Everywhere, All At Once

Chapter 22 - Family Portrait

Kenna was sure she'd find Aaron sulking or sitting alone and struggling to socialize once her family started to arrive and spread around the house. She obviously didn't know him well enough. After her mother had finally finished reading her the riot act for not at least warning her about who she was bringing home so as not to make a fool of them all, then forcing her to cut up ingredients for a salad while a few cousins streamed by planting cursory kisses on her cheek, she'd gone into the living room to see him sitting with her brother and two cousins, drinking beer, watching baseball, laughing.

And all the worrying she'd done while she was stuck in the kitchen being scolded disappeared. Aaron looked up and caught her eye, and smiled and winked at her. At least he didn't seem angry with her.

"Yo, puta," her cousin Sara called. Kenna shrugged at the look on Aaron's face, surprised he even knew what she'd said. It was what she and her cousin had called each other since before they even knew what a puta was. "You gonna come sit down, or what?"

Kenna flipped her cousin the bird, as per their usual code of conduct, and walked back into the kitchen to grab another beer before joining them. Aaron sat up and seemed to be expecting that Anthony would move over so that she could sit next to Aaron, but she knew her brother better than that. Theirs was a pack mentality and Kenna was far from the alpha - birthday girl or not.

"You snooze, you lose," her brother said, pointing to the floor.

Kenna rolled her eyes, but sat on the floor between Aaron's feet, and her other cousin who was already sitting on the floor, Elena, who was probably too young to be sitting in on any conversation they all would end up having,  gave her a wicked grin.

"What happened to your crown and sash and wand?" Elena asked, and Kenna's face turned red.

She was secretly dying to dig out the crown she'd been wearing for her birthdays for the last few years and pretend she was the queen of the world, but having Aaron there kind of put the brakes on that. She knew she was ridiculous, especially around her family. But in her defense, they were equally ridiculous when they were all together - as evidenced by her cousin Hector, who'd just arrived, running into the room, sitting on Sara and farting, then running away, chased by Sara's roar of "I HATE YOU".

Oh my God, and she was embarrassed by her birthday princess act? She should've known her family was going to be over-the-top today, laying it on extra thick for Aaron. But when she looked at Aaron, he didn't look disgusted or bothered or confused. He was was doubled over laughing at her cousin Angie who was currently gagging her way off the sofa and onto the floor. Kenna finally allowed herself to laugh too. Aaron was surprising her - in the best ways.

Several other aunts, pseudo-nieces and nephews, and two or three people Kenna knew from church or just life in general, filed in and out. Angie turned on some music which more or less got drowned out by the chatter and screaming of small children running around, until the cousins started singing randomly and simultaneously to a few lyrics of certain songs.

Kenna felt her heart set to burst with the love and joy that always overwhelmed her when her family got together. This was why she insisted everyone come for her birthday every year. Not because she was a big spoiled brat - okay, not only because she was a big spoiled brat. But because she was the most real, the most herself she could ever be, when she was with them, and when they were together, sometimes things got a little crazy, but they were her crazies and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Somehow Aaron's eyes shone with amusement and genuine acceptance of the people surrounding him, though Kenna had been sure his head would be spinning by now. By the ends of these functions, her's always was.