Her Mafia Brothers

Pillow Fight

Logan and I were using our last day of freedom to go through the family photo albums and teach me all about our father. I can remember him a tiny bit; about as much as I can remember my brothers. Which isn't much. I can remember he was tall, with dark hair. He was a gentle man, but he was a powerful man.

Damon, Alex and Jack were all working, and Nick would be going soon too, but for now, Rocco and Nick were both leaning over the table with us, sharing stories about our father. They had a different mother to me, but we all shared the same father. He passed away only two years ago. Two years! And I never got to see him again, after Mom took me away.

A lone tear trickled it's way down my cheek and I swiped it away angrily. It wasn't fair! Mom had stolen so much from me. She'd stolen my innocence, most of my childhood, and my chance to know my father.

Oblivious to my sadness, Logan flipped the page of the photo album and there in the middle of the page was a big photo of Dad and me. The corners were ripped and the edges crinkled - it had obviously been handled a lot before being preserved in the album. In the photo, I was sitting on Dad's lap and we were reading a book. I looked about five or six - it must be just before Mom and I left. Frustration welled up within me and I started crying for real. How dare she take me away from the people I loved, and who loved me! I shoved my chair back angrily and fled, intending to run up to my room and cry but Nick was too quick for me. Before I even got to the stairs he caught me, pulled me in to rest against his chest, and held me close.

"Don't hide from us Carrie," he told me softly. "We're your brothers. We're here for you."

I shook my head. "I just want to be alone." I didn't really; I was just embarrassed at crying in front of my brothers. If I was alone, I would cry more, and probably get myself really upset. But that was better than letting down my guard in front of my brothers, surely?

"You don't need to be alone anymore, sis. You have us."

"I want to be alone," I repeated.

Nick straightened me up and looked directly in my eyes. "Do you though?" he asked. "Or are you just embarrassed? Because being alone when you're sad usually isn't good. Come back and sit with us. We don't have to look at photos, we can do whatever you want."

Slowly, wiping away my tears with the back of my hand, I nodded. "Okay."

I followed Nick back to the table and my brothers regaled me with tales of their childhood, and our father. They tried to make them as funny as possible and soon, my tears of sadness and frustration were replaced with tears of laughter.

Later that afternoon, a package arrived at the front door, addressed to me. Rocco carried it up to my room for me and I opened it: a brand new silver sparkly school bag, all the stationery I would need, a brand new rose gold iphone in the latest model, and the uniform for the private school I'd be attending with Logan, starting tomorrow. Excitedly, I stared at the phone, until the uniform caught my eye, which dampened my enthusiasm quite a lot. It was ugly. And when I say ugly, I mean UGLY!! The skirt was brown. Brown! The shirt was an off-white color, there was a matching tie and a blazer. It was the ugliest uniform I'd ever seen in my life, and believe me, I've seen my share of ugly clothes. I've worn my share of ugly clothes - many of them came from dumpsters after all - but none of them were as bad as this.

"Ugh. You have got to be kidding me. No way am I wearing this," I muttered. I threw it into the far corner of my wardrobe, hoping if I couldn't see it, I wouldn't have to wear it, and I got busy setting up my brand new phone instead.

Once my phone was set up, I went downstairs to find Logan. Maybe he would commiserate with me over the ugly uniform, and help me convince Damon to let me go somewhere else, instead. Somewhere with a better uniform. Or no uniform, preferably.

Logan was downstairs playing a video game in the lounge, exactly where I thought he would be.

"Hi."

He didn't respond, he was so engrossed in his game.

"Hi!" I tried again, louder this time. "Logan!" I all but yelled. "I'm talking to you!"

Still no response, so I picked a pillow up off the couch and whacked him on the head with it, knocking him sideways and sending the controller flying.

"Hey!" he yelled, slightly angry, but when he saw it was me his posture relaxed. He flicked off the telly, put the controller up on the shelf, grabbed a cushion off the couch closest to him, and advanced on me like a tiger stalking its prey. I shrieked and ran behind the coffee table but he leaped over it, his cushion held high, and whacked me with it, repeatedly. I tried to hit him back with my own pillow but he was too fast for me and all that really ended up happening was I fell over the end of the couch, landed on it, rolled off, and curled up in a ball on the ground shrieking with laughter.

"Come on, get up," he said, extending his hand to me. "It's no fun unless you're going to fight back as well."

I let him pull me to my feet and he let me have the first shot and the fight was on!

I don't know how long our pillow fight went on for, but we were both shrieking with laughter and chasing each other around the lounge, whacking at each other for all we were worth. We managed to make several cushions burst and there was cushion stuffing everywhere! We knocked over furniture, scattered the magazines, tipped over the speakers and crashed into the bookshelf more than once, which made some of the ornaments and photo frames on it tip over, but not fall off.

I raced around the other side of the couch and thwacked my cushion against Logan's chest, giggling at the grunt that followed. Hang on. Grunt? That wasn't Logan. I froze, and looked up. And up. Geez my brothers were huge! Logan was over the other side of the room laughing at me and Jack was frowning down at me. Oh no! I'd just hit Jack!

Jack snatched my cushion out of my hands. "Run little girl," he growled and I should have listened, but I was too distracted by Logan's laughing. Instead, I grabbed another cushion off the couch and rushed at him, catching him right on the side of the head. Jack caught up to both of us and, with one cushion in each hand, hit both of us repeatedly with the cushions. Although I could tell he wasn't using anything close to his full strength, Jack was wielding the cushions a lot harder than Logan had, and even though the cushions were soft, the impact against my body hurt.

"Ow!" I groaned, and Jack threw his cushions down. Then he snatched the cushions off both Logan and I, and threw them down too.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked down at us sternly. "What do you two have to say for yourselves?" he growled.

We both grinned up at him sheepishly. "Um... it was fun?" I offered, batting him best puppy-dog eyes at him.

Just then Alex walked into the room and shook his head. "What happened in here?" he asked, gesturing to the mess all around.

"The children decided to have a pillow fight," Jack said.

"Hey!" Logan objected, clearly not happy to be referred to as a child. I just grinned at Alex. I was still buzzing from our pillow fight and right at that moment, didn't much care whether we were in trouble or not.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "You made all this mess?"

Logan and I just looked at each other and giggled. Well I giggled. Logan would probably insist he didn't, but he totally did.

"Well clean it up," he told us. Then he ran his hand through his hair and groaned. "I need a drink."

"Get one for me too," Jack said, and they both walked out, looking at us sternly, silently reminding us to clean up the mess we'd made.