Lizzie

I didn’t want to wake up. Who ever really does over breaks anyway? My bed was comfortable and under my blankets. I felt great, until something came into my room.

“Lizzie, wake up!” That was the first thing I heard that morning. I reached out and swatted at something, trying to hit it. I was so much asleep that I couldn’t tell who was even talking to me. “What are you doing?” the voice asked me.

“Snooze button,” I mumbled. I kept swatting until I hit something.

“That’s my leg, Lizzie,” the person said, laughing softly.

“Snooze,” I whined again, swatting more.

“There’s breakfast on the table,” the person said. But, I just said snooze again. “Fine, I’ll just carry you up there.”

When I didn’t answer, I guess the person took it as a go ahead. Arms swept under me and lifted me into the air. Now, I was wide awake, and realized who the intruder to my perfect rest was. Louis William Tomlinson. Did this boy have a death wish? If he didn’t leave me alone he may not make it to tomorrow morning.

“Louis,” I complained, glaring at him.

“What?” Louis asked me, smiling. “Didn’t you want breakfast or something?”

“No,” I told him, crossing my arms as he held me up. Strangely enough, it felt comfortable. “I wanted to sleep. Why didn’t you wake Kelly up?” I looked over at Kelly’s bed, where sure enough she was still fast asleep. Lucky.

“Because I wanted to spend time with you, just the two of us,” he said. “I made breakfast,” he said.

“Did you make the kitchen explode?” I asked.

“No,” Louis said. “You have no faith in me, do you? I can do things,” he said. He looked kind of hurt by it, but we both knew even at this early hour we were just teasing each other.

“Yeah, but making breakfast is not one of them. Who made it and said you could pretend it was yours?” I asked him, a tiny smirk playing on my lips as I spoke.

Louis looked down. “Harry,” he admitted sheepishly.

I laughed softly. “Wow,” I said, smirking at him.

“I still have breakfast for you, though,” Louis said, looking at me now. “Do you want some?”

“Sure,” I said, and he set me down on the ground. “Thank you,” I said. Then, I walked out of the room and up the stairs. I could hear him behind me, his footsteps light to keep everyone from waking up, yet at the same time walking with purpose on the hardwood flooring.

We reached the top of the stairs, where a nice breakfast was set out for us at two of the places at the table. “Harry really outdid himself,” I said. “Where’s the curly-haired boy, anyway?”

“Why? Compliments to the chef?” Louis asked with a laugh.

“Possibly,” I admitted.

“Well, I think he probably went to sleep again. Either that or he’s doing something really odd. To be honest, I really don’t want to know what he’s doing,” Louis mused, looking up at the ceiling as he thought about it.

“And you call me out for having no faith in people,” I said with a smirk. He just rolled his eyes as I sat down at the table.

“That’s ‘cause I’m allowed to,” Louis smirked at me.

“Since when?” I asked as he took a seat at the table as well.

“Since forever,” Louis said. “We poke fun at each other. It’s our thing,” he said.

“It is,” I admitted with a smile. “And I like it, to be honest,” I agreed.

Louis smiled. “I do too,” he told me, and I couldn’t help smiling more.

We both began to eat, chatting and catching up, just the two of us. It was pretty nice, I admit. We really hadn’t had any time to be alone, and it was great to be able to have it. It was even better considering the fact that Michael wasn’t here to ruin it. I know he doesn’t support this, but he’ll just have to live with it. I wasn’t planning on letting this go anytime soon.

After a while of eating at the table in the silence, I looked at him. “So…” I began softly as I lifted my glass of juice to my lips.

“So…” Louis repeated, mirroring me as he lifted his own glass to his lips. “What do you think we should do today?”

“Well, it all depends. What do you think we should do?” I asked in response. I finished off my meal quickly and stood up to bring the plate to the dishwasher.

“I don’t know what we can do in the first place,” he reminded me, and I remembered this was his first time in the cabin. Wow, I really was tired this morning then.

“We can go sledding, watch a movie, or head out to the lake for some skating, play a video game…” I listed off multiple ideas, things we normally did for this trip. I watched him to see his reactions to my ideas, but it seemed he liked all of them.

“Sledding sounds fun. Typical winter stuff,” Louis chuckled a bit.

I nodded, just as he finished his meal. “Do you want me to take your plate?” I offered, holding my dishes in my hands to bring them to the dishwasher.

“No, I’ve got it,” Louis said, standing up. “I’ll get your plate. You know where the sleds are, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, passing my plate and silverware off to him. “Want me to get them?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll put these in the dishwasher.”

“Okay,” I dragged out my single word to give him a chance to say more. He just smiled at me, so I took that opportunity to leave the room to find the sleds. I went to the small storage room off of the doorway, where we stored some of our snow supplies. There, leaning against the wall were the sleds I was looking for. I pulled them out of the closet just as I heard footsteps coming up behind me. “Louis, if you’re trying to scare me, I know kung fu,” I joked.

“You don’t know kung fu,” the voice that matched the footsteps said. It wasn’t Louis.

“Michael, what are you doing up?” I asked him, turning around to face him.

“Alarm went off. Are you two going sledding?” my brother asked.

“Yeah, why?” I responded quickly, a bit confused and surprised. The Michael I remembered from before he left for the air force wouldn’t wake up before his alarm, and would never set it on a weekend or break. He’d sleep until ten if he had the opportunity, and I didn’t mean ten a.m.

“Well, I haven’t gone sledding in forever,” he began.

I bit down on my lip. I knew where he was going. He wanted to come with. If I was going with any other person than Louis, I’d say “Sure” without hesitation. I’d love to spend time with my brother now that he was home. But I knew how much he didn’t like Louis, and that worried me about him coming with to sled. I just had this feeling that he was going to try his hardest to keep us apart throughout this whole winter break, and this would be just the beginning of this whole thing.

It sounded so mean, not anything like the Michael I remembered. My brother from years ago would never even think of doing this. He trusted my judgment; at least, that’s what I remembered. He’d ask if I knew them pretty well, and if I cared about them for real. If I said yes, he would say, “Okay. Come talk to me if anything happens to you. But I trust you.” That was always that. My ex-boyfriends, he never went up against my judgment about them being good guys, even if he had a bad feeling about any of them. And, all of them had been. I’m still actually good friends with my exes. I still talk to Gabe and Ian a lot, actually, the two who I had dated the longest.

But, if my judgment had been right about them, why didn’t he think the same about Louis? It wasn’t fair at all. If he gave him the chance, he’d realize what a kind, sweet, funny guy he was. He’d also see how much we bounced off each other. But why couldn’t he just get past the fact that he was a celebrity? Had war changed him that much?

“Earth to Elizabeth,” Michael said, waving his hand in front of my face. Michael was the only one I ever let call me Elizabeth. I didn’t even let my mother call me that without correcting her and saying my own name. Only he and Louis could get away with calling me something other than my usual nickname. I hadn’t even let Gabe and Ian call me anything else. That was saying something.

I sighed. “What do you want, Michael?” I asked after snapping out of my thoughts.

“Can I come with?” he asked.

Knew it.

“I’m going sledding with Louis, you know that, right?” I asked him, to make sure he knew exactly what I meant about the whole thing. Maybe the detail would cause him to change his mind and stay indoors instead of following the two of us out into the winter weather. Sadly, I was mistaken.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I may as well keep my eyes on you two so nothing happens,” he added.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I asked with wide eyes. Are you kidding me? “Michael!”

“I just have to make sure,” Michael told me, and then looked at the sleds. “So, can I?”

I sighed. “Okay, fine,” I said. “Go get your stuff. I’ll tell Lou.” He nodded and walked off.

I watched my brother leave and then went to find Louis. I tucked the sleds under my arms and went to the kitchen. Louis was there, and was just finishing up shutting the door of the dishwasher when I came in. He turned to face me. “You found the sleds,” he said, pointing out the obvious.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. He just rolled his eyes before I spoke again. “Michael’s coming with us,” I added bluntly.

“Is he going to kill me?” Louis asked, sounding a bit nervous. He definitely knew how much my brother didn’t approve. I had been talking to him over the school year so far, and we had been trying to come up with ways to convince him to let us be. But, we hadn’t come up with much.

“No, he’s not going to kill you. He wouldn’t want to be found guilty of homicide in court. Go get your stuff. We’re heading out,” I said. “Oh, and take this.” I gave him a sled, and then went to find my boots.

“Yes, ma’am,” Louis said in a funny voice, causing me to laugh. We went to find our snow stuff, smiling. Who cared if my brother didn’t support it? We were fine together.

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“Come on, guys,” I called behind me as I walked down the sidewalk. The hill we normally went down was on the other side of the driveway, and it was much steeper and way more fun than the hill directly on the side of the house.

“We’re coming,” I heard Louis respond from behind me.

“How are you able to do this?” Michael complained.

“Do what?” I asked in response.

“Walk on this ice!” Michael complained. I turned around to see what was going on with him, and couldn’t help laughing. He was taking the tiniest steps that were humanly possible, afraid of slipping on the ice.

“You lived in Minnesota for eighteen years, and you’re scared to walk on ice?” I asked, unsure if I should be laughing or not.

“Yeah. But I’ve been gone in Colorado for months,” he said to me.

“That’s no excuse, Michael Nelson,” I chided. Just then, I saw a car pull up in our driveway. A tall, teenage boy stepped out of the car, and ran a hand through his hair as he shut the door behind him. He looked over at me, and I called, “Hey!”

“Hey, Lizzie!” the boy called back. I knew who it was immediately: Tanner Cresswell. His family owned the cabin down the street from us, and I remember that he was specifically best friends with Simone.

“Looking for Simone?” I asked. “She’s inside.”

“Thanks, Lizzie!” I saw a grin form on his lips, and he hurried up to the house.

“No problem. See ya later, Tanner!” I called back to him, smiling. Tanner was a sweetheart, and I was more than happy to help him out.

“Who’s that?” Louis asked.

“That’s Tanner Cresswell,” I said. I explained the relationship between the families to him, and he nodded.

“Okay, cool,” he said, nodding. We continued to the hill, and I set down my sled. “Wanna ride together?” he asked me.

“Yeah, sure,” I smiled. I went to take a seat on the sled, and Louis came to join me. But, then Michael stepped forward.

“Think I can ride with her once first?” he asked Louis. Here it goes.

Louis stepped back. “Sure, mate,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Michael gave a smile; one that I knew was faked from living with him since I was a baby. “Thanks,” he said, and got onto the sled behind me.

I don’t think Michael was going to give up very easily. Right now, he was going to make sure Louis and I didn’t get close while sledding. It wasn’t worth a fight. At least we got a nice, peaceful breakfast earlier today, with no distractions from my brother.

He won this round, but I wasn’t giving up. After all, Lizzie Nelson never gives up.

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A/N Hello everyone! Sorry for the abrupt ending of the chapter. I just felt like you could imagine the rest of what happens. Simone's chapter's up next, featuring Tanner! Who's ready to find out more about him?

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, comment and fan if you liked it! See you next update!