word count: 1605 

warnings: a small bit of swearing

today was the day that the wonders' mom was supposed to come home. to no one's surprise, salish was the first one awake that day.

salish's pov

my eyes fluttered open as the sunlight peeked through the blinds. I rolled over and checked the alarm clock, which read 7:04. I wasn't sure what time their mom was coming back, so I decided to get up anyway. 

 I lazily drug my feet down the stairs and into the kitchen to make myself some toast. oddly enough, I sort of enjoy the noisiness of the wonder family. ever since hudson moved off to go to college it has been quite quiet at home. unfortunately, no one was usually up until in the summer eight or nine. 

after making my toast I grabbed out my phone and scrolled on instagram a little. 

nidal's pov

i've been lying awake in bed for about a half hour, I can't fall back asleep. lately the kiss has been on my mind. i'm not really sure where this puts us. obviously we're not dating, but we're definitely not just best friends. 

I don't want things to be awkward with salish when I see her next, but I think that's inevitable. maybe I should just get up for the day, lying in bed won't get me anywhere. 

I sleepily rubbed my eyes as I walked slowly down the stairs. my eyes fell on salish with her back to me. sh!t, I thought. maybe if I just walked back up slowly she won't notice that I came down. as I was turning around to go back upstairs I heard salish say

"hi nidal"

sh!t. now I have to face her. 

"oh hey salish", I said turning back around

"how did you sleep?", she asked

"oh um fine. what about you?", I said reaching for a plate to make toast on. 

"pretty good."

"do you know what time your mom comes home today?"

I peered over at salish and said, "I do not, no, she doesn't"

"I mean um no I don't know when she is coming. to the house that is.", I said

sh!t. I stumbled my words so badly. 

"right.. okay. are you sure you slept good?", she asked

"yeah I think so", I said

I stared at the toaster waiting for the toast to pop up. how was salish acting completely normal after last night? maybe it really wasn't a big deal and I was overthinking it. what if the kiss had meant nothing to her? she seemed to enjoy it, but maybe it really isn't a big deal to her. 

"hellooo, earth to nidal", salish called out to me

"huh?", I spun around quickly and looked at her

"your toast has been ready for like a minute nidal!", salish said laughing

"oh um right, I just figured I would let it cool", I said turning back around

"sure then. i'm gonna go get ready, bye nidal", salish said

time skip to 8:30 am

at this point all the wonders were awake and neshan called a family meeting. 

"as you guys all know, mom's flight gets in at 2 pm today. I was thinking it would be a good idea to clean the house for her.. and possibly take care of my black eye as well before she gets home", neshan said

"I agree with that. let's make a game plan", juju said

"as the only person fully ready right now, I say the first order of business is getting ready.", salish said. 

"and spending no more than an hour so we can start cleaning by 10", neshan said eyeing jiji. 

"NESHAN!", jiji said

"my room is a little messy, so maybe we should all clean our rooms too after we get ready", nidal said

"good idea", salish said. 

"okay, I say we should be finished with all of that by 10 o clock. then we should probably split up duties. we need to vacuum, do all the dishes, clean the bathrooms, and dust.", neshan said

"we should probably have two people on dishes, it's been piling up since saturday and the pile is huge", juju said.

"I could probably do dishes after I clean up my room, I rather enjoy doing them", salish said.

"you LIKE doing dishes?", jiji said 

"yeah!", salish said

"I can do all the vacuuming", neshan said

"i'll take dusting, it can't be THAT hard", jiji said

"juju you have to take bathroom duty. nidal won't clean a thing unless he's supervised", neshan said

"yes I will!", nidal said

"nidal you can clean dishes with salish", jiji said 

"fine", nidal said

"i'd say we should all try to be done by 1, which should be plenty of time. then we can all go to pick up mom", neshan said

"wait I need to find time to do your face too", jiji said

"sh!t you're right. how long do you think it will take?", neshan asked

"well, i'll need to find your shade before we do it. i'm not sure, maybe 20 minutes.", jiji said

"okay that works. lets get to work guys", neshan said

salish's pov

I went upstairs to begin cleaning my room. I didn't make my bed yet today, so I started with that. then I neatly folded all my messy clothes and put them away. 

when my room was finally all cleaned it was nine o clock on the dot. I decided to go over to nidal's room to see if I could help him clean. 

"nidal can I help you clean?", I asked as I knocked on his door

"yeah sure", he said opening the door

nidal was all ready, so we had the next hour to clean his room before ten. 

"we should probably start with your bed, that's where I always start", I said

nidal and I threw the pillows off the bed. on the last pillow, I accidently hit him. 

"salish!"

"sorry nidal", I said laughing

we may be sixteen and seventeen, but I think we'll always have that kid side to us that comes out when we're around each other. 

nidal picked up a pillow and started hitting me. 

"hey slow down!", I said as I quickly bent down to grab a pillow

we repeatedly hit each other with our pillows until one blow sent me falling on to the bed. 

"salish are you okay?", he asked

"no I don't think so"

I waited until nidal sat his pillow down to nail him with mine. with that hit he flopped down next to me. 

I looked into his beautiful hazel eyes. 

"you have pretty eyes", I said

"you do too", he said looking into mine. 

we held eye contact with each other for another quiet three seconds until I mentioned that we should probably get back to cleaning up. 

we pushed the comforter down to the bottom of the bed and pulled the sheet up. I deemed that this is what it would be like married to nidal. everyday boring tasks with goofy play fights in between. I could get used to that. 

I glanced up at some of my favorite features. his beautiful hazel eyes, his wide shoulders, his soft skin, and fluffy hair. when I was younger I hated his hair no matter what he did with it. however now I really like his hair. it suits him. 

I didn't realize I had been absentmindedly making the bed while thinking about him.

after we finished making the bed nidal worked on cleaning up his clothes and I organized his desk. 

we finished around 9:45, fifteen minutes early. 

"well, should we start the dishes?", I asked

"I suppose", nidal said

in the kitchen it looked as if there was 50 dishes piled up in the sink.

"well we better get to work", nidal said

we had a pretty efficient method. I stood on the right side of the sink and rinsed off any extra food on the dishes. then I squirted dish soap on it and handed it to nidal on the left side of the sink. he would scrub them clean and put them on a towel next to him to dry. 

"so, have you been enjoying your stay so far?", nidal asked

"yeah, it's definitely been interesting. it's a lot different than at home because it's only me, mom, and dad you know?", I said

"right, it must get pretty boring", nidal said

"yeah"

nidal's pov

when we finished washing the dishes jiji was just starting to cover up neshan's bruise. it reached almost all the way up to his eye, and was purple and green. towards his jaw it was a bit more green. me and salish decided to start a timer to see how long it would take. it seemed like quite the tedious process. 

I guess jehan was experienced at covering things up though, she was always covering up hickeys on neshan and juju, and even herself. I had never gotten one. 

salish was the only person I had kissed my entire life. ever since I understood the concept of a crush I had liked her. it was always her. even when I moved to texas and I went to public school. no one could compare to salish matter. 

when jiji was finally finished we stopped the timer at thirty two minutes. 

"looks pretty good! you can't even tell!", salish said

"yeah", I said

after that me and salish hung around outside until one pm when we would pick up mom.

time skip to one pm

everyone piled in the car at one pm sharp to go pick up mom from the airport. when we arrived there at 1:19, we quickly realized our mistake. 

the car sat five people, two in the front, three in the back. there was no room for mom. 

"uh guys, can we address the elephant in the room?", I said

"and what's that?", jiji said looking up from her phone

"where's mom gonna sit?"