The young blonde stood in the kitchen, blue eyes focused on the older male sitting at the table. Eyes narrowed, and she was practically glaring at him, while he seemed to be more interested in newspaper. Hands pressed against her hips in a very dramatic manner, and a high sigh rolled over her lips. Despite all her efforts to try and will the man to look at her, he simply ignored her and turned the page. Slowly, she opened her mouth to speak.
"Bu-"
"No."
"Bu-"
"No."
She let out another heavy sigh, shoulders slumping in defeat. For a few moments, her eyes fell to the tiled kitchen floor, then back up to the man. For a while, she was wondering if it wasn't the man she had wanted to speak to, but her father instead. The two did look so much alike, it could be that the man sitting in the kitchen table was not her uncle, but his twin brother who happened to be her father. One thing she did know about both of them though was neither read the newspaper. "I know you're not reading that," she announced.
He turned the page. "I know I'm not. I'm avoiding this conversation with you by pretending to read it."
Lips formed a pout, and the fifteen year old stalked up to the table. Both hands fell flat down on the surface, the girl demanding she have his full attention. "But why not!?"
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, his brown eyes lifted from the text to look at his niece. "Because I firmly agree with my brother on this one."
"Fine, I'll just ask Uncle Evander," she replied smugly, as if it would solve her problems.
Nat chuckled, shaking his head lightly at her smugness. Closing the paper, he calmly folded his hands upon it and looked at his niece. "Do you honestly think that he'll side with you on this one? That, if you sweet talk him enough, he'll even offer to drive you down there?"
Slowly, she saw her back-up plan crumbling before her eyes. Since when did her uncle turn against her? "I was hoping he'd at least try and convince you to change your mind," she replied meekly.
Softly, the male sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and clear his thoughts. "Look, it's not that any of us are trying to make your life hard," he began. "It's just that we all worry about you, and none of us want to see you hurt - especially your father. To him, things either matter, or they don't. Because you matter, he'll protect you, whether you want him to or not." He offered her a small, sweet smile. "I know how it feels to be on your end, he's done much the same to me. Even to this day, he still looks out for me."
Lowering herself into a chair opposite her uncle, she finally admitted defeat. "So there's no way to convince him to let me go to this party?" she asked, slumping her head down onto her arm that was curled on the table.
"I'm sorry." Reaching over, he tenderly ruffled her hair, smiling a friendly, warm smile at her. "He loves Evander, but if he ever hurt me, he'd stop mattering to Theo. If someone doesn't matter to him, then he doesn't care about them, and will show them just how much he thinks of them."
Her blue eyes lifted to Nat's face. "You mean, he'd actually fight Uncle Evvie?"
Nat nodded. "I'm old enough to take care of myself now, but your father still treats me like he did when we were kids."
"I really want to go to this party though..."
"There'll be other parties."
"None like this though. Aaren's going to be there."
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