Chapter thirty-five. :)

I rubbed sleep from my eyes as I made my way downstairs, I could hear most of the Johnson boys making a load of noise.

I turned the corner and ran into a hard chest. "Erg, too early for this."

"It's midday, Mitchie," James told me with a chuckle.

"Shh, not in my head." I moved around him and sat in one of the chairs, all the boys following suit.

"Good morning, dear, did you sleep well?" Phoebe asked as she set a plate of toast, egg and sausages in front of me.

"Yes, thanks. Thank you for letting me stay the night."

She smiled sympathetically at me. "It's okay; you can stay as long as you like, no worries. So, what's the plan for today?" She asked all of us. We weren’t due to start school for another few days and I planned on using this time to go visit my mother.

"I need to plan with Andy, she's coming over later," Trent said, walking into the room as if he was on a runway. "You guys need to help out." He smiled and stole a piece of his brothers toast.

"Oh," Phoebe clapped her hands together. "This will be so much fun." She hugged her eldest son while we snickered. "Mitchie, you need to help me and Andy pick all the right flowers for the tables while the boys need to help Trent with whatever manly stuff he needs doing."

Trent rolled his eyes at his mother but smiled. "Guys meet me in the garden in one hour. We've got planning to do."

~

"Hey, mum, I hope you're doing okay," I whispered as I sat down on the grass. My mother’s stone facing me, I bit my lip to stop the tears. "As you've probably seen, I'm not doing well in the boy department, I can't choose between these amazing guys who have all helped me in some way. I wish you were here to help me, I miss you."

I saw a rose flutter down and land next to my mother’s stone; I looked up at the person who dropped it. "Tony?" I blinked back the tears that threatened to leak out.

"Hey, I thought you might like some company, I overheard you telling mum you would be here." I nodded and patted the grass next to me.

"Hey, Mrs. Blacklov. Mitchie is an amazing girl and you should be so proud of her right now... She misses you terribly but every day she tries her best to make everyone happy, and we all love her for it. If you were here right now, you would see how much she's grown up and how smart, kind and funny she is. Me and my brothers all agree our lives wouldn't be as exciting if it wasn't for Mitchie." I felt tears run down my cheeks as Tony spoke.

"Thank you," I whispered as he wrapped his arms around me.

"It's no problem," he whispered back. We sat in silence for a while before gentle rain started come down. "Let's go home, we can visit her tomorrow, if you like?"

"I would love that," I smiled at him the best I could and stood up, taking his hand and walking towards the exit. "Bye, mum, I miss you."

~

As we stepped into the Johnsons back garden, it looked like a hurricane had struck. There were pictures everywhere, bouquets of flowers on the tables, different foods, balloons and other things I couldn't see due to the mess.

"What's going on?" Tony asked a passing Johnson brother.

"They decided to get everything done today so we all gotta pitch in. Hey, Mitchie," Lance greeted me, I smiled and waved.

"What do we have to do?"

"Test the food, decide which balloons are better and you've got the help with the flowers," he told me, before disappearing into the clutter of things.

"Guess it's time for us to split up," Tony said, kicking a deflated balloon out the way. "See if you can make it out alive, I'll take you out to lunch if you do," he winked and walked away.

I felt my cheeks flush; he was going to take me out to lunch?

"Come on, come on, no time to enjoy the view of his ass, get moving." I looked behind at Andy, who was ushering me into the mess.

"Andy! Not even a hello? Just a scolding not to look at someone's ass?"

"Mitchie, you know me too well, of course you get a hello." She winked and pulled me into a hug. "I really appreciate you guys helping out, I can't imagine what it would be like if they didn't like me."

"Everyone loves you, don't doubt that," I told her with a smile.

"I hope so, they will probably dislike me after all this work is done," she frowned as she looked around. "There's so much to do, I told Trent not to leave it till the last minute."

"What did you tell Trent to do?" Trent asked, appearing through a sea of pink, blue, orange and yellow balloons. His arms snaked around Andy's waist and I took it as my cue to leave.

"I'll go help Phoebe, see you guys later," I smirked at them and fought my way through the boys to get to Phoebe.

"Gosh, guys! Could let the little girl through," I huffed once I was through, they all looked down at me with a sheepish smile on their faces.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of colours, I tried so many different foods that I wouldn't be surprised if I put on weight. "Finally!" I tried to pinpoint the speaking boy but it took so much energy so I gave up. "That's all there is to do today, right?"

"Yup, thank you guys so much for helping us out," Andy gushed, blushing as everyone looked at her.

"You know we'll always help out," Robbie said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "You're going to be a Johnson and Johnsons' help each other out." Even though I smiled, I didn't feel part of their moment so I stood and walked outside. I let the cool air settle around me; I let my hair fall from its bun on top of my head and let it move around me in the breeze.

"There you are, I was looking for you," Tony's voice broke the silence. "I wanted to ask you something..."

"Go ahead," I said, looking at the stars, counting them like I did when I was younger.

"Can I be your first dance at the wedding?"

"You’re asking if you can be my first dance at the wedding?" Fifteen stars.

"That's what I asked," a boyish smile on his face.

"Don't you have to dance with your date first?" I asked, sitting down on one of the chairs.

"Normally you do but I'm not taking a date, I and my brothers are inviting people but they're not going to be our dates, we prefer to just have fun."

"Oh, okay." Was my smart response.

"Well, can I?"

"Sure, sure, I don't mind." I patted the seat next to me. "Remember when we use to count stars?" Thirty stars.

"Of course, I doubt I could forget, you use to sit out here for hours on end counting the stars, not realizing you were probably counting the same ones over and over again." He leant back and stared at the sky.

"Do you miss being young?" I absentmindedly asked him. Forty stars.

"Sure, I think a lot of people do."

"What do you miss most?" Fifty stars,

"Not having to worry about falling in love." He sighed and closed his eyes.

My head snapped towards him. "Not worrying about falling in love?"

"Yeah, I mean, when I was little, I didn't have to worry about getting hurt due to love." His eyes opened and I quickly looked away. "I wish we could go back to being those little kids that played pranks, stared at the stars and didn't worry about getting hurt by our beating hearts."

I bit my lip; does that mean he regretted falling in love with me?

"What about you? What do you miss the most?"

"Not worrying about hurting anyone." I stood up and left him sitting there, under the stars, staring after my retreating body. I counted fifty five stars, I beat the record of when I was a little kid.

I'm tired of hurting people I care most about.

~

Okay, while writing this I had to keep thinking what's Mitchie's second name? And I couldn't remember what it was so if it's different from before - if I've even mentioned it - then ...yeah :)

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