Morning surprise leads to morning choice

Arron glanced at the phone beside his sleeping position on the sofa with a mixture of contemplation and dread. Contemplation on its aerodynamic state and dreading the fact that he had no money to replace it. Still, there came a point in every man's life where he must establish dominance over the smaller things, like animals, little kids, phones that rang at 6 in the morning...you know, small stuff like that. Why it even bothered to ring at 6 a.m. was beyond him at that point.

With a flick on the screen to silence it, he turned and rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. The rest of the house was still very quiet, Sarah was upstairs asleep and the morning sun had barely began to creep up over the mountains in the distance. Shadows cast on the floor told him that he could very much go back to sleep for a few more hours. Heaven knew how much he had been pushing himself to get things done these past few days, he could use the break. Just a little bit more shut-eye...

Yeah, that's not happening...

A few hours later, Sarah came down the stairs and spotted her father milling about in the kitchen, a warm plate of eggs and toast with a cup of black coffee sitting at her spot on the counter. "Thanks..."

He was lost in thought and barely acknowledged her presence in the room and she ate quietly, munching and looking up at her father from the rim of her coffee cup. "Earth to dad..?"

Arron shook his head and smiled briefly. "I just realized...I've been wearing your mom's clothes the past few days. I don't know what's worse, really...that I didn't know I was doing that or apparently I look good in them." He leaned his head slightly to the side and Sarah had to look away. She wasn't sure about the clothes issue (she had honestly found them in her room and thought it was his) but there were no escaping the facts that he looked rather feminine to begin with and the physical exertion from the move plus the haphazard appearance he had only made him appear that much more woman-like. If she hadn't known, well, everything there was to know about him, she wouldn't have guessed either that the person in front of her was a man by any measure.

"Oh..."

The two of them finished breakfast in silence before she nodded her thanks for the breakfast and placed the dishes in the sink. With Arron going off to hit the showers, Sarah took out the trash and walked to the trash can in the back. On the other side was one of the neighbors who smiled and waved at her. "Morning!" she called over and Sarah waved back. "Is your mom at home?"

"M-My mom?"

The woman nodded. "You look just like her, I thought it was her for a moment. I wanted to know if the two of you needed help with anything this morning. I managed to wrangle my husband and sons to help." She motioned to the young man standing next to her and Sarah had to pause for a moment. "I figured it was the neighborly thing to do, after all."

"Hold on a sec..."

Sarah turned and moved quickly into the house and moved straight to the bathroom. The shower was barely running before she barged straight into the bathroom, knocking Arron back a bit. "Listen, dad, we got a problem..."