The following story is my entry into the
Valentine's Day Story Contest 2023
. Your votes and comments are appreciated.
Family Fornication
"Where are Mom and Dad?"
Lainey Buckner glanced up from her cell phone and smiled at her brother, Casey. "They are on their way to Gatlinburg. They rented a cabin for the weekend."
Casey tossed his backpack onto one of the stools at the kitchen counter and headed for the refrigerator. "Cool," he said. "We have the place to ourselves for a couple of days."
"Don't get any ideas," Lainey warned. "Take a look at the weather forecast. It doesn't look bad out there right now, but there's a good chance that we'll get almost an inch of snow here overnight, and you know what Georgia drivers are like when there is even a sprinkling of white stuff on the roads. Even if we did invite some people over, not many would want to venture out."
Casey considered his sister's warning and agreed that she was probably right. Although their home in Gainesville would be considered the far northern suburbs of the Atlanta metro area, it was in a different county with fewer resources available to salt or sand the roads if they got icy or snow-covered.
Lainey attended Brenau University, which was in downtown Gainesville, so she could likely find some of her friends and classmates close enough to not be bothered driving to their house for a party. Casey suspected that she wasn't interested in doing so because she knew that most of his friends and classmates at Georgia Tech wouldn't be willing to traverse the roads if the weather turned bad.
Lainey was the most selfless older sister any guy could have. She would never purposely partake in something that she couldn't share with her brother. While technically his older sister, since she was born almost eleven months before Casey, they had grown up as virtual twins. Being born in the same calendar year, the siblings were considered "Irish Twins", but most people thought that they were true paternal twins due to their similar features and closeness with one another.
Lainey surprised her brother when she once again seemed to be reading his mind. She turned on her stool to watch him studying the contents of the refrigerator and said, "I'm not saying that we shouldn't have people over just because of the weather. I think that we need to spend time alone; just the two of us."
Casey withdrew a bottle of water from the refrigerator and turned to face Lainey. "What do you mean? We see each other every day after classes. I know that I get home later than you, but there have been only a couple of times this semester that I haven't been home in time to join you, Mom, and Dad for dinner."
"The operative word, Smartass, is 'alone'," Lainey said with a smirk. "Since Mom and Dad have both started working from home when was the last time that you and I had the house to ourselves for more than a few hours at a time?"
"How about, like never," Casey lamented. Although both siblings had proven that they were good, responsible teenagers and now young adults, their parents had never left them together overnight before this weekend. Their parents had always insisted that the brother and sister accompany them on weekend trips so the family could spend the time together. Now that Lainey had turned twenty-three, an age that Casey would match next November, it looked like their parents decided it was time to leave them alone at last.
The fact that both were also in the final semester of their last year of college, and typically had a lot of studying to get done on the weekends, may have also contributed to their parents deciding to leave them both home instead of making them drive to Gatlinburg with them. Lainey and her brother had always gotten along well, sharing things with each other without hesitation. They were not always as excited about sharing things with their parents. Tastes in music, movies, television shows, and even games were vastly different between the parents and the siblings. Being able to spend a weekend not having to consider their parents' desires would be a welcome change.
"So, how much homework do you have this weekend?" Lainey asked.
Casey took a sip of water and said, "Not too much. I'll need to remotely log onto the sandbox server in the robotics lab to troubleshoot some code that is causing my project to get hung in a loop cycle. It shouldn't take me more than a couple of hours. How about you?"
"I'm good," Lainey boasted proudly. "I could binge-watch the tournament to keep myself busy if necessary. I still haven't seen anything but the first round."
Casey was his sister's biggest fan, so he understood where she was coming from with her comment. The NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament had been held in early December. As the Libero for the Brenau Golden Tigers, Lainey was too focused on their last games of the season and her semester finals to devote any time to watching the NCAA tournament. Lainey had received special recognition as the 2022 NAIA Northeast Region Defender of the Year for her all-star performance during her final season. She had registered 414 digs and was a defensive stalwart for the Brenau team the entire season. Lainey's biggest honor was being named the AAC Libero of the Year to cap her outstanding college volleyball career.
"I was thinking about making enchiladas for dinner," Lainey said. "What do you think?"
Casey liked Lainey's cooking but didn't want to burden her with cooking for just the two of them. He suggested, "We could go to La Parrilla if you want enchiladas. My treat. Or, we could order them as take-out and I could go pick them up."
"We can't order Margaritas to-go," Lainey replied with a smile. "So, let's go there, eat, and get back home before the weather turns ugly. You can drive since your car is probably still warm."
~~~
"How were you able to squirrel away enough money to be able to treat us to eating out?" Lainey asked as they entered the foyer of their house after dinner. She had seen that their dinner tab, with drinks, had been over $75.