88. Ch 88- Unboxed Feelings

Boxing Day was now upon them, and though the festive mood had carried over from Christmas Day, things had calmed down a little for the Loud family. They had said goodbye to Pop Pop and Bobby after breakfast, helping to put any gifts from the Louds in the van before the Santiago boy drove off towards the retirement home. For the rest of the morning, the kids spent their time playing with their new toys and games, chatting with friends or watching TV. This not only allowed them to relax, knowing that they still had a week and a half before school restarted, but also allowed the two parents to relax some as well.

Just after one o'clock, Lynn sauntered into the kitchen, where she saw that Luan was busy making herself some food. As if on instinct, Lynn ducked when the high school freshman turned around. She waited a few seconds, expecting to hear a splatting sound and possibly a cry of displeasure behind her, but when she heard neither, she stood back up. Luan was looking at her with baffled confusion when she asked, "what are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh, you know, just… getting some squats in!" Lynn quickly answered, ducking her head in her hands and performing some squats. "Helps to build up an appetite, you know?"

The older of the two rolled her eyes at the jock. "Lynn, relax. If I was going to pie you, I would have done so already." Lynn stood up straight again, giving a sheepish laugh. "Still, either those were some great reflexes or I'm getting predictable. I might need to think of some new ideas, before my skills get crusty."

Lynn groaned at the pun and the following laughter. "Well, at least you're not doing holiday jokes."

"Nah, it's all about timing. I already used them to Christmass capacity." She laughed once again, which was once again met with groans, before she pulled out Mr Coconuts. "So, what are you in here for, toots?" the puppet 'asked', though Lynn just pushed 'him' away. "Hey, watch the merchandise!"

"Whatever," Lynn replied, walking over to the fridge. "I'm just here to get some lunch." Opening the door, she pulled out a Tupperware container with some cooked meatballs in. Removing the lid and the layer of cellophane within, she gave them a whiff, resulting in a content sigh. "Yep, they'll do." She then grabbed some sliced cheese, a bottle of hot sauce and a jar of pasta sauce, putting them on the counter and closing the fridge. "So, what you eating, sis?"

"Just making a sandwich to go," Luan answered. "I'm meeting Benny at the park."

"Oh, are you?" She placed the meatballs into the microwave, setting the timer for half a minute before turning to her sister with a grin. "I bet he'll be happy to see you. Gonna wear the hat he got you?" Luan nodded, her blushing cheeks making Lynn chuckle. "He's really got you smitten, hasn't he?"

"W-What can I say? He just makes me feel… I don't even know how to put it. It's like… well, you know."

"Ugh, I wish I hadn't said anything."

Luan rolled her eyes at the jock. "You'll see. As soon as you find a guy you like, you'll be talking like this too."

"Yeah, but I'm in no hurry, so don't expect me to go Gaga anytime soon."

Luan's smile turned a bit smug as she argued, "you never know. Just because you're not expecting to find someone, doesn't mean it won't happen. You might be practicing basketball or something and bump into someone at the water cooler, and before you know it, you're not just bumping into each other, but you're going out, you're hugging, you're kissing, you're—"

"Come on, I'm making food here! You're gonna make me lose my appetite!" The two sisters stared at each other, one with a faux look of disgust and the other with a grin, before they both burst into laughter, just as they heard the ping of the microwave. "Nah, it would take more than that to turn me away from a meatball sub."

"I'm aware," Luan teased as her younger sister added the sauce to the container and put it back in the microwave, this time setting it for two minutes. "If you spent as much time with a guy as you did with those subs, you might actually have a boyfriend."

"You know a sub doesn't last long with me." The older brunette laughed again. "But, hey. For what it's worth, it's clear that Benny makes you happy, and that's great. I'm happy for you."

"Aww, thanks, Lynn! C'mere." Before the jock could protest, she was scooped into a hug by the comedienne, giving a joking groan before returning the hug. "Don't ever change, Lynn."

"Lu, I'm a Loud. I'm too stubborn to change."

They both chuckled again as Luan released her sister from the hug. "Yeah, you're right there." Catching a glimpse of the time on her watch, her eyes widened. "Woah! I better get going!" She went over to her sandwiches and grabbed them, giving her sister a quick "see you later" before running out of the kitchen.

'If she really thinks I'm gonna get like that, she really is a clown,' Lynn thought with a shake of her head, before returning to her food. When the meatballs were done in the microwave, she pulled them out, seeing the sauce was now bubbling. Grabbing a hoagie from the bread bin, she pulled a spoon out of a nearby drawer and used it to place the meatballs into the bread, topping them with any remaining sauce and a couple of cheese slices. She put the sub back into the microwave and let it cook for another fifteen seconds before pulling out the steaming sub, the cheese now melted onto the bread and the meatballs. Giving it a big whiff, she sighed. "That's what I'm talking about… well, almost." Unscrewing the life from the hot sauce, she dumped a more than healthy amount onto the sandwich. "Hmm… I suppose that'll do."

So, after putting what she hadn't used back in the fridge and putting the spoon and Tupperware next to the pile of dishes, she licked her lips and took her first bite out of her sub. She gave a happy hum, her cheeks heating up a little from the spice and a little bit of steam escaping her mouth as she bit into it a second time just seconds later. As she continued to eat, she headed upstairs, passing a giddy Luan as she headed for the front door. Once upstairs, Lynn went to the far door on the right and tried to open it, only for it to not budge, so she gave a few heavy knocks.

"Hang on!" she heard her brother call from the other side of the door, a few footsteps and the undoing of a lock preceding the eventual opening of the door, her brother giving her a mildly miffed expression. "What do you want, Lynn?"

"Just thought I'd remind you that we need to workout later," she informed the boy. "Got to make up for missed time yesterday, you know?"

"Yeah, I remember. Can we do it in, say, thirty minutes?"

"Sure, no problem." He nodded to her and made a move to head back into his room, but Lynn put a hand on the door to prevent him from closing it. "What you doing, bro? Up to no good?"

"I'm actually in the middle of a video call, so… would you mind?"

"Aww, am I interrupting you and your girlfriend?" Her brother gave a small, irritated growl, to which she laughed and patted his shoulder. "Take a chill pill, bro, I'm messing with you. I'll catch you downstairs."

He nodded again as she walked away, closing the door and locking it again with a heavy sigh. He sat back down, looking back at his laptop screen to see Ronnie Anne's bemused grin. "Sorry about that, Ronnie Anne."

"Lame-O, it's fine," she assured him. "You forget that I have met your sisters before, so I know how chaotic it is there."

"About as chaotic as your family, I'm sure."

"Yeah, but I have to deal with as much chaos with my extended family as you do with your sisters alone."

"This coming from someone who only has one brother, and used to be the chaotic one."

The Latin girl gave a few chuckles. "Touché, Lame-O." At that moment, she heard a ruckus from outside her bedroom door, making her sigh. "Guess I've got to deal with my family too. I actually need to go soon, I'm meeting up with Sid to hang out."

"Sure, no problem. Thanks again for… well, talking to me."

"Hey, I'm all ears if want to talk. Especially about that kind of thing."

The smug grin on her face made him chuckle sheepishly. "Yeah, uh, you definitely won't tell anyone, right?"

"My lips are sealed." The boy was visibly relieved to hear this, to which Ronnie Anne give a soft shake of her head. "Talk to you later, Lincoln."

"I'll see you later, Ronnie Anne." With that, her video feed cut as they both ended the call, with Lincoln leaning back in his chair straight after. 'That helped… I think.'

Lincoln spent the next half an hour in his room, a look of deep thought engraved in his expression. When he eventually joined Lynn in the basement, she was in the middle of setting up for their workout. "Hey, there you are, bro! Come on, let's get our exercise on, you know what I—" Her smile dropped when she saw the look on her brother's face. "Hey, Lincoln, you with me?" Her brother didn't answer, so she stepped in front of him. "Yo, Stinkoln!"

This managed to get through to her brother, who flinched and blinked. "Huh? Lynn, what's wrong?"

"That's what I should be asking you. You seemed kind of spaced out. Something on your mind?"

"No, I'm good." His sister was going to argue, but before she could, he asked her, "so, what are we starting with?"

She could tell he was trying to dodge the question, but decided against forcing him to open up. "Alright, if you're ready." She walked over to the weight bench and picked up a pair of skipping ropes. "Catch this."

She tossed one to her brother, who caught it and looked at it with confusion. "Skipping? Really?"

"Hey, trust me on this. It's a great warm up to get the heart pumping, and it exercises the whole body."

"No, that makes sense. I'm just surprised you'd pick this."

The brunette rolled her eyes. "Well, we're not going to be doing fancy stuff like kids in a playground. Just some standard skipping to warm us up."

"Okay, Coach."

She rolled her eyes again, though couldn't stop the smirk that graced her lips. "Okay, enough talk. Let's do this." She took her phone out of her pocket and set a timer on it for two minutes and five seconds. After setting it off, she put the phone down on the weight bench and stood opposite her brother, both with their ropes hanging behind them and holding onto both handles. "And… go!" The two siblings began skipping, Lynn's pace faster than her brother's at first. "Come on, Lincoln, is that all you've got? We're meant to be warming up!" Without a word, he began to spin the rope faster, forcing him to jump faster as well. Over the course of a minute, the two jumped many times, maintaining rhythm and energy, with Lynn encouraging her brother to keep going the whole time. "Alright, now, one foot at a time!" She was first to switch her motion, placing her left foot down then skipping onto her right foot, and so on and do forth. Her brother joined his sister a second after, slowing down at first to get used to the rhythm. "Don't slow down now, bro! We're not done yet!

Once more, Lincoln said nothing and simply followed his sister's suggestion. His pace managed to match that of the more experienced athlete, and under her encouragement, he maintained the pace until they heard the timer go off on her phone. With a few more steps, they slowed to a stop, the ropes slowing midair and landing on their shoulders. Lincoln was looking slightly breathless, while Lynn looked like she hadn't even broken a sweat. "Okay," he breathily confessed. "That… that was a good warm up."

"Told you so, Linc. When have I ever let you down?" Deciding to tease her, he began to over dramatically think about the question, which made her pout a little. "Okay, maybe I should be more specific."

He didn't give her the chance to ask him again, giving a soft laugh. "Lynn, I'm messing with you. You know I appreciate what you're doing for me, right?"

"Heh, of course I do, because if I didn't think that, you'd have to deal with me." The boy laughed again, this time more heartily. "Come on, we can't be stopping now. Let's get stretching, and then we can really work out." Lincoln nodded, and followed his sister's example once again, starting their stretches down at the ankles. As Lynn led her brother through the exercise, she noticed that his eyes seemed to regain that look of thought she noticed when he first entered the basement. "Hey, bro. You with me still?"

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm still here. Why?"

"You don't seem all there. You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm totally fine."

Lynn let him off with it for the moment, but as they went through their work out, she kept a close eye on the boy, looking for any sign of a slip up. Lincoln seemed to defy her, keeping up with any exercise that his sister put him through, only struggling with some of the heavier weights that she loaded onto the bar. Part of her thought that she was imagining it and that her brother really was okay, but the look on his face continued to catch her attention. It wasn't the same look of thought from before, but instead, it was as if he was trying to push his thoughts to one side, so that he could focus on his workout. Lynn could understand why Lincoln would do that, having herself made more than a few mistakes in previous workouts because of distracting thoughts, but this reaffirmed her previous notion that something was on his mind. She just wished that she could know what.

Before either of them realised it, an hour had passed, and they were now cooling down. "Phew… that was a good workout, huh, bro?" Lynn asked.

"Yeah, it was," he replied. "I feel like I'm getting used to this."

"Oh, yeah? Well, next week, I'll ramp it up for you. How does that sound?"

"It sounds like I shouldn't have said anything."

Lynn laughed. "I'm just messing, bro. We're done down here, so head upstairs and I'll join you in a second." He nodded to her again, before heading up the stairs. Once the door shut, Lynn let her smile drop. 'I think I should talk to him. Something is up, and I'm not sure I like it. Once we've had our shakes, I'll ask him again.' With that, she pocketed her phone and headed up the stairs as well. Entering the kitchen, she saw her dad at the table, reading a newspaper, but no sign of her brother. "Hey, Dad?" she asked, getting him to lower his paper. "Have you seen Lincoln?"

"He just left," he told his daughter. "He grabbed a bottle of water, and I think he was headed to his room."

"He did?" Her father nodded again. 'Hmm…'

It was a couple of minutes later when Lincoln saw his door open, seeing that it was his sister who had done so, her foot hovering in the air for milliseconds before lowering again. He would have complained, telling her to knock rather than kick it, but he saw the two glasses in her hands, one half drunken and one full. "What's that?"

"You forgot about your protein shake," she told him, holding the full glass out to the boy.

"Oh, right! Thanks." He stood up and walked over to the jock, taking the extended glass and drinking from it. "Ooh… that actually went down a lot easier than last time. Did you try something new?"

"Yeah, there's blueberries and peanut butter."

"Well, that's a nice combination."

"I'll keep that in mind." The two both took another drink before Lynn asked him, "so, what's up?"

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that, bro." His eyes widened at the shift in her tone, her words somewhat more stern now. "You've been acting strange all day, and it's clear that something's on your mind."

"Lynn, you don't understand—"

"Then, help me understand!" As she huffed for a few seconds, he saw the look in her eyes change. They became sad, almost… desperate. "Look, bro, I just… I don't want to have to find out from someone else that you've gotten hurt or in trouble, you know?"

To this, his gaze softened, a small upward curl to his lips becoming present. "Lynn, I appreciate you looking out for me, but it's really nothing like that. I'm not getting hurt or in trouble or anything like that. I'm just… well, I'm just trying to think about something."

"Like what?" He looked down, trying to decide whether or not he should tell her, so she put her drink on his desk and placed her hands on his shoulders. "Bro… you can talk to me."

He looked back up, and she noticed that he still looked conflicted, but he gave a small nod. "Well, the truth is… I'm starting to think that you and the rest of the girls… well, you might be… right."

"Right? About what?"

"Well, about me and… and…"

He was struggling to get the last word out, and Lynn was on tenterhooks, trying to figure out what he was going to say. "Well? You and what?" He still wasn't able to say it, but as she looked at his face, two things stood out: a shy smile, and steadily blushing cheeks. It took her a couple of seconds for the idea to come to her, but when it did, she gasped loudly, her hands leaving his shoulders to cover her mouth. "You mean… you and…"

"Y... Y-yeah…" He covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for what was to come next. After a few seconds, though, nothing happened. When he looked at his sister again, he saw that she was doing her best to keep calm, biting down on her lip, and her arms shaking. "Lynn?" Before he could say or do anything else, she moved in a blur, slamming the door shut and locking it before grabbing his pillow from his bed and screaming into it, the muffled scream still being quite audible to the boy, but not to the level that made him think anyone else would hear. He watched as she began hopping, stomping, jumping, doing anything to stop herself from running out of the room. It was a full fifteen seconds before she lowered the pillow, her face red as she panted for air. "Are… are you o-KAY!" She wrapped her arms around him tightly, squeezing him in a hug with the biggest smile on her face. She hadn't noticed that he spilled some of his shake on her shoe, or that he was struggling for air. "L-LYNN! C-CAN'T BREATHE!"

To his mercy, she let him go, allowing him to take deep, pained breaths. "Lincoln, you are going to tell me everything! Like, when did—"

Before she could ask further, knocking was heard at the door, so she went over and unlocked it. Upon opening the door, she saw that Lori had a confused/concerned look on her face. "Why did you slam the door just now?"

"My bad, Lori," she quickly apologised, doing her best to hide her excitement. "You know I've got heavy hands."

The eldest sister noticed the slightly off expression on Lynn's face, so she looked to her brother, who had now recovered his breathing. "You two okay?"

"Yeah, we're okay," he assured her. "It's like Lynn said." She looked at him, looking to see if he was lying, but he masked his words well enough for her to nod and walk away. After closing the door and locking it again, he looked to Lynn and begged her, "please. Don't tell the others yet."

"As tempting as it would be, I won't," she promised, "but you have to tell me everything. You hear me? EVERYTHING."

"Alright, but calm down, okay? You're making me nervous."

She chuckled as he finished his protein shake, placing his glass next to hers. While she sat down on the bed, he took his chair and stood on it to open the vent cover, poking his head inside. "What are you doing? Lucy just left to go to the graveyard."

"Oh… well, that makes this easier." Getting off his chair, he then moved it and sat down opposite his sister. "So, I just want to point out that, all those times I said she was just a friend, I meant it. We've been nothing more than friends."

"But you'd like to," she argued, his returning blush making her giddy again. "When did you realise?"

"Well, I… I guess I started to realise last week. It was after I had made up with Lori, and I thanked Jordan for helping me through all of this— keeping my secret for me, helping me to think straight after everything went out of control, just being there for me if I needed her. Since then, I've just been thinking about how everything's changed between us. We went from barely being friends to being really close friends, and I've grown to… well, to really appreciate being around her. She's fun and smart and kind and…"

"Cute?"

Lincoln's blush grew tenfold, but he nodded. "Y-yeah… I-I know that we're both kids, and maybe I'm just overthinking this, but… well, she means so much to me. I want to show her that." His gaze having lowered as he confessed his feelings, he looked to his sister and saw her biting her lip again, her left leg shaking. "You need the pillow again, don't you?"

"Yep." She didn't hesitate to grab the pillow and scream into it again, this time just for ten seconds before she looked to her brother again. "Lincoln, this is awesome! Tell me you're going to tell her that."

"W-well, I-I want to, but… I'm not sure."

Seeing his smile begin to fade, she got up and put her hands on his shoulders once more. "Lincoln, look at me." He did as she asked, being met with pure confidence from his older sister. "The best thing you can do is tell her, because she would be nuts to turn you down, and you're just going to haunt yourself if you don't."

"B-but… what if she rejects me? What if... that just ruins everything for us?"

Rather than let the mood sour, she smiled and assured him, "even if I don't know her as well as you do, I know she cares about you. In the slight chance she does do that, she wouldn't let that ruin things between you… and neither will you."

Neither moved for a good few seconds, until Lincoln smiled and hugged her, an action which was happily returned. "Thanks, Lynn."

"Any time." When they let go, she added, "and don't worry. I won't interfere, and I won't tell the others. Just tell me everything when it happens."

He chuckled as he responded, "okay." The two of them then stood up. As Lynn went to unlock the door, she saw her brother move his chair under the vents again. "Lincoln, I already said, Lucy left."

"Just want to make sure," he said, poking his head into the vents. "Can never be too careful with her." Lynn chuckled, before leaving the room, closing the door behind her. When Lincoln stepped down again, he gave a pleased sigh. 'That helped.'