The next day the two sisters were stuck at work again. They worked all day, every day, except Saturday and Sunday. The only reason they got the weekends off, was because Saturday was for chores and stuff at home, and Sunday was for church. Their father owned the Subway in which they worked – actually, he owned a whole chain of them clear across the continent. They were the first Richardson children to be stuck working at a food place at age fourteen. When their real father had been alive, he had made his sons, their older brothers, work at his Summer Camp, but had had different plans for the girls. Oh, sure, if he was still alive, they probably would’ve been working at the Summer Camp too, but he would have let them work elsewhere if they’d wanted. The man they called ‘Daddy’, was actually their stepfather, but they called him Daddy, as they had been young back then. They had been six when their father had passed away; Kevin only 19, almost 20. They remembered him better than everyone thought they did, but not as much as they wished too. Though, Alexia had been closer to him, always wanting to be with her Daddy; Ashlynn was Mommy’s Girl, always wanting to dress-up and be pretty like Mommy was. Thus being why, it had been harder for Alexia, than Ashlynn, to accept the fact their father was never coming back, and that this new man was to be their Daddy now.
    
    The two girls reached the Subway, and raced each other to the front door, Ashlynn winning by a smidgen.
    
    “Cheater!” Alexia exclaimed, as she hated to lose at anything, especially Nintendo.
    
    Ashlynn rolled her eyed and unlocked the door. “Quit you’re whining. Jeez. I’d swear I was the older one, and not you at times like now.”
    
    “Well, maybe you are,” Alexia rejoined. “Maybe they got us mixed up at the Hospital, and you’re really the older one.”
    
    “Maybe…” Ashlynn trailed off, thinking about that for a moment. She spoke again suddenly. “Nah! I’m the cuter one…”
    “So what if you’re the – What?!?!” Alexia exclaimed, as her sister opened the door and ran inside. “Ooh! Get back here Ashlynn Madison Richardson! You’re so gonna get your ass kicked!”
    
    “Ahem!” Someone said, clearing their throat.
    
    Both girls turned to look where the noise had come from, and laughed when they spotted Marcus. Ashlynn flashed him one of their famous grins, and went to get the food ready, while Alexia eyed him warily.
    
    “Quit scaring us like that!” Alexia exclaimed. “That’s twice in two days, you’ve scared the crap out of me!”
    
    Marcus chuckled and hugged her when she came over to him. “I know. But it’s my job to scare you shitless.”
    
    “No it’s not. It’s your job to make sure Kevin’s crazed fans don’t mob us for being related to him,” Alexia rejoined playfully. “And the problem with that is, we’re crazed fans ourselves.”
    
    “You especially, right?” Marcus smiled.
    
    “Damn straight,” Alexia grinned. “No one loves Kevin more than me. No one.”
    
    “I HEARD THAT!” Ashlynn called from the kitchen, where she was making up some new buns for the subs.
    
    “YEAH! YEAH!” Alexia called back, going over behind the counter and organizing the stuff there. She was busy re-filling the mayonnaise bottle, when she happened to look up and saw the same guy as before, standing outside the locked door. She smiled, and went over to unlock the door. “C’mon in.”
    
    Clay entered, and looked at her weird when she locked the door behind him.
    
    “We don’t open for another half hour,” Alexia explained.
    
    “Oh… Well, in the case, I can always come back…” Clay started, as he turned to leave.
    
    “No. It’s all right. You can stay,” Alexia assured him. “I mean, I did let you in and all.”
    
    “Thanks….” Clay said softly.
    
    “No problem,” Alexia told him, then yelled, “HEY ASH! YOUR CRUSH IS HERE!”
    
    “LENNI! QUIT CALLING HIM MY CRUSH!” Ashlynn yelled. “AND HOW CAN HE BE HERE, IF WE’RE CLOSED?”

“Simple. I let him in!” Alexia smirked, as she led Clay into the kitchen.

“What - ” Ashlynn trailed off as she looked up and spotted Clay standing there with her sister. “Um… Hi?” She blushed.

Alexia just laughed. “I’ll let you two get acquainted,” she grinned. “I’ll be refilling the pop dispensers.

Ashlynn shot her sister a look that said, “I’ll get you for this!”

Alexia smirked, and left the kitchen, so that they could be alone.

“So… Um… How are you?” Clay asked nervously.

“Okay, I guess,” Ashlynn shrugged. “Lenni kind of got us both in crap yesterday, after we left here.”

“Oh? How’d she manage that?”

“Apparently, she’s been sneaking around with a bunch of hooligans, as Daddy likes to call them.”

“Hooligans?” Clay repeated.

“Yeah. You know, the kids who either live on the street, or are close to it. Or they at least cause a whole lot of mischief and give their parents gray hairs.”

“Oh…” Clay said softly. “Maybe I’d best go then.”

“What? Why?” Ashlynn queried, looking over at him.

“Well, if you’re father doesn’t want you hanging around hooligans…”

“What are you saying?”

Clay sighed heavily. “You got time to talk?”

Ashlynn glanced at the clock. “Yeah. Sure. I’ve still got about twenty minutes before we open.”

Clay nodded, then led her out the back door, where they both sat down on the step. Once they were seated, he stared at the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Ashlynn wanted to know.

“I’m what your father calls a hooligan…” Clay told her quietly.

“What? Seriously?”

“Yeah…” He paused. “I mean, in the good sense. I don’t cause mischief or anything, and do work hard for the little bit of money I earn. But, I do live on the streets.”

“But why? Don’t you have a family to go home too?”

Clay shook his head sadly. “No. My parents died when I was nine. They were my only known relatives.”

“Oh… I’m sorry to hear that…” Ashlynn said softly. “I bet it’s hard to be all alone… I mean, sure, sometimes I wish I were an only child, but when you get right down to it, I’d be lost without Lenni and our crazy brothers.”

“It is hard…” Clay said softly. “Especially when you’ve no one to talk too, and people look down their noses at you, like it’s your fault you don’t have a home or nice warm bed to go too.”

“But… Shouldn’t you be in a Home, or something?” Ashlynn asked gently.

“I was…” Clay snapped somewhat. “But that’s a crock of shit, so I left and have been on my own ever since.”

“Oh…”

“I didn’t mean to snap at you Ashlynn,” Clay apologized. “I just – I feel so lost some days, and don’t know what to do with myself. I mean, I watch you and your sister, and other families, and I feel so – lost. Like I don’t belong, and have no rightful place in this world – I feel as though I should’ve died right alongside my parents that day they were killed.”

“Clay! Don’t say that!” Ashlynn said, almost shocked. “If you had died with them, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

Clay smiled slightly. “I take it, you’re enjoying this, huh?”

Ashlynn turned crimson. “Well…yeah… It’s not every day a nice guy takes interest in me… Though, according to Lenni, all the guys like me more than her. But, I don’t see why, as we look exactly alike – except for the glasses she wears.”

“You may look alike, but your personalities are so different,” Clay pointed out. “I mean, Alexia started yapping my ear off from the moment I came in, while you just stood there quietly, not saying a word at first.”

“Well, our real Daddy used to say she was an attention-seeker and major chatter-box.”

“Your real Daddy?” Clay repeated.

“Oh! That’s right! You dunno what I’m talking about.”

Clay shook his head.

“Our real Daddy died of colon cancer when we were six…” Ashlynn told him. “We were his pets…Alexia especially. I’m Mommy’s Girl, and am closer to our Momma, than Alexia is. Our Momma re-married not that long after Daddy passed away. It was kind of hard to accept him as our Daddy, when ours had just left us not that long beforehand.”

“How did y’all react to that?” Clay asked curiously.

“Jerald, and Tim were okay with it, though they weren’t too happy at first. I mean, it did feel like Momma was replacing Daddy kind of soon. But they got over it and accepted him, telling Alexia, Kevin, and I we should at least give the guy a chance before we condemned him.”

“And did you guys give him a chance?”

“Well, I did… Kevin did eventually… He wasn’t too fond of the idea… But he loves Momma a whole lot, so relented his aggression for her…” Ashlynn explained. “And Lenni… Well, she was a different story… She took it harder than anyone, always asking for Daddy, and screaming hysterically when he never came. Our new Daddy would come when she called for Daddy, after he and Momma got married, and Lenni would throw a fit. Our new Daddy would get so mad ‘cause she wouldn’t shut-up and listen when told too.”

“Does she like him now?”

“Yeah… She grew to love our new Daddy, but no where near as much as she loved our old Daddy…” Ashlynn looked at Clay a moment. “And because I trust you, I will tell you this secret.”

“Okay…” Clay said, leaning a little closer to listen.

“She still screams for him… She doesn’t know I know, but I’ve woken up to the sound of her screaming and crying hysterically for her Daddy.”

“Hasn’t anyone else ever heard her?”

Ashlynn shook her head. “No. We’ve a huge house, and Lenni and I have our own wing. So, I’m the only one whoever hears her scream for him… I’ve heard her talk to him too, saying she wishes he were here, so she wouldn’t have to put up with our step-father’s crap.”

“Crap?”

Ashlynn laughed slightly. “Yeah… Crap… You heard us yesterday, say we can’t go tour with Kevin, because Lenni didn’t get all A’s. If we want to have special privileges, we have to have perfect grades. She got a B in gym class, because of her attitude, though she’s a great athlete and gymnast. She believes if our Daddy were still alive, he wouldn’t care that she’d gotten a B; he’d only care that she’d done her best. Um…She kind of flunked French too, though she’s fluent in Spanish. But, obviously, that doesn’t matter. Even if we don’t get the language at all, we still have to learn it and ace it.”

“What about you? Did you get any…ah…bad…grades?”

“Nope,” Ashlynn said, shaking her head. “I aced them all. The lowest I got was an A minus. The rest were all A’s or A pluses.”

“Wow. You’re really smart,” Clay told her.

“Nah. I just don’t wanna get yelled at for lousy grades.”

“Does Alexia give your step-father a hard time, because she misses your real father?”

“I think so… Jerald says it’s ‘cause she misses Daddy that she rebels so much. She hides her sorrow, by acting totally crazy, and trying to hog all the attention. That she wants all the attention, because the attention she really craves, is nowhere to be found. She’d always clung to Kevin too, but after Daddy died, you couldn’t get her away from him, even for a split second. Our poor brother, even had to take her into the bathroom with him, or she’d scream bloody murder, until he either came back into sight or she was spanked.”

“Wow…” Clay said softly. “You wouldn’t know all that, just by listening to her.”

Ashlynn laughed. “I know. She confides in me, but I think she tells Kevin more about this stuff, because she wants to be an entertainer too.”

“You think she’ll succeed?”

“Oh, yeah. And it’s not just because of who our brother is. Lenni can captivate an audience, and keep them captivated right up until the very end with her crazy antics. She just – she loves the attention.”

“And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah… What do you wanna do?”

“Write, sing, and dance…” Ashlynn shrugged. “Write mainly… Though we can both sing, that’s more of Lenni’s dream than mine. I’m perfectly happy remaining in the shadows, until someone takes notice. The only thing is, our step-daddy gives me way more attention than he does Lenni, because I’m the smarter one. Said I was prettier too, but I don’t think so, because we look the exact same; so how can one exactly be prettier than the other, you know?”

Clay nodded. “I see your point… And I think you’re both pretty…”

Ashlynn blushed, “Thanks…”   

“Hey, don’t blush. Just stated the truth,” Clay smiled, kissing her cheek. He laughed as Ashlynn’s cheeks turned an even brighter pink. “You look good in that colour. It suits you…” He teased playfully.

Ashlynn giggled, and hit his arm playfully. “Dork…”

“Dorkette…” Clay smirked.

They both laughed, then got up to head back inside, as it was now time to open the place up to the paying customers.