Page 42 of Yours, Unexpectedly

I’m hopping from one foot to the next attempting to get them on when I hear Gabe yell again, “Bex! Wake up!” Accompanied by some aggressive knocking. What the fuck is he doing here this morning? Though it’s not totally out of the ordinary for him to stop by on a Saturday morning, this is extremely inconvenient timing.

“Damn,” Anders whispers, still sitting on the floor where he fell a moment ago.

“I know!” I whisper. “I’ll try to get rid of him but please, for the love of God, don’t move! Or talk! Or think too loud! Gabe will…” I wave my hands around wildly. “Sense you.”

“I was talking about how hot your ass looks as you jump around over there, but you’re right. We have a weird telepathy thing going on.”

“Anders! Now is not the time to admire my ass!”

He smirks. “Any time is the time to admire your ass, Baby Bardot.”

This man is going to drive me insane. Exasperated, I sigh, finally getting my clothes situated enough that I can leave the bedroom. I reach for the knob and turn at the last second, narrowing my eyes as they reach the handsome, sleep ruffled man who looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“I’m serious. Be quiet!” I poke my finger toward him in emphasis.

He gives me a mock salute and a wink. Great.

I walk out of my room, closing the door behind me before heading into the living room.

“Gabe, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Well good morning to you, too, little sis.”

“Gabriel, we’ve talked about this. You can’t just drop by whenever you feel like it! There’s this thing called boundaries. The key you have is for emergencies only.” I walk over to the coffee pot and start scooping out grounds into the filter.

“Don’t ‘Gabriel’ me! This is an emergency, Bex. Anders never came home last night and you were the last one with him so I need your help finding him.”

I startle instantly at the sound of Anders’ name, causing the hand scooping coffee grounds to get caught inside the bag, tipping it over and spilling the grounds all over the counter and on to the floor.

“Shit,” I murmur at the same time that Gabe says, “Bex, what the fuck?”

“Damn, let me help you!” Gabe grabs a tea towel out of the drawer, wetting it so he can help gather all of the coffee grounds off the floor. “I’m not actually worried, he’s probably with some chick he met at the bar, but I am bored and wanted someone to hang out with this morning; that’s actually why I came over.”

I let out the world’s loudest groan. “You can’t scare me like that! With the way you barged in here, I thought something was wrong.”

“Boredom is very serious to me, Bex. You know this,” he retorts.

“Yes, but we have two other siblings! Brothers who I’m sure would have loved to see you this morning!”

He guffaws at that. “You know Jules would react even worse than you if I ever showed up at his place unannounced! Plus, Ben wasn’t home. I tried there first.” He has the wherewithal to look sheepish at this admission.

He peeks around the living room, glance lingering on the hallway to the bedrooms. “Are Luci and Riz home?”

“I don’t know, Gabe! I just woke up. Did you make sure they got home okay last night?” I ask.

“Of course, I just know Luci likes to get up early and go to yoga so I wasn’t sure if she was back yet.”

“How the hell is this something you know about my best friend?” Even though, at this point I have no ground to stand on when it comes to siblings and their best friends.

Before Gabe has a chance to answer me, a loud thud followed by a faint “Ouch!” comes from the direction of the bedrooms.

“What was that?!” Gabe questions as he starts to move toward my room.

With lightning speed, I jump in front of Gabe, putting my hands out to block him. I immediately realize this move looks very suspicious, so I pull my hands back and do a lean-stretch thing in an effort to be nonchalant.

He stares at me for a beat before a lightbulb flashes on and recognition falls across his face. As I watch him put the pieces together, I realize I am so fucked. Gabe will never talk to me again when he realizes who is in my room. He’ll cut off his friendship with Anders, and I know how important it is to both of them. There are so many things that could go wrong. This is just not worth it.

I’m not worth it.

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