Her big brothers

Chapter 75: assignment

The next morning, me and Cole were woken up bright and early to bid farewell to our brothers. After all of the goodbye hugs, kisses, words of reassurance and warnings to behave, my three oldest brothers left the mansion.

"I'm gonna miss them," I mumble sleepily, as I watch the limo drive off.
Aiden ruffles my hair. "I'm sure you will, but they'll be back before you know it." He says reassuringly.
Cole yawns. "I can still get a good two hours of sleep before I need to get ready for school. Night," He grumbles, walking up the stairs.

Aiden glances at the clock, then back at me. "You should get some sleep too. Come on," He says, guiding me up the stairs.

"Aiden, wait," I say, stopping my brother as he was about to enter his room. "Can I stay with you in your room?" I ask quietly.

He sighs. "You'll be fine." He says, opening the door to my bedroom and gesturing me to go inside. I didn't feel like bothering him, so I just did as he said and tried to get some sleep.

After a couple of hours of tossing and turning, my alarm rings. I turn it off and get ready for school.
Once I was dressed and ready, I walked downstairs, my backpack slung over my shoulder. The living room and dining room were eerily quiet. I dropped my backpack on the couch and walked into the kitchen.

"Morning Mase. Is Aiden awake?" I asked our cook, Mason. Our old one recently quit, so Alex hired Mason around a month ago. He's pretty chill and he cooks delicious food, but he doesn't come as regular as our old cook did. Alex told me that one of his family members is extremely sick, so he frequently has to make sudden emergency trips to the hospital. Mason said he needed the money for all the medical bills, so Alex showed pity on him and said Mason could take as many days off as he needed, since they knew how to cook, and could manage when Mason had to leave.

"I don't think so. He seemed pretty grumpy when he opened the door for me this morning. Said something about me needing my own key," Mason says with a chuckle. "He went back to bed straight after,"

"Oh. That's fine I guess," I say.
"So what do you want for breakfast?" Mason asks me.
"Hmm, waffles, I guess," I say. Mason nods and begins to rummage around the kitchen.

I head back upstairs, wondering if Cole had woken up or not.
"Cole! You awake?" I yell through the door.
I hear him groan, and I roll my eyes. "Hurry up! You're gonna make us late!" I complain.

He sighed in exasperation, but I could hear the door of his bathroom open, so I went back downstairs, feeling accomplished.

Cole finally walked down when I was finishing up my delicious waffles.
"Where's Aiden?" He asks me, as I put my dirty dishes in the sink.
"Still asleep," I inform him, walking to the living room.

"Are you feeling alright?" Cole asks me quietly as he grabs a banana out of the fruit bowl, and plops down next to me on the couch.

I nod. "I couldn't fall back to sleep, so a little sleep-deprived, that's all," I say.
By the time Cole finished his banana and we had scrolled through our phones a bit, it was time to go, and Aiden still hadn't come downstairs.

"Should we wake him up or something?" I ask, not knowing what to do. Cole simply shrugs.
I sigh. Usually, at least one of our brothers always saw us off when we went to school. It felt weird if they didn't.

"I'm gonna go tell him that we're leaving," I tell Cole, before quickly making my way up the stairs.
"Aiden?" I say as I knock on his door. Silence.
I try to open it, but it's locked. "Aidennnn," I say again, knocking louder. "We're leaving!"

I hear some shuffling when Aiden finally unlocks his door and opens it.
"What?" He grumbles, still half asleep.

I stifle a chuckle, seeing him in his striped pyjamas with his messy hair. "Me and Cole are leaving for school."
"Did you seriously wake me up for that?" He asks me frustratedly.
"Yeah? I thought you'd wanna know..." I trail off.