1. Asher
The glass tipped and turned around the table, and Asher watched it, unable to move. With one last twirl, it dropped. Asher covered his ears to block the sound of the crash, but Parker and Lina weren't as lucky. The two girls screamed in unison, and Lina's arms flailed, knocking over her favorite bottles of nail polish. "No! I'm organizing them!"
Asher looked at his broken glass. "This is perfect," he said, grabbing a large pile of shards of the broken cup. He reached for something, but only grabbed empty air. Parker, now standing behind him, flared the blowtorch. "Is this what you're looking for?" She smirked, and Asher glared at her. She never seems to get less mischievous, he thought, grabbing for the base of the blowtorch. Parker withdrew her arm and extinguished the flame, running up to the tallest cabinet.
Asher had always been teased for his shortness, especially since he was the shortest in the grade. Even if Parker and Lina were the same height as him, Parker was the agile of the three. Asher glared at her. "You brat." Parker smiled at him, her teeth shimmering. (The triplets had always had their own special talents. They each had had to form their own identity. There wasn't really any sort of problem, but when three siblings are alike, it's weird, especially when they're triplets.)
Asher could see Lina watching the scene in horror, probably wondering how her two siblings could be so different from her. He didn't care, anyway. Parker tugged at his hair, still dangling the blowtorch over his head. Asher looked at her with a rebellious smile. "Oh, Parker..." She smiled at him, her hair tickling his nose. "What, Ashy?" She laughed. Asher glared at her. Only Mom called him Ashy, and that was because he was too nice to tell her not to.
He grabbed at her shoe. "Oh, you're in for it!" He clambered up onto the counter, tripping as he ran, and Parker giggled as she jumped onto the island, tiptoeing through the dishes that they hadn't put away yet. Asher jumped onto the island, too. "Now you're cornered." he smirked, reaching for the blowtorch.
Parker, tripping clumsily, fell off the island, deftly catching herself with one hand. "Not yet!" She ran up the stairs, oblivious to the fact that Asher was still standing on the island, smiling. Parker cocked her head, confused. "What?"
Lina came up behind Parker, stifling her giggles. She grabbed the blowtorch, and bounded down the stairs. Asher smiled at Parker as Lina plopped the blowtorch in his hand.
"She does it for the chocolate you know," Parker reminded him as she returned to the table. Lina nodded, holding out her hands. "Chocolate, please." Asher sighed, and fished a tiny chocolate out of his pocket. Lina would make a good businesswoman someday.
Asher felt his phone buzz. It was Mom, announcing her early leave from work. "Guys, Mom's coming home early today." He felt it buzz again. "And so is Dad," he added.
Lina wrinkled her nose. "Asher, did she say why?" Asher shrugged, and plopped himself onto the couch, sinking in the white memory foam. "Nope. She didn't even punctuate." Parker laughed. "You're kidding me, right? Mom not punctuating texts?" Asher shook his head. "Crazy, I know. It's true, though. She hasn't even been correcting the grammar of my replies." Lina and Parker laughed together, and Asher soon joined. It felt good to laugh with his siblings, however rarely they did it.
After a few seconds of laughing, though, Parker choked on her chicken. Asher laid his head back. Typical. He was unimpressed at how boring his life was. Not that he didn't want it to stay this way. Or, at least, no major changes.
