Just to clarify any possible confusions: Nathaniel's POV & followed by Melody's POV.
Also, from what I can tell so far, I think:
1) Melody's visit to the Peyton estate might span 3 chapters. Maybe. And this is the first one.
2) After this I'll probably fast forward to the end of the school year, then move onto her Sophomore year.
3) Pigs will fly. [Kidding.]
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“You can stop here, please.” I exhaled shakily, rubbing the back of my neck somewhat nervously.
“Certainly, Young Master Nathaniel.”
“Hey,” I mock scowled, playfully punching my chauffeur’s shoulder. “I told ya to call me Nathaniel, right? There’s no need for all that ‘master’ business. What kinda friends call each other ‘master’?”
From the front view mirror, I could see my chauffeur, Russell, grinning from ear to ear. “As you wish, Young Master Nathaniel. I was not even aware that we were friends.”
I observed Russell from where I sat, a big, cheeky smile plastered on his forehead as he relished in my playful exasperation. “Aw c’mon, Russ! You’ve known me since I was in diapers!”
“If I may be so bold as to point out to you that I believe there is a particular appointment at nine-thirty sharp which you have declared as of the utmost importance. It is already five minutes past.”
“Argh!” I quickly stumbled out of the sleek black Range Rover, and up to the cream and canary coloured house of the girl of my dreams; Melody Keyes.
Lately, our friendship has been going along rather well, though she seems to get mad whenever I joke around. You’d think she didn’t like being teased. Of course, I wouldn’t be satisfied with being ‘just friends’ with the girl I had a crush on. For now, I was just glad that I was in Melody’s fairly good graces. Similarly, it was great to see my brothers, especially Nate, putting in the effort to befriend her, seeing as I was her friend and all.
I rapped on the dark brown door and it opened on the second knock. “Melody, I’m so sorry for being-“
“Late?” I had expected to hear Melody’s sweet voice, but instead, the voice being to that of a man. My head flew up instantly and I tilted my head up to face the person who was presumably Melody’s father.
“Good morning, sir. I sincerely apologise for being late. I’m here to pick up Melody…” My slightly breathless voice faltered at the withering look the man was staring me down with. I leaned back and inched my foot one step back.
“You must be Nathaniel Peyton,” He barked, “Melody has told me much about you.”
“Oh,” From the sounds of it, she hadn’t been speaking very well of me. Shoot.
“Nathaniel!” Melody stopped outside the door as her father made way for her. Unexpectedly, she flung her soft arms around me and laughed gaily, “I can’t wait to see your house!”
Instantly, I blushed furiously and my hands were too numb to hug her back. “Hey Melody.” I mumbled shyly.
Behind us, Melody’s father cleared his throat pointedly and Melody, sadly, released her hold on me. My body suddenly felt cold as she detached herself from me and a strangely empty feeling formed in my stomach. Weird.
“Make sure my daughter gets back by eleven.” The subtle deadliness in his voice was a threat enough.
Leading her by the hand, I helped her up the back seat of the Range Rover, while I sat in front, next to Russell. I did not need for Melody to see me blush.
Pointing to the driver, I informed her, “Melody, this is Russell, my family’s chauffeur.”
“Hiya, Russell, nice to meet you.” Melody smiled beautifully, looking absolutely stunning. Her light green eyes were sparkling today, a sure sign that she was feeling happy. I could almost hear the crashing sound of my heart against my ribcage.
“It is an honour to meet you, Miss Keyes. Sadly, young master Nathaniel here, is too young to drive, or he would have made sure that you would have more privacy. Just the two of you.”
I glared at Russell, my blush deepened and my face paled, leaving a stark contrast between the two. Did Russell figure out that I had a crush on Melody already? I had not talked to him much about her, after all.
More importantly, did Melody get Russell’s hint?
“It’s okay. We’re picking up Ashleigh too!” Melody grinned again, seemingly oblivious to the tension radiating off me and Russell’s hint. “We’d better get going then!”
“Yes, we should.” I turned to focus my gaze on Russell, eyeing him sternly.
Turning on the ignition, Russell started driving towards Ashleigh’s house. “We wouldn’t want to keep a lady waiting, would we? That wouldn’t be very good for the young master’s reputation.”
“What reputation?” Melody asked, puzzled.
“I hear most female adolescents on the street chattering away about the young master being quite the ladies’ boy.”
I ground my teeth and glared at the scenery outside my window, holding back the urge to strangle Russell. Knowing him for quite some time, I could tell that he was having a hell of a time laughing himself to bits on the inside. My ears were alert, awaiting Melody’s response.
She giggled, adorably, I might add. “Well then, I must not be most female adolescents then. Though, you did get the ‘boy’ part right.”
I wished the car seat would just swallow me up whole. Sitting in silence, I listened in on the conversation between Melody and Russell as they talked about Melody’s relationship with Helen and my brothers.
As soon as we parked on the kerb of Ashleigh’s light blue house and I hopped out while Melody remained in the Rover, quite engrossed in her little conversation with my suddenly way-too-suggestive buddy.
I knocked on the door and waited, praying that I wouldn’t be greeted with yet another scary parent staring me down.
Thankfully, Ashleigh opened the door. I had expected her to apply a truckload of cosmetics and wear Shelby-type clothes, but she wasn’t. I raised my eyebrows as I surveyed her. She was wearing a white tank top with army patterned pants and there was no apparent trace of make up on her. Then the thought struck me: She was dressed in typical Helen-style clothes.
I wanted to laugh, but resisted. Frankly, I didn’t think much of Ashleigh. Like my brothers, I avoided girls like Shelby and Ashleigh was one of them. I didn’t dislike her, but I didn’t like her either. Perhaps, there was more to Ashleigh than meets the eye. Just maybe.
Instead of a purse, she was wearing a dark blue sling bag and her hair was not impeccably groomed like usual. Her clothes were a bit wrinkled and she looked like she had just been doing some physical activity.
“Umm, hi.” Ashleigh fidgeted uneasily on the spot, tugging at her shoulder strap.
I snapped out of my thoughts. Crap, I must have looked like some sort of pervert checking her out. “Oh, uh… hey.” I planted a goofy, but sincere grin on my face. “Sorry, I was just a bit surprised at your outfit.”
“Erm, okay.”
Again, I kept quiet throughout the rest of the journey to my house while Ashleigh timidly joined in the conversation which Melody kindly invited her into.
***
“Melody, I’m so glad to finally meet you!” The moment I stepped out from the vehicle, I was thrown into an embrace by a lady. It happened so quick that I didn’t even get to see her face.
“… Mrs Peyton?” I guessed, still a bit shocked.
The lady pulled back and I was greeted by a pair of brilliant green eyes, identical to the triplets’. “Just call me Natalie, dear.”
“Hi, Natalie.” I smiled shyly as Nathaniel’s mother slowly let me go.
“Mom!” Nathaniel sighed, trailing behind Ashleigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Don’t give Melody a fright. You practically attacked her.”
“It’s okay,” I laughed lightly.
Nathaniel gestured to the svelte figure who was now hugging Ashleigh, but with less enthusiasm as she did with me. “Melody, meet the oh-so-intelligent woman who decided to give her sons names that brought much confusion to the world: my mother.”
“Well, I love the names she gave you. They are all lovely names and she has a creative way of naming you.” I beamed.
“It was an accident,” Nathaniel chuckled, mussing my hair. “She thought that Nate and Nathan were two entirely separate names from Nathaniel. I guess Nate ended up getting the shortest end of the stick, even though he was born first.”
“Hey,” It was Nate.
“Hi Nate,” I planted a smile on my face. I had promised myself that today, I would not be shy of Nathan nor hesitant towards Nate. I could be mean to Nathaniel though.
“Welcome to the Peyton estate,” Nate gave me a small smile, “Our humble abode.”
I laughed along with him. The Peyton estate was anything but humble. Like Helen had implied earlier on, the place was gigantic. The building had an east and west wing with two floors each, and the middle section of the house was three storeys tall. It was painted an interesting creamy orange colour, and the roof was red. A quaint little garden flanked the pebbled walkway up to the estate’s front door, and there was even a fountain in the centre of the path, where the walkway wrapped around it in a circle. I recognised the marble statue on the fountain as the Peyton Hotel logo. It was a cursive letter ‘P’ set in the centre of an intricately patterned snowflake. I had always the snowflake a strange choice of design for the logo.
The estate wasn’t as extravagant as I had expected, but it certainly wasn’t modest.
“Oh, Nate, Ashleigh’s here too!” I beamed. On the drive to the Peyton estate, I hadn’t managed to learn much about Ashleigh, but she seemed nice enough. She was very reserved though.
I motioned for Ashleigh to come over. Tentatively, she approached us along with Nathaniel, and looked down at her sneakers. “H-hi.”
“Good morning, Ashleigh.” Nate responded coolly and promptly turned back to me. “Lets go in. Our father is home today. You’ve worked for him, but-“
“Didn’t get a chance to see him, did ya?” Nathaniel finished. I shook my head. “Come on, Ashleigh! You can meet our dad too!”
I saw Nate glower briefly at his brother before leading us down the walkway. “Helen slept over last night, so she’s here and Nathan is preparing some stuff in the kitchen.”
I was slightly taken aback. “Helen slept over here?”
“Yeah,” Nate smiled, “Don’t start getting funny ideas. We have many guestrooms around the house, especially for our relatives when they come to visit.”
I blushed and mumbled, “I wasn’t getting any funny ideas.”
“Good,” He grinned and the smile reached his eyes for the first time since I’ve known him. Those green eyes were not opaque today, but more translucent. If you looked hard enough, you could read the emotions in them.
Helen was already waiting for us at the door, and my jaw dropped when I saw her. She was wearing a pair of hot pink pants. I had never seen her sport pink clothing before and her shirt was a dark navy blue.
Arms linked with Ashleigh, Natalie walked past us into one of the rooms, showing Ashleigh where to put her bag. “Those are my pants, dear.” She pointed out, noticing my shocked expression.
Helen put her hands on her hips, grimacing. “Oh stop staring already! What’s there to look? I hate pink.”
“She got her period this morning.” Nate smirked.
“Yeah, and stained her nice white pants red.” Nathaniel grinned.
“So she had to borrow a pair of mom’s pants. This was the only one big enough to fit her.”
“Shut up, Nate. I’m not fat okay? Your mom is slim.” Helen snapped, stomping off somewhere.
“She went to the kitchen. Come on, let’s go. Nathan’s there.” Nathaniel shook his head, his body still trembling with his silent laughter.
“Yeah, and he’s being a nerd.” Nate yawned, stretching his arms.
“That’s just Nathan being Nathan.” Nathaniel chuckled, grabbing my hand and leading me to the kitchen with Nate in tow. “He’s been up since seven in the morning, tidying up the main section of the house and setting up some stuff for our project in the kitchen.”
“He really wants to get into the honour roll, huh?” I murmured.
“It’s one of his ‘life or death’ things.” Nate scratched his head, messing up his hair. “Means a lot to him.”
“Yeah, but he tries too hard. He’ll get in anyway, but he’s still stressing himself out.” Nathaniel sighed.
“That’s Nathan in a nutshell.”
The Peytons’ kitchen was about one and a half times the size of my living room. Nathan was sitting at the spacious kitchen counter, a pencil in his hand and his brow was furrowed in concentration. There were small, neat stacks of paper and cookbooks around the kitchen. He was looking at the laptop in front of him, our thick biology textbook flipped open next to it. Helen was ransacking the refrigerator, even though a whole cookie was jammed in her mouth.
“Hello Nathan,” I smiled, praying hard that a blush would not spread across my cheeks.
He looked up from the screen and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Melody, you’re here!”
Hopping off the chair he was sitting on, he received me with a hug while Helen poked her head up from the fridge door.
“Well of course she’s here!” Helen snapped, swallowing the rest of her cookie. “You invited her, remember?”
Nathan shook his head and chuckled, “Ignore Helen, she was worse yesterday. Her PMS-ing totally kills her mood.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t so bad before.” Nate ambled into the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of orange juice. “We still remember the time she first started.”
I gaped at the triplets, my eyes popping out of their sockets. Was I dreaming, or were they really discussing about Helen’s monthlies?!
“Don’t remind me,” Nathan sighed. “What a disaster.”
“We were home alone playing video games, when she suddenly complained, saying ‘Hey guys, I think I accidentally peed in my pants’. Then Nate made a joke about her not being potty trained.” Nathaniel sniggered.
“So we just brushed it off and continued playing. Then suddenly, she burst out from the toilet with her pants in her hand, and ran around in circles panicking.”
“She screamed at us to call the hospital because she was bleeding, thinking that she was sick or something. Then we noticed a red stain on the carpet, and Nathan was furiously jabbing the numbers on the phone, calling for an ambulance, while Nate scrambled to get a huge pile of towels.” Nathaniel continued, his body shaking with his laughter.
“I remember what you were doing,” Nathan glanced at Nathaniel, “You were yelling hysterically that she was going to die from peeing too much.”
Nathaniel pouted, “You didn’t have to tell Melody that.”
At that moment, Natalie and Ashleigh entered the kitchen. The amused looks on their faces told us that they had heard everything.
“You should have seen it, Melody. If seeing paramedics at my doorstep wasn’t scary enough, I got the shock of my life when I opened my door. I found four eleven-year-olds running frantically around the living room. Nathaniel was crying, Nathan was praying feverishly, Nate was scattering stained towels all over the place and Helen was running around in her panties, waving her pants in the air and screaming that she didn’t want to die.”
“Didn’t you pay attention in health class?” Ashleigh spoke up, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Nah, waste of time.” It was freaky how even Helen spoke the exact same words as the triplets in unison.
I was shocked speechless at first when the triplets openly talked about such a sensitive subject, but burst into peals of uncontrollable laughter when I imagined the whole silly scenario.
“Stop talking about my period already!!!” Helen growled, slamming the refrigerator shut and holding a bag of cookies in her other hand. “Anyway, who wants Mrs. Keeane’s chocolate chip cookies?”
Nate and Nathan took one, but Nathaniel’s hand was slapped away by Helen. “Your month isn’t up yet, you’re still banned.”
“This is all your fault, Nate.” Nathaniel sulked, settling for a banana instead.
“You’re welcome.”
“Anyway, we should split up into our groups first and come up with some dishes for our Home Economics project.” Nathan proclaimed, reaching across the counter for a stack of papers. “Helen, you guys use the living room. We’ll stay here.”
I felt a stab of pity for Ashleigh when her group departed for the living room. From past experiences, it was obvious that Helen and Nate didn’t like her very much. In fact, they didn’t seem to like her at all. At least, Natalie would be there watching them, so they wouldn’t do anything rash.
Ugh, just whose side are you on, Melody?
“So, I’ve already come up with a few possible candidates for our meal, and they’re relatively easy to do. One of them includes Nathaniel’s burrito idea and then we have to plan our work schedule because we only have two hours to cook and clean everything.”
The three of us looked over the various suggestions Nathan had come up with, and eventually decided on Caesar’s salad for the appetiser, a chicken burrito for the main course and a fruit cocktail for desert.
“So who should do what?” I asked, scribbling down some ingredients for the burrito.
Nathaniel’s hand promptly shot up in the air. “I’ll-“
“You’re not going to cook Nathaniel. You’ll chop the ingredients instead.” Nathan cut him off, grimacing at something he was thinking about. “You can slice off your finger if you want, but we’re not letting you burn the kitchen again.”
I stared at Nathaniel in horror and squeaked, “Again?!”
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Not a very well written chapter, but hopefully it provided you with enough entertainment.
