica said with a mutinous little glare that had his lips twitching.

  “You know what will happen when he finds out,” Jonathan groaned, shoving his blankets aside so that he could climb out of bed.

  “You won’t be alone,” Sebastian said, with a reassuring smile that he wasn’t buying, but what choice did he have?

  He couldn’t let them give their mother this garbage, he told himself as he look at the burnt remains and over glittered construction paper.

  He just couldn’t.

  Sighing, because he knew that he was going to regret this, he said, “Bring me my apron….”

  *-*-*-*

  “Oh….my…..God…..,” Zoe whispered softly, sounding at a loss for words as he sat there, glaring at the boy shifting nervously at the end of their bed, wringing a chef’s hat in his hands as he glanced anxiously from him to the tray overflowing with culinary masterpieces any man in his family would gladly kill to get his hands on.

  “D-did you really make this?” Zoe asked, finally managing to look up from the stack of apple streusel pancakes that had sealed the boy’s fate.

  “Yes,” Jonathan said, licking his lips nervously even as he gestured to the tray overflowing with all of Zoe’s favorites. “I wanted to make you something special for Mother’s Day.”

  “It looks wonderful,” Zoe said in a daze as sh
e glanced back down at the stack of pancakes.

  Eyes narrowed, Trevor watched as Zoe picked up her fork and tried a bite of the delicious-looking concoction. When she moaned, “Oh, my God,” and closed her eyes as she blindly reached out and grabbed onto his arm, squeezing it without mercy as she struggled to work past the delicious flavors and sensations fighting for her attention.

  “This is so good,” she moaned, taking another bite of pancakes as he shifted his attention to his son, who met his gaze with a resigned one of his own.

  “I’ll be right back,” Trevor said, never taking his eyes off his son as he leaned over and kissed Zoe’s temple.