14 - The Sibling

Kaitlyn and Thomas had finally finished shopping and they were now seated in the food court. Thomas was shoving an entire pizza down his throat, ignoring the obvious buzz of his cell phone.

Kaitlyn wiped her mouth. "Aren't you going to answer that?" She asked. He mumbled incoherently, ignoring the phone call and going back to his pizza. His phone started to ring again and he groaned loudly.

He sat his pizza down and angrily pressed the end button. She frowned as he went back to eating. "Who was calling?"

He popped a piece of pepperoni into his mouth. "My brat sister."

"You have a sister?" She said, surprised.

"Yeah." Was all he said. She had never thought to ask about the guys about their families. She suddenly felt bad.

"And you didn't tell me, because?"

Thomas lifted his eyes. "Trust me, I'm doing you a favor. If anything I hope you never have to meet her."

She laughed. "She can't be that bad."

He made a face.

Kaitlyn shook her head at his silliness. "Well, at least tell me her name."

"Penelope Trouble Hudson." He said taking another bite of his pizza, "In that order."

She frowned. "Her middle name's actually trouble?"

He nodded. "It was Shanice when she was younger, but when she hit puberty she turned into the little monster, we all know and hate today, who was always getting into trouble, so our mom went and got her middle name changed."

He swallowed the rest of the food in his mouth before sipping his drink. "She likes it though." He said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"You have any siblings?" He questioned and she shook her head.

"No, only child."

"Lucky you. Lee's an only child as well and Dane has one younger sister who's eighteen and an older sister who just turned thirty a month ago." She noticed he didn't mention Jack.

"What about Jack?" She mentally kicked herself when she saw an unexplainable look cross over his face.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Jack had an older sister named Bethany. She was about three years older than him. I didn't know her very well growing up but she was basically the town's sweetheart. She died in a car accident when Jack was younger."

Jack had lost a sister? She glanced over to Thomas. "Did - how did he handle it?" She was almost too scared to ask.

Thomas sighed. "Honestly, when it first happened he wanted to kill himself. He had lost his sister and his father all in the same day. He was the only one that survived and that fact weighed on his mind for awhile. It also didn't help that he had lost his left leg during the accident."

"What?" She barley breathed.

Thomas frowned. "Surely you've seen it, you guys did sleep together, remember?" He reminded her before trailing off, "I mean, I know it was probably dark and all when ya'll did the deed, but how do you miss a whole prosthetic leg?"