Her Secret Saviour

Chapter 6

Food arrived and Tom helped Alissa tidy away all of their papers so that they could all sit at the table.

“Nah, leave it there. We’ll eat in front of the tv. I can’t image all the boxes would fit round that tiny table any anyway.” Suzie started handing out boxes, she took her own and the extras into the sitting room and spread them out on the coffee table.

This was Alissa’s favourite room in the house, after her bedroom that is, as it was so cosy. They didn’t have a big house but that was ok, she thought, as they didn’t have a lot of stuff, most of what they did have had come from either family, friends or charity shops. Her mum worked as a nurse and didn’t have a great deal of spare money so they rarely had nights like this. Both her and Joel got jobs as soon as they were sixteen, nothing major just waiting tables at the local restaurants. Even though they didn’t earn much, it meant a lot to their mum that they were trying to contribute and it did help. Over the summer, they’d both taken jobs as coaches at the local summer camp and had earned a decent wage. Suzie originally felt guilty about them doing so, she would much rather they attend a camp as students but when she saw how much they were enjoying it, she felt much better.

The furniture in this room was a bit miss matched as they’d started out with a single black leather couch when the siblings were younger, Suzie never really liked it so it was always covered with a throw, this week it was a fleecey white one. A few years ago, their grandma moved into a home and they were given her couch, it was a grey one with blue cushions. Then about a two years or so ago, their old next door neighbour was moving out and offered to give the family her old one three piece suite but Suzie didn’t want to give up her mother’s things, so they ended up just taking the chair as it was grey too and they thought it would fit. She was wrong. The three of them spent hours trying to get it to fit and look right in the room before Tom came in and suggested that they take out the unit that the tv sat on and then put the tv on the wall. It had been his greatest idea ever, probably his only one too. He even helped Joel to fit the bracket using his dad’s tool. They were all so nervous when the time came to attach the tv, fortunately it survived and it’s s still there.

Alissa and Tom sat on the leather couch whilst Suzie sat on the grey couch and Joel on the chair, since getting it it had always been his seat. He always ended up with the remote too. Alissa wasn’t too worried about that now as she knew he’d always been warned about putting some football programme on whilst they had guests. Once he’d had a bite of pizza, he turned on the tv and flicked to the movie channels, one of the Harry Potter films was just starting so he left it on.

The night continued pleasantly, all the food was consumed with the three younger ones playing Rock Paper Scissors over the last piece of garlic bread; Joel and Tom knew that Lissa would pick scissors so they went with paper, it just wasn’t worth the sulking.

Whilst they were eating, Joel and Tom sorted out when he would help with the after school club. As he had practise on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he would help on a Wednesday. Lissa, feeling left out, said that she could help on Thursdays as she was free then. Joel was grateful, he knew what he was doing but it was always easier with an extra pair of hands.

After clearing away the boxes, Alissa sat back down and curled up next to Tom who wrapped his arm around her, pulled her close and kissed her on the forehead. She couldn’t believe the day she’d had, she would never have expected to be sat here with both her boyfriend and her brother and with them actually being more than civilised. It was like old times.

As the film finished, Tom whispered to Alissa to wake her up so that he could get up to leave. She hadn’t realised she’d fallen asleep. When she looked around, she noticed that her mum had too so she got up quietly and led Tom to the front door. Before she allowed him to leave, she reached her arms up and put them around his neck and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. She wasn’t expecting him to respond so passionately, luckily he’d wrapped his arms around her waist as he did so to steady her. He released her, kissed her gently on the forehead and made his way out to his car. Alissa closed the door just as her phone pinged, it was a message from Tom: l love you xx

A smile grew across her face, he could be so cute at times. Before she replied, she thought it best to wake her mother so that she could go to bed. When she went back into the sitting room, Suzie was already awake and gathering her things ready for bed, she said night to both her children and made her way upstairs.

“Joely…”

“Jesus, what now Lissa?” He tried to sound more annoyed than he was.

“Rude.” She smirked, she knew she would get that response from him, sometimes he was so predictable. “Thank you.”

He turned to look at her, “I didn’t do it for you, you know I’ll do anything to make my job easier.” He smiled, she knew he’d never admit what he’d done so she decided to just go to bed.

“Lissa?”

“Yeah?”

“You do know that I’ll do it again if he hurts you.”

“I know.”