Lil' sis beats her to it.

"What's up?" Before she noticed it, Roxie was staring back at her, with apathetic hazel eyes. A real photogenic face on her. Delicate, rounded, soft, innocent-looking. Yet with the outline of a future, stunning woman.

"Nothing," Andrea shook her head away, recollecting herself. What was she going on about? The morning must be getting to her. "Just..."

But maybe...

The older sister completed the thought, "Has Dad been looking happier to you, recently?"

Roxie made a show of rumpled thought. "Uumm... well," she took another snack from her little bag and popped it into her mouth, "he was hummid Singin' in the Rain in the zhower, I theen."

She was saying something else when Andrea stopped her with a grimace, "Roxie!"

The girl swallowed down her fruit chunks. "What?" came a moment later.

"Don't eat with your mouth full, it's not lady-like."

Roxie folded her arms. "You're not lady-like," she shot.

In deflection, Andrea rolled her eyes, "Alright, Dora..." Never underestimate teen girl spunk. A minor ember was enough to set the two of them off like the gunpowder plot. Being the older sibling, Andrea eventually got a decent idea of when to drop it.

This was a drop.

She stood. "I gotta get washed up..."

As Andrea went for the stairs to her room, her sister followed her, apparently bent on continuing this non-debate. "I mean, really, with the kind of clothes you got on," the younger girl looked up at her. And then down. And then up again. "Who could tell, ya know?"

Andrea placed one foot on the lowermost stair-step and turned. For Pete's sake. It was too early for this. "Who could tell what, exactly?"

"How..." Roxie swallowed her bite. "...well, ya know, how ladylike you are!"

On her way up Andrea continued.

"I'm just saying, sis, you know," hurried Roxie, "from one woman to another. For example... turn around. Come on. Just really quick!"

Andrea scoffed at that 'woman' misnomer.

Adorable.

Yet, out of some helplessly exploitable case of older sibling sympathy-itis, perhaps, the young woman gave Roxie the benefit of the doubt.

Her back pointed to Roxie, the still half-asleep young broad asked, "Okay Roxie, what is it?" She impatiently waited as her sister simply stood behind her.

There was a pause. Some shuffling.

"Oh my gosh sis," then observed Roxie. "Your butt! See?"

"Huh?" Andrea sharply swiveled her head backward, baffled by her sister's words, only for her shock to be cut short when she felt a moderate thwack resound off her surly bottom. She flinched and looked at Roxie coldly.

"So round and firm." The younger girl persistently squeezed the butt of her older sister, fingers burrowing into the flesh of the supple arse like a big plush toy.

Andrea pulled the soft hand off said bum.

"What are you Paul Elfheim?" Andrea shot at her. Paul was an outwardly reserved kid they used to live next to back in the day. His poorly disguised attempts at ogling and copping feels of them as adolescents was prone to the occasional humorous reference, now. That didn't mean they'd ever welcomed taking it this far. At least not Andrea. Giving Roxie one final wary look, Andrea retreated to the top of the steps, "I'm going to the shower. No more games or I'm telling Mom when we get back!"

Little sister blinked motionlessly from below as the top of Andrea's head disappeared behind the elevated throw of carpet.

Closing the door to her room, Andrea stopped in front of the body mirror she set against the wall by her desk, her naturally beautiful, nubile self looking back at her. Still as eye-catching as in all seasons, even the mid-morning frazzle, where her glowing hair let loose a few pillow-ruffled strands around its vivid coat.

Shutting her eyes, she tossed her pants onto her bed, and began peeling out of the rest of her clothes.

First Dad, now Rox. Jeez, who else took the rum...