Chapter Five
“Don’t be silly, Honey. We’ll be fine. Go ahead and take a shower. We’ll just wait here.” Jane answered with a friendly smile. Arlet nodded at them politely and bolted upstairs to her room. She made sure her bags were ready to go and grabbed her clothes then jumped into the shower.
“Holy Cow. Nick Carter and his family is spending Christmas with me. I can’t believe it.” Arlet said to herself as she took a shower. “I have got to tell Sarah about this one.”
About ten minutes later, Arlet finished her shower and jumped out. She quickly put on her clothes, brushed her teeth, combed her hair and put it in a messy bun. Oh crap, my make-up is already packed. I’ll just put it on at Mom’s house, she thought. She ran out of bathroom, grabbed her bags she was going to take to her parents house and flew downstairs.
“Wow! You really are fast.” Aaron said, somewhat surprised to see that Arlet was already finished.
“Yeah, I’m pretty fast when I have to be. Anyways, you guys ready to head over to the house?”
They all nodded. The Carter Family piled out of the living room and Arlet walked behind them.
“Hey, Arlet.” Nick said, looking at a picture on a shelf on the wall.
“Yeah?” She asked, turning around. She saw him looking at the picture of her and Derek during some of their happier times.
“Is this Derek?” He asked, curiously.
“Yes it is. How’d you know about him?”
“I read the letter your family sent out with the Christmas pictures. What happened?”
“Well, I don’t want to talk about it at the moment. I’ll tell you some other time.” She answered, slightly bitter and gloomy. “Let’s go.”
Nick nodded as he followed her to the car. Arlet threw her stuff in the back of her 4-Runner and joined BJ, Aaron and Nick. She started the car and they headed towards Arlet’s parents’ house. The rest of the Carter Family followed behind them. As they drove, Arlet talked with the three in the car.
“So, are you planning on going snowboarding?” Aaron asked, hopeful.
“Yeah actually. My parents planned on taking guys up to the mountains for a day. We bought all you guys lift tickets to Winter Park.” Arlet replied.
“Winter Park is really beautiful up there. Me and the guys went up there the day before one of our shows.” Nick responded.
“Oh definitely. It’s so gorgeous there! My best friend Sarah and I love to go there. They have the best runs and the best powder. All of our other friends say it’s too flat but I think they’re just wrong.”
“Congratulations on the record deal.” BJ said from the back.
“Oh thank you! Yeah, I’m totally stoked to head to New York and start recording. I just can’t wait to get out music out to there.” Arlet said, beaming.
“I know how that is.” Aaron told her.
“Do you guys have any shows going on while we’re here?” Nick asked.
“How long are you guys planning on staying here?”
“I think my parents said we’re going to leave the night of January 5th. We’re staying for New Years also.”
“Oh really? Wow, you guys are staying for awhile.” Arlet replied. “Well, we have a show on New Years Eve for the New Years Bash with the Wallflowers at Red Rocks Amphitheater. That’s going to be awesome. It’s our third time opening for them.”
“Awesome. I wanted to check you guys out live. I heard some of your stuff and it sounds really good. Some of the best stuff I’ve heard in a long time.”
“Well, thanks.” Arlet slightly blushed. “Well, do all of you guys want to go?”
“Yeah!” Aaron and BJ said in unison.
“Okay then. Your whole family is invited. Well, you guys probably don’t have a choice, you know, since my whole family is coming and we wouldn’t want to leave you guys home alone for New Years. What kind of guest would we be?”
The three of them chuckled. A few minutes later, Arlet pulled into the driveway of her parents’ huge 3-story home. She honked the horn a few times.
Nick saw a guy opening the front door. He recognized him from the picture and guessed it was Arlet’s little brother. The guy pulled his head back into the house, most likely shouting something to everyone and came running out. Arlet jumped out of her car and ran to meet the guy half way. They pulled each other into a loving embrace.
“Hey ‘Lil Bro! How are you?” She said with a huge smile on her face.
“Hey Big Sis! I’m doing good. How ‘bout yourself?” The guy said.
“I’m doing as good as I can be. C’mon, go help the Carters with their stuff.”
The guy nodded as he ran over and helped Nick’s family bring their bags. Arlet’s family came pouring out of the house and ran down to welcome everyone.
“Hi Mom! Hi Dad!” Arlet exclaimed, getting embraced by her parents.
“Hi Baby! I’m so glad you decided to stay with us.” Her mom said lovingly.
“Auntie Arlet! Auntie Arlet!” A little blond boy came running up to her. Nick watched as Arlet scooped the little boy into her arms and hugged him the tightly.
“Hey Little David! How’s my favorite nephew?” She cooed.
Little David giggled. “I’m your only nephew Auntie!”
“Oh! That’s right! Where’s your Mommy and Daddy?”
“We’re right here!” Said another person Nick recognized from the photo. She came and hugged Arlet as best as she could with Little David in her arms.
“Hey Jennifer. How was the drive from Virginia?”
“Okay. Rachel was good. She slept the whole way.” Her sister replied.
“Where’s David and Rachel?”
“Their coming. David was changing her diaper. Here they come.”
A man with a shaved head and glasses emerged from the house holding a little baby in his arms. He smiled at Arlet as he walked up to her. He gave her a slight hug and showed Arlet the baby.
“Oh, she is so beautiful! Can I hold her?” Arlet asked giving Little David to her sister.
“Yeah, be careful.” David said, slowly giving her his baby daughter.
“That’s my little sister!” Little David told Arlet proudly. She laughed.
After everyone introduced themselves to the Carter’s and exchanged hugs and handshakes, Arlet’s father, brother and brother-in-law carried all the luggage into the house.
“Arlet?” Her mom called.
“Yeah Mom?” Arlet answered, giving her little niece back to her sister.
“Angel, Leslie and BJ are going to sleep in you rooms. You can show them where they are.”
“Ok Mom.” She smiled. “Alright, you guys can follow me.”
“Rooms? You have more than one room?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. After we moved into this house a few years before I left for college, we had plenty of guest room available after my brother and I claimed rooms for ourselves. So I took the room next to my original one and turned in into another room of mine. It has three beds where my friends and I would sleep and hang out when they came over and stayed the night.”
“That’s cool! You guys got a huge house!” Exclaimed Leslie.
“Thank you. I would think you guys have a house this big, if not bigger.”
“Well, I think our house is this big but we have more people in our family so we need a big house. Just your parents live here, right?” BJ asked.
“Yeah but they haven’t been for long. My brother moved out a few months ago to go to the Colorado School of Mines. He shares an apartment with a friend of his.” Said Arlet. She walked up the stairs and walked down a long hallway. She stopped at the second to the last door. “Here’s my rooms. I hope you like them.” Arlet opened the door and reviled a spacious room with blue and yellow walls, wide windows and flowing curtains around them. There were three well-decorated beds with lots of pillows and thick blankets. All were different colors and had many different posters on the walls.
“Where does that door lead to?” Asked Angel, pointing to a door across from beds.
“Oh, that leads to my other room where I’ll be sleeping in. Here, I’ll show you.” Arlet walked over and opened the door. The three girls walked over and saw another room just like there’s but the walls were a maroon color and the trimmings were blue. There was huge queen size bed that had matching sheets and a Colorado Avalanche Hockey Team pillow in the middle. On one side of the room, was another huge window that went from the floor to the ceiling. They noticed it led to a balcony that looked over the beautiful Rocky Mountains ahead of them.
“Wow! You got a beautiful room.” Commented Leslie.
“Thank you! I did it myself. At our old house, I did my room the same way. But here, my room is much bigger and I have more room to put my trophies from Tae Kwon Do away and put more posters. As you can see, I’m a huge AVS fan.” Arlet pointed out. “And what’s so cool about this house is that Adam Foote, this guy, lives right next door. My parents are good friends with him. They get season tickets.” She told them pointing to one of the guys on one of her Avalanche posters.
“Oh my God! You got a lot of trophies!” BJ said in awe as she looked at the many shelves of one of the walls, filled with trophies, awards and certificates from Tae Kwon Do.
“I know. I don’t know what to do with them. These are not even half of them. These are just my favorite ones. The rest are in the trophy room downstairs. I’ll show you guys later.” Arlet smiled at them. “You guys can unpack and make yourselves comfortable. You each got your own dresser you can put clothes in and the closet is enormous that you can all fit clothes in there also. I’ll be in her if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” BJ, Leslie and Angel said in unison. They gave her a polite smile and went back into there room to start unpacking. Arlet closed the dividing door and jumped onto her bed.
“Oh this Christmas is going to be interesting!” She said to herself out loud.
Chapter Four
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