Georgia Peach

Chapter 3

  Janis was grateful the plane ride was relatively short. Two hours was enough for her to survive without vomiting once, Cady on the other hand clearly thought it was too short. Complaining that she didn't get to watch all the videos from her parents, so now she'd have to watch them throughout the trip. Janis was shocked to find that most of the videos so far had been much more action packed than the others, several of the videos they had watched on the plane were lions or cheetahs hunting. Which was definitely something she could get into watching more often. After disembarking the plane, which took longer than usual because Cady insisted she could get her own carry-on bags down herself when both Janis, her dad, and presumably anyone else on the plane with eyes could tell, knew that was a lie, and retrieving their bags from the carousel, they were released into the wild. Or rather, they'd officially landed in Georgia, the place of no return.

Her dad took the lead as the tallest, guiding them through crowds and looking for their ride, Uncle Craig. Normally Janis led them, while her dad checked through his emails and made any calls he needed to about work, this time however, Janis had to stay back or risk Cady getting lost in the sea of people.

"My Uncle Craig's the one picking us up. He's kind of like a straight, middle-aged, Damian."

"Craig, that's the one who's getting married, yes?"

"Yup, secret fiancee and all that," Janis stumbled and ran straight into her dad.

He nudged her, a smile clear on his face as he pointed ahead of them, "Wanna let Cady guess which one is our ride?"

Ahead of them there was several people with signs, clearly waiting for their respective family or friends or clients. One of them however was a 6ft tall man who, aside from his bleached blonde hair and thick mustache, would otherwise look like her dad was looking into a mirror. A mirror that changed his nice professional clothes to a ratty old baseball cap, a tacky blue hawaiian shirt, and khaki cargo shorts at least. In his hands was a hot pink poster board with "SNARK-isians" painted on in barely legible, glittery purple paint. He had made that sign when Janis was in middle school, when she had "officially denounced" all things "girly and pretty," and refused to use any other sign since when [picking them up for the holidays. There was also a small sheet of presumably loose leaf paper taped to the bottom of it with "AND KATIE" written in black sharpie.

Janis could hear Cady snickering behind her, even as her uncle was approaching them, arms open and a cocky grin on his face. Her dad wasted no time pulling his brother into a long hug, she forgot how close they used to be.

"Welcome home, little brother!"

"I'm ten minutes younger than you, Craig," The brothers parted and Craig quickly scooped Janis into a hug, "Yeah, exactly. You're the babiest brother. Also look at how tall your girl's gotten! She's almost as tall as us!"

Janis rolled her eyes, "And I'll be staying almost as tall, I'm 21, I won't be growing any taller anytime soon."

Craig ignored her, turning his attention to Cady next to Janis, she looked nervous and uncomfortable. She probably felt like she was intruding.

"And you must be Cady, I'm Craig. The handsome twin."

He reached out his hand to shake hers and Janis quietly thanked whoever was in charge that granted her uncle with the common sense to not just hug anyone and everyone without knowing their boundaries first. Cady's anxiety on the matter melted away, replaced with a sunshiney grin that made Janis' heart soar and- no, Cady's smile did not make Janis' heart soar, that wasn't right.

The others were oblivious to Janis' mental, totally platonic, crisis.

"You spelled my name wrong on your sign."