Secret Identity (completed)

Hi Mummy, I'm home

Senna's POV

Mum and Peyton come running down the drive before I've even had a chance to get out of the car, just as I had imagined.

"Woah, Champ! I've been gone all of a moment and look how much you've grown," I say pulling my not-so-little sister in for a bear hug.

"You've been gone for almost a year," she says sarcastically while nuzzling into my neck.

I squeeze her tighter and kiss her on top of her head which now comes up to my shoulders, "I missed you kiddo."

She pulls away and looks up at me "I missed you too, Senna. And I ain't no kid, I'm 14."

"Come on, Son. Let's get you inside," My Mum calls out over her shoulder, interrupting our reunion. I watch as she drags one of my suitcases up the gravel pathway towards the door. The wheels clicking and scrapping as they roll.

I wrap my arm around Peyton's neck, "Come on, PeeWee. I wanna hear about everything." She hates that nickname but she smiles warmly. I give it a day before she's back to screaming at me.

Like me, her eyes are green and she has a small dimple on her left cheek. They're the two features that my Mum said first caught her eye when she first met my Dad. She also says she is now reminded of him every time she looks at us, knowing that we share this part of him, so I guess that's a good thing.

PeeWee's hair, like mine and Mum's, is dark and curly. When I left a year or so ago it was just past her collarbone and now it's halfway down her back. It scares me how fast things change when you're not around.

It's not like I haven't been home for a year, I have. Just for one night here and one night there. Nothing like now though when I have a few weeks off with no plans. A few weeks to really get back to reality and where my sister can fulfil the younger sibling duties and annoy the shiitake out of me.

As I walk through the front door I am hit by all the familiar sights and smells. I am relieved to see that nothing has changed. The family photos we took a year before my Dad died are all still on display on the wall directly inside the entry, the old lounge just to left of that. The spot when I knocked over the reading lamp and burnt a hole in the fabric with the hot glove on the arm of the chair is still visible.

I follow my nose and the sweet smell of home cooking. Making my way to the kitchen I find my Mum standing at the bench already icing a cake. Her curls messily restrained in a clip at the back of her head. She wipes her hands on the edge of her frilly apron and cuts three pieces, placing them each on the white ceramic plates we've had a long as I can remember.

"It's my new red velvet recipe. I need your opinion," she says sweetly and as she places the plates on the island bench.

Mum has always been a good cook, but she really only started to focus on it after Dad died. Whenever Jax and Beckett were over for band practice she would make us her taste test dummies, which I am pretty sure is the only reason the boys kept coming back because to be honest when we first started Gate Thirty Four we weren't very good.

I sit down on the bar stool at the edge of the island bench directly next to Peyton who is already halfway through her piece of cake. I notice the fabric on the chair is worn through.

"Mum I know you said you didn't want a new house but could you at least let me buy you some new chairs?"

I can see her thinking about it as she takes a bite out of her peice. Mum has always been very stoic and never wanted to take advantage of my success. I have argued with her so many times that I owe her my success and that everything I have achieved is her success too- but she won't have it.