Past, Present and Future

[Ludub]

I really like Ash and Tori together. I think they make a lot more sense than him and Kat (but then I don't want Kat to be with anyone really... I just want her to stilt off into the distance on those long legs of hers and never come back... but that's just me.) That said, I enjoyed the awkward tension between her and Tori (made pretty obvious by Kat disappearing to her room immediately) That's understandable. Love the easy affection between Ash and Tori in this scene, especially the bit where he puts his arms around her waist from behind. Nicely written.

I love that everyone seems to have come to a much more sensible arrangement and that VJ and Ash are both getting to play such a big part in Luc's life. I can understand Tori's feelings here completely, the desire to have her own baby, but the fear of broaching the subject with Ash for fear of losing him. If it's important to her though, she's gonna have to bite the bullet and deal with the consequences. I would have thought that Ash would want his own kids though, so I'm not sure she really has anything to worry about (hopefully).

[Inactive User]

Great chapter

Liked how you put Ash and Tori together as a couple  

Looking forwards to the next chapter Xxx

[pembie]

Oh Tori bless you for suggesting that Ash might want to lock his door when he goes out. Where is the fun in that You don't have the suprise of getting home to find your house has been ran snacked

Kat can she even play good cop? I thought her default setting was stuck on bad My gosh she's annoying also

[pembie]

Oh yeah with your eyes doing all that zoning in and you being so far away from your legs That might have halted you writing a chapter every night

[Kellicopter]

You all seem very surprised about Ash and Tori, yet it's been mentioned in chapter 1 and 4? 

12 hours ago, pembie said:

Oh Tori bless you for suggesting that Ash might want to lock his door when he goes out. Where is the fun in that You don't have the suprise of getting home to find your house has been ran snacked

Ran snacked - does that mean someone breaking in to steal all your snacks? 

[pembie]

1 hour ago, Kellicopter said:

You all seem very surprised about Ash and Tori, yet it's been mentioned in chapter 1 and 4? 

Ran snacked - does that mean someone breaking in to steal all your snacks? 

Too right gosh I think I have fallen victim to this crime I haven't got one single sack in my house

[Ludub]

12 minutes ago, pembie said:

Too right gosh I think I have fallen victim to this crime I haven't got one single sack in my house

Somehow I find that hard to believe  not a single chocolate bar? Not even a cookie? That is worrying! Haha!

 

[pembie]

4 minutes ago, Ludub said:

Somehow I find that hard to believe 

 

I have some very large bags of all sorts of goodies But no Santa Claus sized sacks no yet yet anyways haha

[Kellicopter]

Happy Sunday - Hope you've all had a lovely weekend and go on to have a productive week.

Chapter 15

Brody lay in his bed, eyes wide open looking at his phone, swiping. He was going to find the girl from last night if it killed him. It was a shame the only thing he had to go on was that she used Tinder. No knowledge of her name, age or job. If he was to guess, he'd say she was about 25. His memory of her looks were a bit foggy. He just remembers being absolutely floored when he saw her. Brody knew that getting into a relationship wasn't really appropriate while he was still recovering from his addiction, but he just couldn't stop thinking about her and had to do something about it. He couldn't take the risk that she only might turn up at the restaurant again.
47 minutes passed before he gave up. He had absolutely zero luck. Brody had never used Tinder before, and wasn't planning on staying on it much past tonight. He looked at every single profile with caution, just in case he found her without realising, liking a few just in case.

Justin was sat on the sofa in Scarlett's new recently rented apartment. Since getting home yesterday they'd had a lot to talk about so spent as much time together as they had free. The evenings were convenient to just sit with a beer and hang out. They both enjoyed each others company, and the empty apartment was always filled with laughter and happiness when Justin was present. It could have once upon a time been something more, but Justin was sure they were both content with their friendship as it stood. Or at least that's what he was telling himself. They laughed with each other constantly and time felt like it stood still, he would have happily stayed there all night.

Mason sat with the girl of his dreams next to him, holding his hand. They were watching a new film with rave reviews, although he was paying more attention to her. The way her hair folded behind her ear. The way her eye crinkled when she focused on something. How she licked her lips after she took a handful of popcorn to her mouth. He couldn't believe his luck that this perfect human was his. He had well an truly fallen head over heels for Ziggy, and this made him realise it was time to stop hiding and tell his family the truth. He was sure Raffy may have known, she's friends with Ziggy's sister after all, not that Ziggy given him any indication that Coco was in the know. Ziggy turned her head and looked at Mason. Even sat in the dark she could see his smile. They both turned their attention back to the film and gripped their hands together tighter.

Raffy was sat at her desk in her room writing a opening paragraph for her English story. She hadn't been so excited to start a school project in a while. School wasn't even out yet and she was making a decent attempt at her holiday homework. She wasn't sure who to base the story on, whether it was going to be first or third person, or whether it was even going to be an accurate representation of her family's life. At that time, Buddy nosed her door open and came over for a pat. She started baby talking to him and giving him lots of attention, which he loved. Then an idea came to her. What if she wrote her story from Buddy's point of view?! He hadn't had the easiest of rides, and chances are he doesn't even know what's going on. She starts to type quickly.

Tori and Ash lay in bed, with Luc fast asleep in the cot near the window. They'd had a lovely dinner out at Yabbie Creek, which due to Tori's work schedule and Ash's Luc duties, doesn't happen too often. She tries to stay over a couple of nights a week, so they can actually spend some time together. However, it was getting frequent enough outside of her night shifts that she was struggling to sleep without him next to her. His little snore he does in his deep sleep, and waking up with his arm around her waist is what she missed when she was alone. She knew Ash was in a good situation now with Luc and VJ in the flat, and she hadn't not lived with her brothers for over 7 years. Moving in together would be the next step, she just wasn't sure how and if it would work, and after everything she went through with Nate, she was too scared to even bring up the subject. She lay there comfortable for tonight and thanked whoever for the good nights sleep she knew she would receive.

*************************************

When the sun came up in each of the Morgan family would rise one by one.

Mason at Ziggy's, Tori at Ash's, Justin on Scarlett's couch and Raffy at home with Brody and Buddy.

“You have to sneak out before my parents wake up” Ziggy shook Mason awake. Although they'd agreed to start telling people, her parents finding him in her bed in the morning wasn't her idea of a great introduction.
“Okay, grab my clothes?” Mason asked her as he stretched and wiped the sleep from his eyes. As she placed his clothes on the edge of the bed, she picked up her dressing gown so she could check the house was clear.
As he cracked open the bedroom door he could hear Ziggy's sexy morning voice talking to somebody. This couldn't be a good sign. They hadn't experienced this before, he wasn't sure what the plan of action was if a member of her family was already up. He couldn't sneak out, he needed to say goodbye, and what if that person saw him? What if that person was her dad? He moved away from the door and sat back on her bed and text her. “What do you want me to do?” he typed. Within a second he heard her phone buzz, on her bedside table. “Great.” he said under his breath. So he waited for her to come back. It was a dangerous game to stay but the only thing he felt comfortable doing.

Brody woke up to his alarm on his phone beeping. He picked up his phone, shut off the alarm and pulled the covers over his head. He didn't want to wake up, let alone get up. He felt like this morning was already a write off. As a few minutes passed he picked up his phone and checked what had happened while he slept. 34 new notifications. He wiped his eyes and read again. Yep, it definitely said 34. “Jeeez” he said as he pushed himself up in his bed ready to read them.
29 new Tinder matches appeared on the app. This wasn't the plan, none of these were the girl he wanted them to be. He'd also received a few messages from some of the girls, nothing other than a cheesy pick up line or just “hey”. He considered coming back to them later, when he had more time to check them out properly. For now he had to get up and prepare Raffy for her second to last day at school before the holidays.
“Morning,” he says as he walks in to see her already sat at the dining table. It's unusual that Raffy's up first. “Have you eaten?” cooking is the only thing he gets out of bed for so he was hoping she was going to say no.
“I had something a couple of hours ago.” She told him. Confused, Brody pulled out his phone and checked the time.
“A couple of hours? It's 7am...Have you slept?” He asked with concern. He put the coffee pot on and got some eggs out of the fridge.
“Kind of. I fell asleep at my desk for a little while, which is why I moved in here.” Raffy was making zero sense to Brody right now. Why was she trying to stay awake?
“Do I want to know why? Is everything okay?” He asked her. She was 15, there was no need to be staying up all night, especially with school in the morning.
“Yeah, I was writing. But I noticed that nobody came home.” Raffy held her hands at shoulder length to show Brody the empty house. They knew Tori was staying with Ash after dinner, but neither Justin or Mason had a reason to stay out. “You don't think something's happened do you?” She asked her big brother with worry in her voice.
“No, don't be silly.” Brody tried to reassure her. “I'm sure Mason is just at the hospital and Justin could be anywhere.” He rolled his eyes and laughed.
“Can you take me to school today?” She asked him. Normally Mason or Justin would be her taxi, but seeing as neither of them were home she would have to leave a lot earlier in order to get the bus.
“Sure. Eat some breakfast and I'll take you on my way to the market.” Brody was enjoying making things up to Raffy. She didn't deserve what he'd caused while on drugs. As forgiving as she was, he'd still not forgiven himself.

Tori nudged Ash with her elbow when his alarm hadn't been switched off after 30 seconds. What kind of person even sleeps through their alarms anyway? Luc was beginning to stir, but not fully awake yet. Ash reached over, switching off his alarm and turning back around to pull Tori into his body and gently kissing her on the face.
“Morning.” he said with a grin. It was early in the morning, but they had enough time to squeeze in a quick morning cuddle before either of them had to move. Secretly that's why Ash set an alarm a little bit earlier than it was needed, just for a little extra time awake together.
“I love waking up next to you, even if you do elbow me in the side.” Ash laughed, with his hand cupping Tori's face. A shy looking smile crept across her mouth and she felt herself blush.
“I wish it was easier to sleep without you.” She embarrassingly admitted. What if this backfired? What if saying this scared him off?
“Well don't.” That wasn't the answer she was expecting. She looked at Ash in shock. “I mean, if you don't want to. Don't.” Ash was trying to get his point across without actually explaining himself, but as he feared, Tori wanted confirmation.
“What are you suggesting?” Tori asked him, holding his hand tighter, as if she never wanted to let go.
“Well, me and Luc love having you here, and I'm sure VJ wouldn't mind.” Ash didn't want to outright say it, he was tiptoeing around the actual words. “Just bring some stuff and we can see how it goes?”

The smell of freshly brewed coffee woke Justin with a nose twitch. He opened his eyes to see Scarlett in her dressing gown holding a cup steaming in front of him.
“Hows your head?” She asked him with a giggle. It had been one of those nights where a couple of beers turn into one too many.
“I've felt better, surprisingly.” Justin tried to laugh at himself but a sharp pain above his eye stopped that in its tracks. He wasn't sure coffee would fix this hangover.
“I ordered you a cab, but you'd fallen asleep before it arrived. So I cancelled it and let you get comfy.” Scarlett told him. Justin was normally pretty good with beer but he was beginning to think he was becoming a bit of a light weight.
Justin took a sip of his coffee and smiled at Scarlett. “Well I guess a thanks are in order then. My knight in shining armour.” They both laughed with each other as Scarlett smiled with her hands making a frame on her face. They kind of took it in turns to be a drunken burden on each other, it was time for her to up her game and give him a run for his money.
“Are you free for lunch? I guess I owe you?” Justin had to run to the garage to do a couple of jobs, but he could easily escape for an hour at lunch, especially if VJ was there to pick up some of the slack.
“I'll have to check with the boss, but I can't see why not.” Scarlett replied. She knew Alf would be cool with it, but it never hurt to ask.

[Ludub]

Oh god, I actually can't tell you how much I loved this chapter. I'm going to read it a couple more times because it's just lovely. I've said it before but you have a really lovely way with words. You say a lot, in a much more concise way than I do.

The first sections set the scene so perfectly for each and every one of the Morgans. And you somehow made it so clear that it was nighttime, I could almost hear the cicadas creaking!

I love Raffy's idea to write the story from Buddy's perspective. At one point I'd actually been considering writing a fanfic that way. He'd have access to all sorts of information / interactions, but lack the ability to truly understand what was going on. I would love to read Raffys report! Lol!

Love love love Justin and Scarlett together. You write them so beautifully. More of them please!

And that scene with Tori and Ash made me really happy. Like I said before, they make so much more sense (in a way) than him and Kat. I think they'd be really good together. 

Really enjoying this.