- feminine . touch [aimee]

[xavier]

Finally he was home. He could finally relax. College was tough, and that was a great understatement. It seemed as though it would always be difficult to succeed, especially when your teachers expected so much of you. There was a new composition task, classical. Xavier just was not sure he could do it. Sure, he had been classically trained for majority of his life, but he lacked the motivation and the muse to make a unique composition, worthy of someone like Mozart or Beethoven. Of course, they were not alive and would never hear his piece. But he often felt like the teachers were waiting for him to deliver them a composition quite like that of the dead composers. To Xavier, it was the oddest thing. He did not think he had it in him to write anything.

But Xave did have to write something. He needed to write a song. A song for Meredith. He loved her. That much he knew. He had loved her perhaps from the moment he had met her. His shy nature prevented him from even hinting this love to her or to anyone else really so instead he had to find another way to express his feelings. Xavier was a musician and so he decided that he would do what any other musician would do if they were in his shoes: write the girl a song. The song did not even have one line yet. It would get there eventually, hopefully, maybe. He just needed to find the right words to describe his feelings towards his best friend – one of his only friends in fact. The boy was not prepared to screw this up. He needed it to be perfect.

Walking into the front door he looked around for signs of life. Annabeth was probably out with her friends and Lily was probably at day care or something. So then where was Aimee? What did his older sister even do with her day? God, he had no idea. It dawned on him that he really did not know much about any of his siblings. Peter was probably the sibling he was most familiar with, because the two boys talked. Xave just did not quite open up to Aimee. Sure, they knew all the basics. The girls he had gone out with – and often the guys – who his best friend was, how old he was, what he was doing at college, but they did not know all the knitty gritty stuff. They did not know the stuff that really made him, well, him.

Xavier went into his room and dumped his bag down on his bed. The room was quite neat, for a guy, and everything seemed to have its own place. Looking over to the far corner, he looked at the guitars perched on their stands and the amp that was at the back for his electric. He had two acoustics and one electric in his room and there was one that he left in storage at the college so that he did not have to drag it back and forth between college and home. They were his favourite possessions. Them and the piano. The piano was not in his room though. It was in the living room, so whenever he played everyone that lived there could hear it nicely. He was often the one of the family that was entertaining whenever they had guests. However, he preferred to play guitar, for no reason at all except the fact that he saw guitar as a little more manly. With two older brothers who both played football, he thought it was important to have some manly features.

Grabbing one of the acoustics he walked back to his bed and started strumming out a few random chords. Sighing, he reached into one of the draws in his bedside table and pulled out a pen and a notebook. Turning to the first unused page he scrawled on the first line a title: ‘Merie’s Song’. That’s right, this would be her song, hers only. Maybe if she really liked it he would put it on YouTube or something so that other people could hear it. However, he had to write it first. So far all he had was a title and that had nothing to do with the actual piece. He needed to think of something to write, something that would describe his best friend perfectly. Xavier needed a bit of a feminine touch he thought, but he wanted to do this alone, so that it was completely and utterly for him. He wanted to show Meredith how completely in love he was. But first he needed to figure out what a girl wanted to hear. What did they like boys to comment on? Where were his sisters when he needed them?

[aimee]

Aimee was at work, a usual place for the brunette when she wasn’t looking after her little girl and with Lily at day-care Aimee was earning some money. Being a hairdresser didn’t exactly bring in a lot of money but Aimee was good at what she did and that meant her tips were pretty high. Today she was doing the hair of one of her more high profile clients and that meant making sure she didn’t do anything wrong. The woman’s hair was short and that made Aimee even more nervous because it had to be perfect, she focused as she cut the back before drying it so she could do the fringe. That was one of the first things that Aimee had been taught, always a dry the bangs before you cut them because they bounce up, otherwise their bangs would be way shorter than they wanted them, something Aimee wanted to avoid at all costs. A little while later and the hair was dry and the fringe cut, all that was left was the straightening. She pulled out her pink GHDs and began to straighten the woman’s hair, smiling as it all came together and the woman looked even better than when she came in. Aimee was taking her time because the tips meant everything but she also wanted to get home, Lily was at daycare for a couple more hours but Aimee had been in work since pretty early in the morning and she just wanted to return to her humble abode, it seemed silly but that was typical Aimee.

She finished up and gave the woman a view of the back before taking her towards the bill to pay, a moment that Aimee was quite looking forward to. Just as she expected the woman tipped her $20 and booked a return appointment, that was a perk of short hair styles, they needed cutting far more often. The girl thanked the lady and then headed to get her bags, calling goodbye to her colleagues as she left the salon and headed to her mini which was parked neatly outside. She climbed in, throwing her bag onto the passenger seat and heading home, to her salvation. Thing was recently her house had become home to a few others, her family had decided that they wanted to up and move to Capeside, she wasn’t really sure why. The house wasn’t so peaceful anymore, if it wasn’t Lily shouting it was Xavier playing the guitar or Annabeth planning a new way to convince everyone to be vegetarian, she missed the serenity but she wouldn’t change her family for the world, they meant everything to Aimee, they were mad but they were hers. Lily loved having her aunts and uncles around too, before if her mom didn’t want to play then Lily had to play alone but now she had two other options and they were nowhere near as good at avoiding her puppy dog eyes.

As she pulled up into the drive she wondered if anyone was home, Annabeth was probably out planning world domination but there was a chance that her little brother was home, well I say little brother in fact he wasn’t the littlest but he was younger than Aimee so that was what she called him. She pushed open the door and heard a guitar playing, well there was your answer Xavier was home. She smiled as she threw her bag onto the couch and she walked halfway up the stairs so she could shout to her brother, “Xave, do you want lunch?” she asked using the predictable nickname that he’d had since he was little, there was very little you could do with the name Xavier. Aimee often felt like she was playing mom to her younger siblings because they lived with her, she made them food when she was home and she offered to give them lifts whenever they needed them, it was instinctive, she almost forgot they were her siblings. She headed back downstairs hoping that the boy had heard her and she began to pull things out of the fridge and cupboard. She flicked the kettle on and began to make herself a cup of tea, her mom always used to say she should have been born English, she had an addiction to tea.

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[xavier]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,320,true]WORDS 642 | TAGGED AIMEE The sound of a car pulling up was not heard over the strumming of the guitar that consumed all of the boy’s thoughts. Xavier was so determined to get the song written, to be able to show it to Meredith. But her reaction was the thing that he was scared of. What if she did not feel the same way? What if she hated the song? He knew that she preferred the acoustic stuff, but he still was not sure if he knew her well enough. What if she totally turned him down? That would be terrifying. Xavier was not sure if he could survive something like that. He loved her. He knew that he loved her but he worried about how she would feel about him. They had known each other for a year now but Xave still was not sure if Merie felt that way. He was not the most educated person when it came to things like that. He just needed a little guidance from someone who knew more about that kind of thing. The door was slammed and Xavier paused on his current chord. He heard his sister shout up at him and grinned. “Sure thing Aimee. I’ll be down in a sec,” he yelled back. Putting the guitar back on its stand he discarded the still empty notebook onto the bed and headed out of his bedroom. In his opinion, he had the best room in the house. It was at the front of the house and had a large window seat that looked out to the front garden. Although his own room was slightly smaller than his older sister’s he did not quite care. Being a boy, he felt that he did not really need a large room. For some reason all of the Evans siblings in that house had double beds, though Xavier often wondered why. Lily was still so young and he found it rather stupid to be bringing people home at night with a kid around. Sure, he had brought people home before but many of them were just guys and he had assumed Lily wouldn’t actually think anything would go on with two guys. One day her young innocence would be shattered, probably by her uncle. Aimee never brought home guys and Xave did not recall ever seeing Annabeth with a guy anyway. Besides, he would act as the protective brother for those two, and for his niece. It was his job. Taking the stairs two at a time he walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Are you aware that your younger brother had to do all the shopping this week?” Xave laughed over at his sister. He knew how busy she could get and he knew that Aimee would know he was joking. “But it’s alright because I used Annabeth’s money anyway.” Closing the fridge he turned around and leant his body against it. “So what do you want for lunch? I’m not really fussed. I have some work to get back to anyway.” Pausing, he looked over at his older sister. “I was actually going to ask for your help with something. I just need a little advice.” Many guys would probably hate asking for advice to their girl problems but Xavier was willing to get all the assistance he could. Usually if he was organising something for any of his boyfriends it was easy. He knew what they liked. But girls? They were just plain confusing. Although Xave was sure that his older sister would be able to help him out. She’d been out on dates before, she had been young once, and she would know exactly what girls liked. Besides, she knew the object of her younger brother’s affections so that would give her greater insight into the problem. Xavier was lucky she had come home.

[aimee]

Aimee wasn’t bad with boys, just with a four year old attached to your arm it was a little harder to attract the opposite sex, plus as much as she hated to admit it, she was still a little hung up Lily’s dad. The brunette didn’t struggle to get guys attention at any point in her life but it was convincing them that she was more than a brunette Barbie was a bit harder. Aimee had been a cheerleader, ones of those girls that the boys assumed would be easy, problem was she wasn’t, she wanted a boy to love her, not lust after her. She dated on and off through high school but it was in College that she seemed to get her wish, but we all know how that ended up, Aimee bringing up her daughter all on her own. Aimee was pretty good at reading boys though, they tended to all follow the same rules which meant that when you had cracked one, you had cracked them all. She wasn’t exactly some kind of girl that could get whatever man she wanted but she found it pretty easy to read them and know what they wanted, whether it be friendship, a relationship or a short cheesy one night stand, that skill made her high school life a lot easier.

She smiled as the boy said he would be down in a minute and she started getting bread, butter and sandwich fillings, Aimee tended to stick with sandwiches, she just didn’t have the patience to cook anything bigger and she wasn’t ever very hungry. Aimee had noticed that her siblings were contributing to the housework but it was fair enough, they were living with her rent free so it was only fair that they chipped in where they could. Aimee’s parents sent money over to pay for the kids food but it was nice not to have to go out and do the shop, however she would never send Annabeth, she’d learnt that lesson. When Annabeth first moved in Aimee asked her to go to the supermarket and she even gave her a list but the girl came back with healthy vegetarian options that even Lily couldn’t stomach, and that girl tended to eat anything. It was horrible, so now Annabeth had her food and they had theirs, it would take quite a lot of horror stories to turn the oldest Evans daughter vegetarian, she loved bacon too much.

The brunette rolled her eyes as her brother complained about doing the shopping but then added that he had used his sister’s money, “well if you want, I’ll do the shopping and you get money to pay the bills?” she asked jokingly, the two were only messing about, neither was annoyed and neither felt like their side was unfair. “And don’t take Annabeth’s money, she’ll go mad, use the pot remember” she said motioning to the glass pot which sat on the counter, each week Aimee put the money in it for the shop and any that was left over rolled over to the next week meaning that Lily might get extra sweets or something, it was a simple way to control money but so far it hadn’t failed. “Well, I’m just having a sandwich, so I can make you one too if you want, but feel free to be more adventurous if something else takes your fancy” she said with a smile, Aimee didn’t like having big lunches because Lily had to eat so early and as she was the only child in the house Aimee liked to eat with her. Her eyes lit up at the mention of advice, Aimee liked to consider herself the Evans’ agony aunt, “ooh, advice! Spill” she said excitedly.

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