Tethered ? Awsten Knight

Yes this is also part 52 because I'm combining the last two.

ENJOY.

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Christmas Eve

10:23 AM

"Hello!" Gracie's voice boomed through the house after the door opened.

"She doesn't miss a moment to be loud." Awsten mumbled beside me at the kitchen table, sitting down his orange juice and lifted up a spoonful of his cereal as I shot him a look. "What? It's true."

"Be nice to your sister."

"I am nice!" His eyes got big as he swallowed and sat his spoon back in his bowl.

"The sweetest." I pecked his cheek and backed out my chair. "I am going to say hello."

"I'm coming, I'm coming." He sighed, following after me.

"You wish you were." I mumbled loudly enough for him to hear and heard him gasp behind me.

"Tatum!" He whispered back, catching me by my waist right as I was about to leave the kitchen. "Feisty today."

"I am not!" Laughter escaped me as he took his turn to kiss my face, then I slipped out of his grip and over to Gracie who was already hugging Ginny.

"Hi!" She said as she saw me, throwing her arms around me in a hug. "It's so good to see you."

"You too." I hugged her back tightly and smiled, letting go after a few seconds and hugged Sam next. "Hi Sam."

"How was the drive?" Ginny asked them as I was pulling away and Sam grabbed his and Gracie's bags from the ground.

"Eh, not too bad but we hit some traffic." Gracie answered as she pulled away from Awsten, who was immediately back with his hands on me. "Where's Dad?"

"He had the 7 am shift this morning. Only working a few hours today though so he'll be back for dinner. Once you guys settle in, we can make those trash cookies."

"What are trash cookies?" Sam froze on the stairs.

"Oh...they're like...cookies you make from leftover Christmas candy or whatever is left from baking other stuff...you know..." I answered, leaning back into Awsten as he moved his hands up and hugged me from behind in front of everyone.

What have I done?

"Oh, sick." Sam nodded once, then continued up the stairs.

"I'll help him and we'll be right down." Gracie dashed up the stairs to join him, leaving Awsten and I with Ginny.

"You're sure your up for these cookies?" Ginny asked me.

"Yeah, totally." I nodded quickly to be enthusiastic as Awsten let go of me and we went back into the kitchen.

The truth was I was in fact feeling a little nervous about it - not because of Awsten's family, but because it wasn't mine.

I hadn't done these since the Christmas before my mom passed. After everything fell apart with my family, we hadn't touched any family traditions since she'd passed. The holidays were hard for all of us.

But it was so sweet that they wanted to do one of my family traditions here. It really did mean so much to me.

I'd been feeling a bit guilty though ever since I agreed to it - and that wasn't anyone's fault.

"You okay?" Awsten whispered in my ear as we walked into the kitchen.

"Mhm, yeah." I shook my head in a nod at sat back with him at the kitchen table and gripped my coffee cup, then reached for his crazy head of hair as he went back to his cereal. "Look at your hair."