Seeing her big brother in the cheering crowd made Gaby so happy, she rushes through the crowd to give him a hug as thanks, and a smack as revenge for not visiting soon enough. Lukas receives both with open arms.
“Araceli changed your mind, didn’t she?” Gaby asks as soon as her excitement calms down.
“Actually, it was Kenton’s idea. He offered to babysit his sister again, can you believe that?”
When she saw the teens hanging out behind them, she tries to keep a straight face. “Sure, I can believe that.”
Apparently the reason Kenton willingly went along in the first place was to meet up with Rhian Rivera, a cute freshman who just recently moved into town. He took it upon himself to welcome her today.
Araceli’s supposedly there to stand guard against Lily Maraqueza, who gets her heart broken to see her crush flirting with another girl. Her scary scowl is misunderstood as animosity towards the couple, though.
Rhian appreciates her classmate’s enthusiasm to stay on guard, but hopes that she doesn’t actually, you know, end up fighting someone.
Rocco is spared from all this teenage drama as he spends the majority of his free time hanging out with Brooks and the twins.
They usually hang out together in this tree house, which Gaby had requested her sister to make right after last chapter’s incident. She’d rather not have any kids crawling under fences again.
It’s only Layla at the tower today.
There’s no one for her to compete for it, since Rocco doesn’t like the spot anyway, and her twin is still at some scouting ceremony.
On the other hand, Brooks endures a fishing trip with Aunt Vinca.
With his cousin’s house just across the street, it’s so tempting to just throw the fishing pole away and make a run for it…
When he sees his aunt casually grabbing a jellyfish with her bare hands, Brooks decides against it.
Back at the house, the kids talk about the Mercado’s old home, Constant Springs. The family moved because both of her parents were relocated to Sunset Valley’s military base. They can’t afford to leave their kids behind, but Layla would have preferred that.
“It sounds like a really cool place,” Rocco says after hearing about all the trees, the mountains, the old mines, the dam, and the ruins, over and over again. The twins used to explore by themselves, unsupervised. He wonders if his mom would ever allow that.
“Everything’s cool for you, you know,” Layla rolls her eyes, but her smile shows that she appreciates the comment.
“Sunset Valley’s cool too,” Rocco smiles back as he looks around the place fondly. “We have the beach, the festival grounds, the bistro, more playgrounds, and the haunted mansion!”
Layla leans excitedly at the last part. “We should definitely go there!”
“Definitely not, we’ll get lost easily.” Rocco thinks about his options carefully. “Unless Aunt Ramona comes with us?”
“This town’s not even half the size of Constant Springs,” she grumbles.
Speaking of Ramona, she finally finishes immortalizing her nephew’s cuteness into this painting.
She gets along with the kids so well, it’s no wonder she gets dubbed as the “cool aunt.”
Ramona’s so cool that she lets the kids stay in their swimwear after an intense balloon fight just to tell them a ghost story.
One got spooked from a ringing phone, while the other pretends she’s not.
As Layla’s visit becomes more frequent, her stay also becomes longer. Rocco is excited to have another sleepover again.
Behind them, Gaby prepares breakfast for everyone. She’s also excited at meeting her son’s friends who are not his cousins. Nearly half of the people in this town are related to her somewhat, so the fresh batch of faces is greatly appreciated.
After breakfast, Gaby finally meets the new friend that her son keeps talking about. Layla is surprisingly reserved today, given that she’s normally energetic even with strangers.
It just hits her that an actual celebrity is really Rocco’s mom, and that he really wasn’t joking about getting autographs for the twins. Their family must be stinking rich.
Though not as “cool” as her twin sister, Gaby can be pretty chill (sometimes).
She’d probably won’t relax if she knew that her son was going through freak-outs. Poor kid has these episodes whenever he’s alone, and the unpredictability puts him on edge.
It’s probably one of the few things Rocco doesn’t want to tell anyone, because he thinks no one would believe him.
Everyone knows that he worries about others a lot, and he worries so easily, but it now reaches a point when people start worrying about him.
Ramona becomes concerned about her nephew’s increasingly neurotic behavior behavior, and was lucky enough to find him in the middle of his episodes.
“You can always tell us if something’s bothering you,” his aunt lets him know gently.
He looks up at his aunt nervously, as if he was caught off-guard. “Wouldn’t I be bothering you if I do that?”
She surprises the kid with a big hug. “Oh Rocco, you’re never a bother.”
“Do you really think so, Auntie?” he asks in a whisper.
“Of course I do.”
Brooks finally gets the chance to visit the house again. This time he brings his younger brother Neal to play together.
Rocco gets to know his cousin, who was initially looking forward to playing video games on their impressive set-up, only to remember that his brother is Brooks.
Brooks, who still hates technology, is already making his disgust known.
Rocco’s worrying is put into good use as he already prepared his toy chest to the living room for everyone to play with. The toys are greatly appreciated.
Rocco and Neal are both pretty bad singers, but everyone cheered for them.
The family had pumpkin pie for dinner that night, and Brooks and Neal were welcome to have seconds if they wanted to. Neal happily grabbed the last piece even while he’s still eating another.
If given the chance, Miranda will absolutely spoil each and every single one of her grandchildren with bedtime stories and midnight snacks.
For now, she settles with spoiling only three out of nine grandkids, and tucks Neal into Rocco’s bed with a bedtime story. (Rocco offers to let Neal sleep in his bed, and joined Brooks in the sleeping bag instead)
(Actually Neal stole Rocco’s bed, but Rocco’s too nice to shoo him away from it)
Ramos Sims 3 Random Legacy 