Since she was off work that day, Alexis decided to sleep in. It was probably about 9:30 in the morning when she finally woke up. Holding in a yawn, Lexi swung her legs over the side of the king sized bed, shared with Nick. Sighing in place of a exhausted yawn, Lexi stood up, streaching her arms and neck until she heard a faint pop of her bones.

She picked up her iPhone on the dresser and turned it on, taking it off the charger. As she waited for it to turn itself on, Lexi examined herself in the mirror and frowned slightly. "Serious bedhair..." She mumbled outloud to herself. When her phone vibrated, signaling that is was on, she picked it up, noticing several texts. She opened her inbox and read and replied to only one for now. Nick's. She scanned through his message and pressed the reply button in the lower left corner. She then typed a message back to him and pressed send.

it's okay, hun. i needed the rest. sure, i'd love to go out with u today. anything sounds fine with me as long as i'm with u. i love u more. bye baby. -lexi

After the little green checkmark appeared, saying the message sent though succesfully, she walked into the huge bathroom and took a steaming hot shower, which relaxed the tense muscles in her shoulders. After she was out and wrapped up snuggly in a light blue towel, she picked out her outfit for that day-a simple black dress with thin straps. She always wore dresses. She loved them, basically.

After fixing her hair in tiny ringlets, hanging over her graceful and young face, Lexi glanced over at the clock and saw it was almost 11 now. She frowned as her stomach grumbled loudly. She walked into the kitchen and picked up a apple, taking a bite from it. A smile crossed her face as a pleasant thought of Nick crossed through her mind.

Layla groaned, resting her head on the counter. She had been out at a concert late the night before and the lack off sleep was getting to her. Not that she minded being at work, the shop was usually quiet and it beat listening to her mother tell her about how she should be in by curfew, no matter what. She was planning on going to see her brother, Lucas later but until then she would have to get by and the very cute boy making his way to the counter was sure helping.

Was it morning already? How could that be possible? Claire had only slept two minutes. Or. Well. Maybe more. When he planted that kiss on her forehead, she allowed a groan to rift her lips, pursed with sleep. She stretched out all over the bed, her muscles tensing as she acquainted herself with the fact that it was probably time to get up. If Lucas was awake, it had to be time; he was never up earlier than, oh, ten or so. She let out a long exhale, before her eyes fluttered open to rest on her fiance.

The faint, orange-hued light of morning that was peeking through the curtains danced along his face, and she emitted a small, tired chuckle as she halfway sat up and gave him a lingering peck on the lips. "Good morning, sunshine." A smile played upon her lips. Everything balanced out quite well, because, while he was absolutely not a morning person, she sort of was. Don't get me wrong, she enjoyed sleeping in every moment she got, but she wasn't really moody when she woke up. She cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand and pushed sleepiness away as it caused her eyes to slightly droop.

Aylin had been awake for nearly four hours, and she was beginning to get bored. Being an insomniac, it was hard for her to sleep, and even when she did manage to fall asleep, as she had at one in the morning, it only lasted for a few hours. So, she had woken up at five-thirty that morning and headed off to the gym, where she spent about an hour running on the treadmill. Once hotel guests started to come in though, she left the room because she didn't feel like socializing with random people. When she spoke to people that she didn't know, it always somehow seemed to seep back into the tabloids in a twisted version.

After returning back to the penthouse suite, Aylin took a shower and walked into the family room where she turned on the TV and watched the E! morning news until it was ten, and she heard someone else moving around. Aylin figured that it wasn't her father because he had left a little bit after she had woken, and he normally didn't return home into the early hours of the next day. She had gotten used to it by now, but she didn't hesitate to take her anger out on other people, particularly Lexi, his current girlfriend. Although they had been going steady for three years, Aylin swore that one day soon they would break up. Her father would never be able to settle down, especially with someone who was younger than two of his children.

It wasn't much of a surprise when she spotted Lexi in the kitchen, where Aylin was also headed. The girl picked up an apple and began to eat it, and Aylin stared at her in disgust for no reason. She finally pulled her brown eyes away and headed over to the fridge, where she pulled out a bottle of water. Her eyes darted back towards Lexi as she silently stared at her, taking small sips of her breakfast, the water, every few moments.

After sitting down at a long, rectangular table, a man got up and began to speak. Like the others in the room, Nick sat back in his chair and sipped at the coffee he had been given as he partially payed attention to the presentation that the man was giving. He pulled out his MacBook, sliding it onto the table with the other people's and flipped it open, pretending to be taking notes on it. Nick didn't need to pretend though, because he was the most respected man in the room. There were no competitors for him, so honestly he had no one to impress. Still, he tried not to be rude and he flipped his phone onto silent before sliding it onto the keyboard of his laptop so that no-one else would see him reading Lexi's text. After scanning it, he replied:

alright so maybe we can do dinner and a show. u going out today? shopping or whatever? its fine to leave aylin with one of the girls or by herself. theyll watch her if u want to do ur own thing.

He knew that Lexi knew she didn't need to spend time around his kids because he didn't even do that.

Nick ran a hand over his head as he glanced back up at the speaker and then towards the black laptop screen. He was bored already, and was going to have to sit through another hour of it, but it would bring in clients, so in his mind it was worth it.

Layla smiled, it turned out the cutie she was serving was in one of the opening bands at the concert the night before and they'd spent the past twenty minuets talking about music, comic books and guitars. The shop was quiet so it didn’t matter that she hadn’t actually scanned anything he wanted to buy yet and he didn’t seem to mind, in fact he was currently asking if she wanted to meet up when she got off work, to which she gladly accepted.
As she watched him go, taking his newly bought copy of ‘Umbrella Academy’ with him, she pulled out her phone. Quickly texting her brother that she’d be a it late at coming to visit, although he was sure not to mind.
'Hey bro. Gonna be late coming to visit, gotta date. Love L xoxo'

Claire sighed into his embrace, pleasuring in the warmth of his skin. She shivered slightly. "I was freezing. All night long. We've got to get the heating to work," she commented, grinning mischievously. "But at least you were here to cuddle with. Last week, when you spent the night out with friends, I thought I was going to go into hypothermia."

When he told her he would be right back, she nodded, relaxing back into the pillows with a grin. She curled up underneath all of the covers and sheets, looking like a huge ball of blankets from most angles. Hearing all the banging around in the kitchen, she couldn't help but emit a muffled laugh, musing about what the hell he was doing in there. She heard the thump of his footsteps not long after, and sat up, stretching.

At the sight of what he'd made her, she gasped, placing her hand to her chest. "Lucas. I thought I'd have to wait until the honeymoon for treats like this," she wiggled her eyebrows, her teeth visible with a charmingly large grin. "Mmm, smells good." She said as she closed her eyes and deeply inhaled. She looked at the coffee and orange juice, pushing away the juice with a wrinkle of her nose. "Gross. But thanks for the coffee, and everything else. I love you." She chuckled.

Lexi was brushing her teeth when a text came in. After she spitted and gurgled, Lexi checked Nick's text and smiled as she replied back.

actually, i was thinking about going shopping for a while. you know, buy myself some new victoria's secret things. would that be okay? love you a lot. -lexi

After that text sent through, Lexi grabbed the keys to the neon green mustang, and headed to the door. "I'm going out, but I'll be back in a little while!" She called out to the remaining kids. She sighed happily as she stepped outside, the door closing behind her. The sun hit her face, giving off a perfect glow. She smiled and waved at people as she headed outside to the parking lot.

Lexi easily noticed the neon green car right off the spot. She made her way over to it, unlocking the doors, and slid in, closing the door behind her. Lexi stuck the key into the ignition and smiled in satisfaction at the low and graceful purr it made. She put the car into reverse as she backed out of the parking spot, then drive as she headed to the mall. As she drove, Lexi turned on the radio to 104.3 ZYP, and began to hum along to Britany Spear's newest song, "3".

"Oh, it's not your fault... I get my paycheck soon, so when I do we'll combine some money and work on getting that fixed. We'll just have to start wearing our ski suits to bed until then." Clair smirked and leaned over, planting a short but sweet kiss on his cheek. She picked up her fork and dug into the pancakes, grinning as some chocolate got on the surrounding area of her mouth, and the tip of her nose. Not able to help herself, she laughed a little bit with a mouth full of food, eyes on Lucas.

She finished chewing, but didn't bother cleaning her face of the chocolate. When he informed her of his text from Layla, she half-nodded and just kept eating. "Mmmmmm. Where'd you learn to cook? I was under the impression all you could cook was toast." she teased. She had actually looked into cooking classes for herself, because she wanted to be able to cook for him better than she did now. But they were still a little bit over the budget, so she put it off.

Layla jumped and dropped the box of comics she had been in the process of shelving as her phone vibrated. She dug in her pocket and pulled out her phone, laughing at the message her brother had sent her. Where most girls found over-protective brother syndrome annoying Layla found it funny and did everything she could to wind her brother up, even though she knew he'd get along with the boys she usually liked.
'Sid, 21,Guitarist, 5"8,dark hair,blue eyes,cute in a non-obvious way, sweet,funny,little bit of a dork' She smiled, it seemed a good enough description, not that her brother could do anything about it, after all she was meeting him for coffee in less than an hour.

Claire laughed gently as he wiped the chocolate from her nose, and when he kissed her cheek she turned so their lips met, and he got chocolate on his face. Grinning, she replied, "Baylor Schmaylor, I'll be a Connaught soon enough." She laughed again, looking quite silly with all of the chocolate on her face and her childish expression. She leaned back into the pillows for a few seconds, before munching on a piece of bacon. "The bacon's good, too. Nice job, Chef Lucas."

"Where? My mom taught me. She is still an amazing cook. And excuse me? Just toast? Have you ever let me make you a home cooked dinner? If not, I will when we're married. Definitely. You'll never have to go to a restaurant again!"

She pursed her lips and shrugged. "Mm, maybe your mom should teach me to cook. Then I'll be the perfect little wife, and I'll make you all the food you can eat and more. You'll be twenty pounds heavier by the end of the honeymoon."

Aylin brushed her hair away from her face and ran her fingers through the brown locks as she watched Evelyn come into the kitchen with a male. She giggled in a ditzy tone as he prevented her from falling, before they quickly left the kitchen and only a moment later, Evelyn reappeared, but now she was alone. Aylin didn't have to ask who the guy was because she doubted that Evelyn knew the names of the guys that she brought home most of the time. It was normally a drunk night leading to them returning to the penthouse and sleeping together. In the morning, Aylin doubted they remembered the details of what went on the previous night, but she also doubted that they cared.

"Morning," Aylin replied sheepishly to Evelyn. Her eyes followed Lexi as she scurried past them and a few minutes later she yelled that she was going out. After she heard the door click shut, her eyes shot towards her sister. "I hate that bitch so much," she said as she took a sip of water and sighed dramatically. Aylin hated having to consider that her father would date someone younger than his own daughter and son. This girl was young enough to be his daughter, and yet he still thought it was fine to date her. To be honest, Aylin didn't feel bad about thinking that her father was disgusting for liking the woman, because she was young, because she had no relationship with her father. It was a relationship that lived off of credit cards and shopping sprees. That was how her father showed his love, and sometimes Aylin wished that he spent more time at home.

"Where's Claire?" she asked Evelyncuriously. She didn't see Claire often, and although she had never met her boyfriend, she thought that was where she heard that Claire lived.