Dissolving

Chapter 15 - Celebrations

We arrive at the restaurant twenty minutes later.

I have never been here before. It looks pretty fancy to me, but I am not an expert. It is not one of these chain restaurants we normally go to, however, so that in itself makes me believe that it must be at least kind of fancy. We are somewhere near the coast. That probably isn't saying much though, since the coast is omnipresent where we live. But since I absolutely love the beach and the ocean, I definitely approve of this place.

"Lily!" Alex calls out for me.

"Coming!" I reply, finishing my 360 degree turn to take it all in.

"Nice, isn't it?" a new voice startles me.

I look to my right and find Sean standing next to me, smiling widely. Josh must have picked him up somewhere along the way. He came back from San Francisco today and since I am sure that he wasn't at the house earlier, he might just have gotten off the train before coming here. Since Alex had to stop at the gas station to fill his car up, it is plausible that the others, who were with Josh, got here before us even if they had to make a detour to get Sean.

"It's beautiful. Why are we here again?" I ask, putting my hand in his outstretched one.

He leads me towards the entrance where the rest of my family is standing.

"We've got to celebrate something," Sean replies mysteriously.

"What?"

"You'll see."

"Sean," I whine.

"Just be patient, little one," he says, deliberately sounding like our oldest brother, even using one of Alex' nick names for me.

"You're no fun."

"Now that's just mean. I have you know that I am a bundle of joy," Sean jokes. "Come on now, otherwise there'll be no good seats left."

"What is a bad seat?" I wonder out loud.

"Hmm... let me think. For you, my little sweetie pie, I reckon it would be one in between Aidan and Sam. Or next to Ben, so he could bore you to death with educational pieces of wisdom all evening long."

I stare at him with my mouth wide open. I am not used to my oldest brothers bitching so openly about their siblings. They usually claim that this is immature and not worthy of grown-ups. I sometimes forget that Sean is different – in a good way – and that I might just not be used to it anymore since he has been gone for such a long time. He never tries very hard to be a role model or anything to us younger kids, making him very likable. He seems happy to just be a brother to us.

"That does sound bad, yeah," I agree and shudder exaggeratedly.

"As for me, I want a front row seat to see the sunset. There is no sea view in Chicago," Sean explains. "You look very pretty, by the way."

I smile up at him.

"Thank you. You don't look so bad yourself."

My brother is wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a crisp white shirt. I wonder how he managed to keep it looking so clean and fresh what with having spent two hours on a train. I also notice that his usual trainers have been replaced by a pair of brown leather shoes, matching the belt that is looped around his waist. Looking at him, I suddenly don't feel self-conscious about my choice of clothes anymore. I fit right in.

"Finally. One could starve out here waiting for you guys," Will complains when we join them.

At the sight of him, my face splits into a wide smile. It looks like Alex successfully bullied him into coming. I just hope we won't have to endure his bad mood all evening. I wouldn't put it past him to act up only so he can punish us because Alex forced him to be here. Not that I am allowed to complain, seeing as I have been getting on everybody's nerves until not even a week ago.