Here's the thing about small towns...
Who: Kiley & Morgan When: After the parade Where: Downtown Scarlet Oak
It may have been a precursor to the kind of thing that his only sister was going to have to deal with up until the Miss America pageant, which was still some time away. By comparison, a parade in her hometown seemed extremely small when lined up against some of the other things that Annabelle would have to deal with between now and then. If there was a single person who was going to be able to handle it all, though, it was Annabelle. He knew this, and felt it when he saw his little sister before she began her triumphant parade down the streets that she knew so well.
It took a lot of juggling around, but Morgan was able to get the rest of the day off. It would show on his paycheck, but Morgan wasn’t worried about it. At the time, living at the Court was all that he was able to afford when he moved in. Morgan had lived in that apartment for years. Rent stayed relatively similar, but Morgan had gotten a few increases in his pay during those years. It gave him a nice cushion. It was far more important to him to be there to support his sister before a moment like the one that had just happened. He wasn’t a mind reader, but Morgan was pretty sure that it really did mean something to Annabelle to be the triumphant queen in the place that she had called home her entirely life. If it meant something to her, then it meant something to him.
An advantage to being so tall? He could be way in the back and not have to worry about not being able to see anything that was happening. It would have been extremely rude of him to be in the front, though. Again, he didn’t mind. The humidity was such that Morgan enjoyed the shade. Humidity. Years of being in it had caused him to get used to it in some ways, that didn’t mean that he liked it.
When Annabelle drove beyond him, he made sure to hoot and holler for his sister. Morgan was a proud big brother, though he did not regress to the point where he started saying that she was his sister. It was Annabelle’s moment. Morgan was perfectly content to let it remain as such. There were times that he envied the attention that was thrown her way, but for the most part that evaporated as soon as he moved out.
The brunette waited until the crowds started to thin out before he began to follow suit. It was a nice day out. He frequently walked the streets of Scarlet Oak because of his job. A part of him was ready to do so as a civilian. It really had been a long time.