More Hearts Than Mine

In every family there's holiday traditions that differs from one family to another, for Myranda's family, they meet at a member's house and have the gathering there, the teenagers and young adults bring their boyfriends/girlfriends, then there's the gift trade and the heated table games with the cousins.

This year, the gathering is at Myranda's ranch, of course Myranda is too young to own the ranch for she is just a fifteen year old girl, her parents own the ranch.

Lloyd, Chris and Simon were sitting on the couch playing a heated game of NHL 20, it was Simon and Lloyd in the Toronto Maple Leafs vs Chris in the Montreal Canadiens.

Myranda and Carrie were making dinner, well Myranda was making the dessert while her mother made the dinner.

"Carrie!" Chris called.

Carrie rolled her eyes, knowing full well that whatever her husband may say could be something irrelevant.  

"Lloyd and Simon are cheating!" Chris whined, for the Montreal Canadiens were losing against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The girls decided to ignore that "statement" for Chris says that every time he's about to lose at a video game against Simon or Lloyd.

After the third period, the boys had to turn off the PS4 as the guests were about to arrive any minute, with the time they had for the cooking and the fact that the first people to arrive were Myranda's grandparents, Carrie took this opportunity to get some of Myranda's photo albums that were in the closet in the basement where all the Lego Ninjago Sets Simon and Myranda had gotten over the years (and not destroyed by Kreacher the cat) were displayed.

Once she found what she wanted she got back upstairs, finding Lloyd and Myranda in conversation (debating on who's the best Marvel superhero) while Chris was talking with his father-in-law.

Carrie's mother, Myranda and Simon's grandma, was sitting at the table talking with Simon.

"Spiderman is the best Avenger." Myranda told Lloyd.

"Iron Man is." Lloyd told her.

Chris sighed, "Spiderman becomes the next Iron Man in Spiderman Far from Home.  So either way you're both saying that Iron Man and Spiderman are the best Avengers." 

"All of you are wrong!" Carrie said, joining the conversation, "Captain America is the best Avenger." 

Myranda laughed, "You're only saying that because you think he has a nice ass."

Carrie scowled and sat on the couch next to Lloyd and opened the photo album, Myranda knew from then on that she was doomed.

However, Lloyd wasn't laughing at the pictures of baby Myranda, in fact he thought that she was a cute baby, he chuckled at two year old Myranda in a box, very cat-like.

"Looks like you've already discovered your powers, Myranda." Lloyd told her, all Myranda wanted right now is for the couch to eat her.

Carrie had to close the album when more people walked in, Myranda put up a fake smile to greet her snobbish aunt and cousin, Lloyd didn't know most of these people so he just greeted them with a genuine smile, absolutely unaware of the snobbish attitude that these women have.

"Lloyd, this is my aunt, Manon, and this is my cousin, Dominique." Myranda introduced.

"Aunt Manon and Dominique, this is my boyfriend, Lloyd." Myranda added.

"Nice to meet you, Lloyd." Dominique told Lloyd, Myranda and Lloyd could tell she really didn't want to be there, but they brushed it aside, they've been through a lot more than a snob.

Myranda went to deal with the food, clearly not wanting to deal with the snobbish attitude.

Lloyd decided to watch Myranda work as more guests arrived.

Soon enough the house was crowded, Myranda and Lloyd were sitting at the table, playing a game of Skip-bo as the adults conversed and the younger children played tag with Loki and Veevee in the snow.

It was a heated game of Skip-bo, neither Lloyd or Myranda knew which one of them would win, but Myranda was down to her last card and it was a wild card, Lloyd knew he was done for.

"I'm putting my Skip-Bo on the four to make five." Myranda told Lloyd as she added the following numbers, Lloyd cursed to himself.

"Good game." Myranda told him, he smiled and nodded.

A man with black hair and his wife, a plump brunette, walked to them, "Hey, mind if we join you?" 

"Of course, Nicholas." Myranda told her cousin.

"Right, I don't think you've been introduced, Lloyd, that's my cousin and his wife, Nicholas and Cincia.  Nic, Cin, that's Lloyd, my boyfriend." Myranda told them.

They smiled, then Lloyd spoke up, "So Myranda and I vs You and Cincia?" 

They nodded and the game began once Myranda was done mixing the cards.

"So, tell us more about yourself, Lloyd, how did you meet Myranda?" Nicholas asked.

"Should I tell him about that?" Lloyd asked Myranda.

Myranda nodded.

"We tried to raid a village for candy." Lloyd told them, "Looking back that was really stupid." 

Myranda was unable to keep a straight face, she smiled brightly.

"That was you?" Nicholas asked, unbelieving.

Lloyd nodded.

"So aside from raiding villages for candy what do you two do now?" Cincia asked.

"We don't raid villages anymore." Myranda told her cousins.

Lloyd smiled, "She's right, we're ninjas now." 

He put his Skip-Bo card on the 9 card, "Myranda can you place your 11 please?"

"Yep." She said, grabbing the 11 card from her pile and placing it on the Skip-Bo card.

"Wait, ninjas?  Wouldn't that mean that you two are the purple and green ninjas?" Nicholas asked.

Lloyd nodded while placing his 12 on the 11 Myranda had placed recently.

The game ended with Myranda and Lloyd victorious, "Good game, Nic." 

They started singing We Are The Champions by Queen.

Myranda and Lloyd had cleaned up the table and set it up, as well as setting up the children's table.

If there's one thing Lloyd liked was homemade food, and the chicken dinner was exquisite and so was the desserts.

The children were giving Loki some of their chicken, although Loki was pleased, let's just say the parents of these kids were rather annoyed with them.

As soon everyone finished with their food, they went in the basement for the gift trade, the best part of the gathering.

Lloyd was looking at the Lego sets on display, Myranda walked next to him.

"Hey, I know it's not like the boys." Myranda told him.

"It's not them, I'm just thinking." Lloyd told her.

"What about?" She asked.

"Those photos your mother showed me." He told her.

Before Myranda could reply, more people started walking in the room.

"That's where the fun begins." Myranda whispered to her boyfriend.

Things went almost haywire, this family was chaotic, Myranda had managed to get hold of a Lego Ninjago Set, and she wasn't letting it go, for the concept of this game is to snatch some of the gifts.

Who would've thought that such a quiet and calm girl like Myranda grew up with loud people?

Once they finished playing this game, the boys (and I mean all of them) were in full conversation.

"Are you sure we can't adopt him?" Another one of Myranda's cousins asked.

"That's his uncle's job to adopt random teenagers." Chris told the boy, Lloyd chuckled at that statement.

The girls were in full conversation, but it wasn't all of them, Myranda stayed quiet, no one in the girls bothering to even say a word to her, it was always like this so Myranda went to hide in her bedroom which wasn't that far, Lloyd noticed her leaving the crowd and followed her.

She sat on her bed, reading Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Lloyd sat on the bed, snuggling up to her, reading a sentence or two before she changed the page for Myranda was a fast reader.

It wasn't long until both of them were asleep snuggled up to one another with the book opened.