Laehouse Surprises for the Twins

I dried myself off with a soft, plush towel as best as I could. I tried to ensure that neither my wet swimsuit top nor my hair would drip any water before I hung the bright blue towel back on the rack it came from to (hopefully) dry before its next use.

Hailey was still in happily humming to herself in the shower when I stepped back into the bedroom, leaving the door mostly-closed behind me. I spotted the other half of my swimsuit lying abandoned on the floor and I went to it and slid it up over my legs to rest in place on my hips. I untucked the skirt from where it got stuck against my leg on the side and started looking around the room, seeing if I could find any sort of other comforter, since the one on the bed was completely soiled. I hunted all around the room, starting with looking through the many shelves and drawers throughout the room, but nowhere seemed to have any sort of bedding that I could find.

I was still shoulder-deep in the armoire searching when I heard the creaking of a door swinging open. I peeked my head out and saw Mama Aira had come back into the room, still missing her bikini bottoms, which lay crumpled on the floor near where mine had been.

"Hi Mama," I said, and she looked around the room until she spotted me, half-hidden behind the door of the armoire from her perspective.

"Oh, hi, Sweetie. What are you doing in there?" she asked. "Do you need help with something?"

"I was hoping there might be a spare blanket or something," I said, pulling back and finally admitting defeat to myself.

She looked over at the bed and giggled. "Oh, yeah, I guess we made a bit of a mess, didn't we? Well, you probably won't find anything in here, but there's some linen closets throughout the house. There's one downstairs and one up here, as far as I know. I can show it to you later and we'll grab new bedding for you," she said, sounding unconcerned.

"Well... what do we do for now, then?" I asked, and she giggled.

"Once your sister is ready, we'll take our tour," she said, smiling at me before she turned to look around the room for her discarded swimsuit bottoms.

"Over there," I said, pointing, and she turned to look in the direction I aimed my finger, beside the foot of the bed.

"Thanks," she said gratefully, making a beeline for them. "We better not take too long, I'm sure Eliza is already having a conniption fit about how long we're taking."

I nodded, knowing she might very well be right. Eliza was very casual about some things, but if she had a specific idea of how she wanted something to work, she could be bullheaded about it. So, if she wanted us to go to the lake, it wouldn't surprise me if she was upset that we were taking longer than Mama Aira's prediction of a half-hour, which had likely already elapsed. A glance down at my phone screen confirmed that we were pushing 50 minutes now, and I knew Mama Eliza was likely getting impatient by now.

The bathroom door pushed open and Hailey stepped out into the room, wrapped modestly in a towel that matched the one I had dried off with just a short bit ago.

"Hello, Darling," Mama Aira said, beaming at her. "How are you feeling?"

She flushed, but held Mama's gaze with a shy smile. "Good, Mama. Really good."

"That's fantastic news, Darling. I'm so glad to hear it. I hope you're almost ready to start the tour; I'm not sure how much time we have left before Eliza gets upset with us for being gone too long."

Hailey giggled. "Yeah, she probably already is. She's not very good at waiting," she said as she made her way over to her swimsuit, still in a neatly-folded pile on the ground. She slid the navy bikini bottoms up her body (pushing the towel out of the way as she went) until they rested high on her hips, smooth against her skin.

"Can one of you help me?" she asked, holding up the bikini top out at us, and Mama and I both started moving toward her to offer our help, which made us all giggle.

"Here," Mama Aira said, reaching out and lightly grabbing Hailey's hair in her hands, holding it up and out of the way. "I'll hold this and you can put on the top, Hazel," she said, and I nodded, accepting the bikini top from my sister's outstretched hand.

With her hands free, Hailey reached up and undid the fold that was holding the towel in place and it fell off her body, exposing her big, beautiful breasts. Every time I saw them I felt awestruck, and filled with the desire to reach out and touch them. It wasn't

fair

that she got to have bigger boobs than I did, but... at least they were fun to play with. I reached out to cup one of her breasts in my free hand and marveled at the soft squishing sensation.

She giggled. "Hazel," she said, her tone lightly chiding me. "Aren't we supposed to be hurrying?"

I grinned and nibbled on my lower lip. "Well, yeah, but you're just so beautiful, how am I supposed to resist?" I pouted.

I did as she asked, though, and started the process of orienting the bikini top on her breasts, preventing twists and knots in the thin, stretchy string holding the pieces of it together. I first tied the lower set of strings around her mid back, and then repeated the process with the strands that came up around her neck. I finished my movements with a kiss on the back of her neck, just above her shoulder blade, and she moaned lightly. I grinned at her response and placed a few more kisses in a horizontal line across her back before I pulled away, trying my best to avoid being too distracted from getting to the tour.

I had just finished when we heard a knock on the door, and Mama Aira barely had time to drop Hailey's hair before the door flew open, revealing a frantic-looking Eliza. Her eyes darted around for the briefest of moments before they settled on us standing by the bed and her eyes narrowed in our direction.

"Oh my god, don't tell me you've been here the whole time," she said with a groan. "I've been looking

all over

for you! Did you even start your tour yet?" she asked, sounding both incredulous and exasperated.

All three of us blushed and looked away from her, unable to find words to explain ourselves.

"Ugh... you absolute goobers... I went down to meet you in the living room, and eventually your Daddy came down and joined me. He wouldn't really say anything when I asked where you were, though... Ugh, what have you even been

doing

this whole time?" she asked.

"Oh, we were-" Mama Aira started to say before I quickly cut her off. Mama Aira was the absolute worst liar, and Mama Eliza was exceptionally good at spotting lies, so we had no chance of hiding anything if Mama Aira was the one to offer excuses.

"We were just talking for a while. We had a lot to talk about," I said smoothly. The others nodded, backing me up.

"Mmhmm..." Mama Eliza said, nodding suspiciously at us, her eyes narrowing even further before they started scanning around the room. Her cool eyes swept across the open doors of the armoire, the suitcases on the floor, and finally... the rumpled, damp comforter on the bed. They lingered there for a moment and a grin grew on her face before her eyes swiveled back to look at us, and I knew immediately that she saw straight through us.

"Talking, huh?" she asked, sounding smug.

I nodded mutely, unable to continue the lie. I knew it was up, but I couldn't quite let it go...

"What were you talking about?"

"Lots of stuff," Hailey said, trying to help me out when I didn't answer, but Eliza's grin only grew.

"Were you talking about whatever disaster befell your bed?"

Mama Aira groaned. She, too, was used to Eliza seeing through her attempts at lying. "Look, Mama, I'm sorry," she started to say, but Mama Eliza lifted her arm and waved away the apology.

"Oh, hush. Y'all don't need to lie to me, you know. I really don't care what you get up to; I'm just frustrated because I was looking for you. Come on, I want you to come with me now, okay?"

"I didn't even get a chance to give them a tour, yet," Mama Aira protested, but Eliza waved that away, too.

"You'll get a chance later. In fact, why don't we all take one as a family? You and I can show around these two as well as your Daddy. He doesn't know his way around either, so we can all look around the place together and check it out. But first, there's something I want to show you. Come on," she said again, sounding impatient.

She stormed back out of the room, not looking behind to make sure we were following- we knew better than to ignore her when she was already agitated. We followed after her when she stomped back down the stairs and into the living room where Daddy was sitting on the couch, looking relaxed.

"Ah, you found them, I see. Good," he said, grinning at her, and she just scowled at him.

"You knew where they were, didn't you? That's why you wouldn't say anything... you said we should just let them come to us," she said accusingly.

"Guilty," he admitted. "I happened to walk in on them, but I didn't want to disturb them, and I imagined you wouldn't, either, so... Sorry I didn't tell you," he said with a small shrug.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, you..." she said, but all the fiery anger had completely faded from her tone, and she sounded more exasperated than anything. "Okay, well, now that I

finally

have you all in one place again, can we go down to the lake now?"

Mama Aira giggled nervously and nodded. "I'm sorry, Mama, I didn't mean to get distracted." She had her head hung low to show her remorse.

"It doesn't really matter that much, dear," Eliza said. "Come on, we can talk about this more later, but I really want to show you all something, okay? It's already taken far too long..." she mumbled, trailing off.

"Too long for what?" I asked, and she shrugged.

"Too long for my liking. C'mon," she said, impatiently shrugging off my question. She started walking, leading the way through the house, into the hallway and through it until we came across another large doorway. This one opened to the back of the house and revealed a large wooden deck, stained dark like coffee. There was a nice set of patio furniture that included a couple of loungers and some plush chairs surrounding a circular table with a large, folded-up umbrella sticking through it.

Mama Eliza kept walking right past it all and went to a set of stairs that led down from the deck to a sandy path that wound down a hill. It was a slightly wooded area, but the trees here were much smaller than on the other side of the house. We walked together through the trees, and I watched as the overhead leaves cast shadows down on my twin sister's beautiful face to create a beautiful marbling effect of the light. I could have looked at her like that all day, but after less than a minute of walking on the sandy trail we'd found our way to a sandy beachfront on the lake.

The lake looked absolutely beautiful with its pristine blue-green water, lightly waving with the wind. There above the water was a relatively small structure that looked almost like some sort of small house, but it was raised up on posts so it stuck out above the water. There was a deck to get to it from the shore, and it appeared that there was a ladder descending into the water on the far side of the dock, too.

I was so busy staring in awe at everything that I stopped walking, and Mama Aira bumped into me from behind.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, startled.

"S-sorry, Mama," I said, embarrassed at being caught not paying attention.

She giggled. "It's okay, I had the same reaction the first time I came here, too. It's so pretty, isn't it? It's one of my favorite places to come relax. I like to just float on the water and look up at the sky sometimes, watch the clouds pass by," she said, dreamily staring up into the sky.

Daddy came up behind her, peeking around curiously as if to figure out why we'd stopped moving.

"Sorry, I got distracted," I said, and he smiled at me.

"That's okay, my sweet, you have nothing to apologize for. Shall we?" he asked, gesturing out in front of us, and we continued walking across the beach to get to the set of stairs that led up to the railed wooden dock that connected to the entrance to the building over the water that Mama Eliza and Hailey were about to reach the door to.

When we'd caught up to them, Eliza glanced around at all of us. "Good, I'm glad you're all here. I have a small surprise for you in here," she said with a grin. "It's nothing too major, but it was something I was able to arrange, and I'm glad it worked out. I'm sure you'll all be happy about it."

I was surprised at the confidence in her tone. What could it be that she was so sure we would all like? And why had she been so anxious about how long it was going to take us to get to it?

I had a sudden hope that she'd somehow arranged a nice meal for us all to share so we wouldn't have to cook, we could just eat and swim. Maybe she was worried about it getting cold? I didn't have a lot of other ideas, but fortunately I didn't have to keep guessing for long because Mama Eliza opened up the door and gestured for us to enter.

We started filing in one at a time. When I got in, I started looking around and sniffing tentatively, but there were no strong smells in the building other than the same fresh air as outside. I didn't see anything at first, either.

Hailey was the first to notice what the surprise was; her gasp drew my attention to the area where her gaze had landed, over in the far corner of the room where my older brother sat on the sofa.

"Verdy?!" I gasped, shocked. He had been away studying for months now, and had even been too busy to come by the house to celebrate when Hailey and I turned 18 a few months back.

He grinned at me, his warm brown eyes crinkling slightly. "Hey, sis. It's good to see you. All of you," he added, smiling warmly at my whole family.

I raced across the room and threw myself into his arms, and Hailey was right behind me. She hugged him for a moment before pulling away to just sit beside him, but I kept my arms wrapped tightly around him.

"Oh, Verdy, I missed you so much," I said, my voice breaking slightly, and I noticed that Hailey had tears in her eyes.

Our parents had more reserved reactions, but they were clearly still quite pleased.

"Verdy! Hi, how are you doing?" Mama Aira asked, her smile bright and warm.

"Good! It's finally my spring break, so I can actually have a chance to breathe again," he said. "I'm so sorry I missed your birthday," he said to Hailey and I, taking our hands in his. "I have a gift for both of you back in my room, I'll grab them for you later."

"I'm glad to see you, son," Daddy said, his tone affectionate. "How are your studies going?"

"I'm doing well, just working hard to keep up with my classes. I'm glad to have a break," he added, and our parents nodded at him.

"I'm so glad you could make it, Verdy," Mama Eliza said, her voice filled with warmth. "I'm sorry it took us so long to meet you here, your sisters got distracted..." she trailed off.

I felt my face flush, but fortunately he didn't question it.

"Oh, that's alright. I had fallen asleep for a little while, I just woke up maybe ten minutes ago."

I finally pulled back from the hug, giving Verdy a bit more space again. He smiled at me and kissed my forehead.

"I've missed you all," he said. "It's been hard being away from you all, I'm sorry it's been so hard for me to get away."

"You don't have to apologize, dear," Mama Eliza said. "We all know how hardworking you are, if you've been keeping busy it must means there's a lot to do."

"We're just glad to see you again," Mama Aira added.

"How long will you be here?" Hailey asked, practical as usual.

"I have the whole week here with you guys. That's how long Mom said you would all be here, right?" he asked, looking over at Mama Eliza, who nodded at him.

"That's the plan," she confirmed.

"What's the plan for food?" I asked. "I'm hungry."

Mama Eliza chuckled. "You're always hungry, Hazel."

I rolled my eyes at her. "That's not true, Mama."

"It's kind of true, though, Hazel," Hailey said, leaning in close and whispering quietly in my ear. "It's cute. I usually keep snacks on hand for you because you

are

always hungry."

She said it quietly, but Verdy heard it and laughed and pressed a kiss to each of our cheeks. "I've missed you both so much. Come on, let's go get some food."

"There's no need," Mama Eliza said with a grin. "Livia and Layla are here. I saw them when I was hunting around for you three," she said, looking between Mama Aira, Hailey, and I. "They were about to start making some food and they said they'd make enough for all of us when I told them we were all here, so they should be bringing it out to us in a little while. For now, why don't we all just hang out and enjoy the nice weather? Though, I suppose, if you really need to eat we can go grab you a snack," she added, and I shook my head.

"No, if they're making lunch, I can wait until then."

Hailey stood and turned to face me, offering me her hand to pull me up.

"I want to swim," she said, a bright smile on her face. She'd always loved the water, so I wasn't really surprised.

Verdy stood too, and grinned down at us (as he stood almost half a foot taller than us). "Come here," he said, leading us over to the adjacent corner, where he opened a door and revealed a wide selection of inflatable water floats, some doughnut-shaped, some rectangular loungers, and a few with more exotic shapes.

"These have to be reinflated since they've lost quite a bit of their air since we were here last, but you're welcome to grab a float, if you want," he said, and Mama Aira squealed with delight.

"Ooooh, I almost forgot about the floaties!!" She turned to Daddy with an excited gleam in her eye. "There's a really cool one we should blow up! It's massive and we can all hang out on it together!"

Eliza shook her head with an awkward look on her face. "Aira, Darling, if we try to fill that up right now, we'll never get it blown up before lunch. Let's save that one for later, and for now we can just use the smaller ones."

Aira's face fell, but she nodded. "Okay, fine. But we're going to later!" she insisted, and Eliza rolled her eyes playfully.

"Yes, darling, I know we will. I'll find the air pump in the lake house and bring it out to use to blow up the big float, alright?"

Daddy wrapped his arm around Mama Aira's shoulders comfortingly. "We'll still have lots of fun together."

She grinned at him. "I know, Daddy. I always have fun with you," she said, so sweet it was almost sickening (as usual). There was nothing Mama Aira loved more than she loved our Daddy- except for her girls, as she would always tell us.

I stuck my head into the closet of inflatables, suddenly feeling more-than-ready to get out of the building. I loved my parents, but they could be a little overwhelming when Mama Aira was gushing about her love for our Daddy. I grabbed a strange-looking float- I wasn't sure quite how it would work, but I knew I could figure it out. I pulled it from the closet and was working on a mental plan for getting by my parents when Verdy got my attention by clearing his throat, and I looked over at him.

"I know you haven't been here before, so I doubt you know about this, either," he said, walking back over to the clearing next to the wall. I wasn't sure what he was talking about until he reached down and grabbed a cord that was tied to the ground. Verdy pulled up on the cord and it revealed that a section of the floor was actually a hatch that pulled up to reveal a ladder that dropped down into the clear blue water. "You can just go out here if you want," he said with a warm smile at me before he jumped down and landed in the water with a splash.

I grinned and jumped in after him, partially-deflated float in hand. I plunged into the cool water, feet-first, and I sank down so far that I felt the plants on the lake floor brush against my feet. I kicked my legs to propel myself back up to the surface, and when I broke free I took a deep breath of the fresh air and looked around, spotting Verdy's head of dark hair swimming out away from the ladder and the shore. I flipped onto my back and I saw Daddy peeking through the hatch at me. "You silly girl, blow that thing up before you jump down," he said, chuckling.