Family Matters

Chapter Forty Five

"Oh, I think I'm going to cry" Kade said as he continued to fix Max's hair.

"Ugh, I don't even understand why you have to do this. It's just a photo" Max grumbled.

"It's your graduation photo Maxi, it's gonna be all over the house. Do you really want an ugly photo of you framed on the wall?" Ares asked and Max just continued to sulk as Kade finished his hair.

I looked at him in awe when he stood out of his seat. Max was wearing a black tuxedo that Lance had pretty much forced him to wear and his hair was neatly styled so that it would stayed out of his face. I could see Max reach up to touch his hair but Kade smacked it away with the comb in his hand.

"Don't touch it, I just spent an hour on it!" Kade whined.

"You don't have to remind me" Max said as he clutched his hand to his chest.

"My baby is really graduating. I don't think I can deal" Kade said as he wiped at the tears forming in his eyes.

"Can you save the tears for the actual graduation?" Ares said with a short laugh.

"I'm sorry, it's just that I keep thinking that once Max's graduation is over then next comes Ceres' and I don't think I'm ready for that" Kade said as he sat down and started fanning himself.

"Oh yeah, he's going to have a ball when you're time to shine comes around" Ares said looking to me.

Well, Kade has three years to prepare himself. He should be ready by then, right?

"Your prom is coming up too, shit...we're gonna need a defibrillator" Ares muttered.

"Listen, can we go? If we sit around here waiting for Kade to pull himself together, I'm going to miss my time slot" Max said and that's when we had all headed off to school.

"Ross....what is all this?" I asked picking up the rubber duck that he had placed on my desk.

Since it was nearing the last weeks of school, the teachers had started asking us to clear out our lockers so that they can be cleaned for next year. I didn't have much in my own locker other than my textbooks that have to be eventually returned to the teachers.

Ross however seemed to have all different kinds of things in his locker.

"Well, sometimes I get tired of carrying things in my bag so I just put them in my locker to make my bag lighter...I guess I forgot how much stuff was actually in there" Ross said.

"And you put it on my desk because...?" I asked trailing off as I looked at all the junk that was on the desk.

There was a rubber ducky, a half eaten sandwich, a butter knife (I don't even want to know), and a bunch of papers that went ungraded because Ross failed to hand them in. And this was just the stuff that could fit on my desk.

"Why is there a half eaten sandwich in your locker?" Hayden asked with a disgusted expression.

"Oh that? It isn't mine. I used to keep a puppy in my locker but then one day I came back and he wasn't there anymore" Ross said and we all gaped at him.

"Why did you keep a puppy in your locker?!" Diana exclaimed.

"It looked like it was abandoned so I tried to take care of it..." he said.

Hayden gave a sigh.

"Did it have a collar on it?" He asked.

"I don't know, I can't really remember" Ross said as he pulled a thinking expression.