Include the phrase: "X is harder than herding a bunch of hyperactive squirrels on a sugar rush."
“Can’t you control James?” Lottie complained to her sister as they unpacked the groceries.
“He’s not mine to control,” Tara shot back, pulling a bag of apples out of a carried bag and setting it on the kitchen table. “Thankfully.” She rolled her eyes.
“He’s your best friend,” Lottie replied, opening the fridge and slotting a milk carton into the door pocket. “And he’s getting out of hand.”
“Who’s out of hand?” Ryan asked, entering the kitchen.
“James, apparently,” Tara replied, tossing Ryan a lime. Thankfully, he caught it. “Help us unpack. Put some of this fruit into that bowl.” She pointed to a ceramic bowl languishing on the counter with a single kiwi fruit in it.
“He is out of hand,” Lottie staunchly insisted, pulling a carton of orange juice out of the bag at her feet. “At least when it comes to Dillon. I mean, I thought he was bad when I was actually dating Dillon, but now that we’ve broken up, he seems even more insistent on winding him up. It’s getting hard to be in the house when both of them are at each other’s throats all the time.”
“Dillon just needs to learn to take a joke,” Tara breezily replied.
Lottie shook her head. “No, James needs to learn to let it go. I don’t know what his beef with Dillon is, but if he wants us to be able to live peacefully in the same house as Dillon, he needs to stop starting arguments and making fun of Dillon’s choice in women.”
“Ha, beef, good joke,” Ryan said, pointing at the pack of mince Lottie was putting in the fridge. She rolled her eyes. “But seriously, controlling James when he’s around Dillon is harder than herding a bunch of hyperactive squirrels on a sugar rush.”
The two girls looked at him in silence, momentarily stunned.
“Well, that’s one way to phrase it,” Lottie muttered, putting the final item in the fridge before slamming it shut. “I’m going to have a shower. Catch you guys later.” She waved at them before exiting the room, leaving Tara and Ryan on their own.
“So, I’m guessing that Lottie hasn’t figured out that James has a gigantic crush on her?” Ryan finally said.
“What?” Lottie spun around to face him, nearly dropping the bag of flour she was holding.
“James does not have a crush on my baby sister. Not in a million years.”
Ryan shrugged. “It looks that way to me. He’s as offended as Lottie is that Dillon keeps parading his new conquests in front of her, and from the way he’s been acting lately, I think he’s trying to make Dillon so uncomfortable in his own home so that he’ll move out and leave Lottie to recover from the break-up in peace.”
Tara sat the bag of flour down and pointed at Ryan. “What you’ve just said would make a whole lot of sense, if you weren’t talking about Lottie and James.” She began to tick items off on her fingers. “One, Lottie and James have been at each other’s throats since they were kids. They only make a vague effort to get along with each other for my sake. Two, James is a grown-man with a full-time job who just put down a mortgage on a house. There’s no way he’d consider dating an unemployed waitress who doesn’t even have a college education. And three, she’s my baby sister and he knows that I’d murder him if he even looked at her the wrong way.” She put her hands on her hips triumphantly.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “You’re ridiculous. Okay, how about this,” he began ticking off his fingers in the same fashion as Tara, his eyes gleaming in amusement. “One, Lottie and James aren’t in elementary school anymore. People change. Two, James isn’t as mature as he likes to think, and Lottie has a lot more common sense than most college students I know. Case in point: Dillon.” Tara had to nod in agreement over that point. “And three, he does look at her in ways that would make you want to murder him. Just not when either of you are looking.” He pointed at her. “And, don’t let his past history of being, well, a bit of a man-slut upset you. He seems to have turned his life around.”
“I know, I know,” Tara turned around again and began unpacking more of the groceries. “That’s not what’s worrying me.”
“You sure?” Ryan carefully balanced a lemon on top of a pile of bananas. “You don’t worry that he’s not good enough for Lottie?”
He glanced over Tara just as she looked up, confusion shown in her creased brow. “I’m honestly not sure about that one. I guess if he’s good enough to be my best friend, he’s good enough to be my sister’s boyfriend...”
“Better than Dillon, at least,” Ryan mused, stacking more items of fruit in the bowl.
Tara sighed. “I wished I’d paid more attention when she started dating him. He’s such a jerk,” she slammed a bag of sugar on to the table. “You know, James picked up on that really early on. He was really angry that I let Dillon move in with Lottie, but she’s an adult; I can’t control who she dates or lives with.”
“So James has been interested in Lottie’s dating habits for a while?” Ryan said, turning his back on the fruit bowl.
Tara narrowed her eyes. “I see that gleam in your eye. Do not go speculating over whether James has been in love with my sister for half a decade. Do not!”
“So you admit it’s love he feels for her?” Ryan asked, then ducked as she threw a pack of sponges at him. “Fine, I’ll get out of your kitchen. You’ll admit that I’m right some day.”
Word count: 977