It was a chaos.
A completely intended chaos as Stewart showed up at the airport with two people that weren’t invited at all.
“What is Scarlet’s assistant doing here?” Lauren asked as soon as Stewart and Katie walked over to them with the uninvited people; Clark and his younger sister, who looked to be about 16 years old.
Clark gave Lauren a smile which looked too sleazy for Scarlet’s liking as she quickly wrapped an arm around her fiancé.
“Well, I do have a name, darling.”
Katie raised an eyebrow up at him as she glanced at Scarlet, who could only squint her eyes at the dark-haired man. “What is he doing here?” The blonde woman addressed Stewart particularly now, as she gave him a subtle glare as well.
Stewart gave her a sly smile before explaining, “Well, since we need to send that magazine for publishing, we need Scarlet to do what she does best.” He paused to smile at Scarlet, who was busy frowning, before continuing, “So, I thought I’d bring along help so that she doesn’t have to do all the work during her wedding preparations.”
“Oh, you are so evil, Stew.” Lauren glared at her brother, who only gave her a smirk. “I try.”
“Don’t we have a flight?” Clark’s 16-year-old sister piped in with boredom as she glanced at each of the adults surrounding her. Clark nodded before he glanced at Katie, and suddenly held out a hand for her.
“They say if you hold hands while doing something, whatever you do becomes blessed.” Scarlet wanted to laugh at the horrible pick up line he was using to just hold Katie’s hand, but frowned instead when Katie subtly blushed.
She pulled her suitcase away from her four travel mates as she decided to walk towards the ticket line.
Lauren raised an eyebrow at the way Katie reacted to Clark’s flirtatious actions, before she followed her fiancé to also walk over to the ticket line.
Everyone knew that this was not going to turn out well, especially for Scarlet, since now she had to work on that magazine even when she had taken a month off from work.
Life was just too cruel to her.
And she was finding out too late that the universe was completely against her.
………………………………………………………………………..
“Oh, my little girl!” Scarlet tried to save herself from the bone-crushing hug but couldn’t since she had no where to escape and Lauren wasn’t much of a help either as she was herself hugging Aunt Wanda with happiness.
“Mom!” Scarlet whined which made her mother squeeze her a bit more.
“What else do you expect me to do? My youngest is finally getting married! I’m over the moon!” Laura Payne exclaimed happily as she squeezed and swayed her daughter side to side. She was just so excited to finally see her daughter and Lauren after so many years (3 to be exact).
“Will you kill the girl before she gets to hug her grandma, now?” Scarlet managed to laugh while being suffocated as she looked over at her grandmother who was now sitting on a wheelchair.
Scarlet had been in touch with Blake, who was enough to keep her updated on life at the Payne household. Technically, after Vanessa’s wedding Jared and Wanda decided to move in with them since grandma Payne was getting older and as stubborn as always, so to take more care of her, the couple moved in with Scarlet’s parents and grandmother, with their two sons; Blake and Gregory.
“Sorry, mama.” Laura let her daughter go so that she could hug her grandmother next, who looked at Scarlet with shining eyes. “When did you become so large?”
“Grandma, you’re just sitting, that’s why I look so big.”
“Oh.”
Scarlet laughed at her grandma’s weird way of providing comic relief when the whole family was feeling a little teary.
Lauren had already hugged everyone and was standing beside aunt Wanda, who smiled as she looked at how the Payne family was gonna get reunited again.
“Hoo, these kids sure packed a lot!” Uncle Jared walked into the house with Andrew walking behind him with an arm around Stewart’s shoulder. Katie followed them closely with Clark and his sister, who looked lost being in the Payne household for the first time.
“Who told you to pick their bags up?” Andrew laughed at his brother, who practically threw the two suitcases, he had carried, besides the entrance of the house.
Clark frowned as he saw all the hugging and corny talking going on in the house. His sister had almost the same reaction.
“Why are we here again?” She whispered into Clark’s ear as she stared at the Payne family’s display of affection. Even Stewart and Katie were swept into the love, as Katie was being hugged by Laura, while Andrew wasn’t ready to leave Stewart’s shoulder.
“Because I have to help my boss, I’m her assistant, Angela.” Angela frowned before crossing her arms. She knew why he was really here, and she didn’t know why he was lying to her.
“Oh, who are these two new faces?” Grandma Payne noticed the two standing by the entrance awkwardly and managed to bring all the focus on them. Clark smiled at the old woman as he glanced at all of the family. His younger sister, on the other hand, sighed heavily.
“This is Clark and this is his younger sister, uh—” Stewart was cut off by Angela, who introduced herself. “Angela.”
The house went silent, and it was a great feat to achieve by the noisy family as they stared at Angela, who looked bored and out of place.
“O-kay.” Scarlet broke off the silence as she stared at Lauren, subtly signaling her to somehow bring back the attention on the fact that they were here in North Carolina and were gonna get married.
“We have so many preparations to do, grandma.” The blonde smiled as she went behind the old woman’s wheelchair and began to push her into the living room which was exactly the same as when it was three years ago.
It reminded Lauren of so many great memories, but she had more to make.
“Yes, we do. But first of all, we’re gonna do something about that hair of yours.” Lauren subconsciously touched her head full of hair, as she frowned.
Scarlet smiled at her girlfriend, who was now in the living room with Grandma Payne, as she wondered how she had gotten so fortunate.
“Shall we all go into the living room now, its getting quite crowded in here?” Andrew asked politely as he looked at everyone. When they all nodded in unison, he signaled everyone to move into the living room while Scarlet and Stewart excused themselves to get their luggage out of the car that Stewart had brought along with him to North Carolina.
They forcibly brought Clark along with them, since the poor man was confused on what to do.
“So, when’s the rest of your family coming here?” Stewart began a conversation as the three walked over to his car to get the rest of the bags.
Scarlet could only raise an eyebrow at the guy as he unlocked his car and went over to the trunk. “The last time you came here, you called my family dysfunctional, and now you’re asking when the whole family is gonna reunite.” Clark snorted as the older blonde man gave Scarlet an uneasy smile.
“I mean, I should know when this house is gonna become pandemonium.”
The dark-haired woman nodded her head with a smirk, not believing a single word that came out of her boss’ mouth.
“So, how big of a family do you have, boss?” Clark began to speak as he grabbed a hold of a bag. Stewart rolled his eyes before taking out the rest of the bags out of the trunk.
Scarlet picked up a bag before bringing her attention to her assistant. “Well, I have an uncle, who’s gonna probably come here with his family, oh, and my older sister and her husband as well as their daughter.”
Clark nodded his head before he followed Scarlet into the house with bags in their hands. “Um, boss.”
Scarlet placed the bags by the other bags at the entrance before walking back to Stewart’s car. “Yeah?” Clark followed her with a shy smile on his face. “Uh, do you know if Katie is in a relationship or not?”
There was a silence between the two as Scarlet narrowed her eyes at the man, who looked uncomfortable. “Why do you want to know?”
“I mean, when I flirt with Lauren, you get angry, so – so, if I try to get with Katie, I don’t want a boyfriend or anyone to get mad at me.”
“That’s a shitty reason, and you know it too.” Scarlet chuckled which made her assistant blush with embarrassment. “If you like her, you should tell her. But, I don’t know if things will end up in your favor.”
Clark nodded his head while Scarlet gave him a genuine smile. She could see that he was serious about it, which made her worried and happy at the same time.
“Are you both gonna just talk while I work or help me?” Stewart frowned from over the trunk of the car which was now empty since all the bags were out of it.
Scarlet gave him a smirk before going over to help him, leaving Clark to his own thoughts.
The man thought of how he was going to try to become close to Katie through this minor vacation-thing that he had gotten because of Scarlet and Lauren’s wedding.
But the main thought that circled his mind was if Katie had someone she liked already.
Surely, the guy didn’t know about Scarlet and Katie’s past.
And it was a good thing too.
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