Unexpected

Chapter 8

I had no idea what to say. None. Nothing. I mean, what can you possibly say when someone gives you the greatest compliment of your life? “Ditto?” “Back at ya?” “You complete me?” “Take me, take me now?”

Believe it or not, any of those would have been better than what I actually said.

After staring at him with my mouth open for probably a minute or so, I managed to stutter out this inspired question, “D-Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

He choked on his drink of water, the second time I’d done that to him. It seemed even drinking plain old water was hazardous around me.

“I have a brother and a sister, both younger.”

“That makes sense -- you seem like an oldest,” I said, hoping he would just ignore my beet red face. 

“What about you? You seem like an oldest too, if I had to guess. You appear very responsible.”

“What gave you that impression -- the getting day drunk with a total stranger, then inviting him back to my house?” I laughed. “I’m actually the youngest, but I feel like I fit the characteristics of an oldest child, so I think you were somewhat right. I have two older sisters, but they’re both quite a bit older so I functioned almost as an only child. They’re both married with kids now -- we get along great but don’t always talk all that much as all of our lives are fairly chaotic at the moment, them with the kids and me with school. Do you get along with your siblings?”

“We do get along very well -- my brother is just a couple of years younger than me and although we’re pretty different, we’ve always been able to count on each other when we needed it. My sister is the baby of the family and shows it, at times -- I think the combination of being the youngest and the only girl has made her into quite the little diva. She’s just 19 though, so she has time to pull out of it still. Regardless, I do adore her and I’m very protective of her -- she’s smart and funny and doesn’t take herself too seriously at all, which I could use some instruction on myself.”

“You sound like you’re a good big brother. I always wanted a big brother growing up, although mostly so he’d be bringing all his hot friends over to the house. Typical teenage girl thoughts, I guess.”

“I’m sure I’d have enjoyed an older sister for similar reasons. As it was, Caroline is enough younger than me that her friends were merely annoyances, I was never remotely tempted to date any of them, even as she -- and they, more importantly -- got older.”

“Now that you’re all adults, more or less, are you still close? Since my sisters are so much older than me, we've never been particularly close and I've always been jealous of my friends whose siblings are their best friends. I like mine just fine, we just don’t really have much in common now.”

“Not to make you feel bad, but I do consider my brother to be my best friend. But he’s a lot closer to my sister than I am -- we’re far enough apart in age that I think she just sees me as more of a parent figure than a sibling, which is unfortunate. Perhaps one day when we’re both older and married we’ll get along better, at least I hope we do.”

“I’ll hope for the same with my sisters.” We smiled at each other. “Do you want to head back to the beach?” 

“Sure. Are you coming as well, or are you just politely asking me to leave?” Alex smiled.

I rolled my eyes. “I meant together, that is, if that wasn't your reverse psychology way of attempting to get me to stay here?”

“That kind of scheming all seems exhausting, I greatly prefer just saying what I mean, as you may have realized by this point.”