The Trouble With Flirting (16 page)

Now I’m hiding in my bedroom trying not to think about the fact that my best friend has a sexy butt. I just heard him go back to his room. Do you think it’s safe for me to shower now?

___________________________________

***

I pull on my comfy jeans and my hoodie with the White Tree of Gondor on the front, then comb my wet hair. These items of clothing have made a reappearance at the front of my wardrobe since I abandoned the party last Friday night and decided Cool wasn’t worth chasing anymore. I’m not sure if I’d be brave enough to wear them on campus, but for now, I’m enjoying not having to suck my tummy in every waking moment of the day.

I retrieve my slippers from under my bed—feeling a familiar stab of guilt when I see my violin collecting dust under there—and slide them on before shuffling across the passage to Adam’s room. His door is ajar, but there is NO WAY I’m pushing it open without knocking first. I tap the door frame and wait.

“Come in.” I slide the door open with my slippered foot—
naked butt image, get OUT of my head
—and walk in. Adam is sitting on his bed sorting through a pile of sheet music and refusing to look up at me. “Hugo called just now to apologise for Pixie’s rudeness yesterday. Apparently he doesn’t find her quite so attractive anymore and is reconsidering having a crush on her. I suggested that perhaps she was just having a bad day, but he said that since he’s started hanging out with her rather than simply admiring her from afar, he’s noticed how moody she is.”

“Okay. Adam?”

“And he added that he really enjoyed all the wine and appreciated you sharing your knowledge in an entirely non-snooty way.” More shuffling of sheet music. “So I guess we can do that again sometime, but without Pixie.”

“Adam.”

“Oh, and he mentioned the new band that’s playing tonight. He said they’re good, but I’m not sure I trust his judgement after
The Electric Goat
turned out to be so—”

“Adam!” Finally, he stops talking. “I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“Trying to avoid talking about the bathroom moment.”

“Yes. And I will continue to avoid talking about that moment for the rest of my life. Ah, here’s the one I was looking for.” He slides several pages out of a flip file.

“I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry I walked in. I thought you were finished and in your bedroom. And I honestly didn’t see much. Just—”

“Right, okay. Apology accepted. We can move on now.”

“Cool. So … things aren’t going to be weird?”

“Of course not. Why would things be weird?”

“You still won’t make eye contact with me.”

He sets the papers down on his lap and makes a point of meeting my eyes. “Happy now?”

I widen my eyes and stare back. “Super ecstatic.”

A doorbell rings.

We frown at one another. “We have a doorbell?” I say.

“I guess we do.”

“Rightio, then. I’ll go see who it is.” I swing around, knock my knee against the door frame, and limp down the passage while Adam shouts “Princess Clumsy” after me. I rub my knee and unlock the front door. I pull it open and find—

A girl. A little younger than me. Red hair. Small frame. Dad’s eyes.

No way.

“Hi,” she says. “Are you Livi?”

No way, no way, no way.

I grip the door frame for support as I nod slowly.

She smiles, swallows, and says, “I’m Andi.”

“Okay,” Adam says. “So this is a little unexpected.”

“Unexpected?
Unexpected?
” I stop pacing and stand in front of his bed, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the lounge. “My half-sister, who I did not even know existed until a few weeks ago, is sitting on our couch! Words cannot explain just how
unexpected
this is.”

“I thought you wanted to meet her.”

“I did. But I thought I’d have some time to mentally prepare myself. I wasn’t expecting her to just show up with absolutely no warning.”

“Hence my use of the word ‘unexpected,’” Adam mutters.

“You—” I point at him “—are not helping.”

“Well, I guess it’s fortunate, then, that I’m about to leave for work.”

“No!” I grab both his arms as he stands up. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

“Livi, it’s going to be fine. It’s not like I’m leaving you alone with the Chucky doll or something.”

“WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT? You know that movie scared the crap out of me.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot.” He pats my arm before picking up his keys from the desk.

“You did not forget. You’re trying to get back at me for the naked butt moment.”

He laughs. “Stop being ridiculous and just go and
talk
to her.”

“But I don’t know what to say.”

“Livi.” He places both hands on my shoulders and focuses his gaze on me. “You have a lifetime to catch up on. I’m sure you’ll find something.”

For some insane reason—possibly because my brain is looking for
any
distraction from the girl sitting on my couch—I can’t help remembering Allegra saying that glasses make guys look cute. And maybe I’ve just never noticed it before, but Adam’s glasses
do
make him look cute. And the eyes behind those glasses … I never noticed how light they are. Kind of greyish green, but so
light
. Like, luminously lit up.

I’m staring. Crapazoid. How long have I been staring for? And why is Adam staring back at me with that weird sort of uncertainty, as if …

I step back and look away, because apparently my legs have more of a brain than my brain does right now. “You, uh, you’re right. There’s plenty of stuff for us to talk about. I just have to find the right place to start.”

“Exactly.” Adam scratches his head, causing his sticking-up hair to stick up a little more. “If you really don’t want to be left here alone with her, you could always come to
Jazzy Beanbag
and do your chatting there.”

“Yes! That’s a great idea.”

***

Adam disappears behind the bar, and Andrea—
Andi
, I correct myself silently—and I sit down at the table next to the red leg-shaped lamp. I glance up. She glances up. We both look away.

I run my finger along one of the scratches on the table. With an uncomfortable laugh, I say, “This is weird.”

“I know.” She tugs at her brightly coloured scarf. “I’m so sorry I just showed up. I was expecting you to slam the door in my face or scream at me about how my mom ruined your family or something. I still can’t believe I’m sitting here with my … sister.”

I look up. “Are you also an only child?”

She nods. “It’s always just been me and my mom.”

“Your mom,” I murmur, not really wanting to think about that part of the equation.

“Yes. Oh my gosh, you must
hate
her.” Andi covers her face with her hands and groans. I notice the dark green nail polish on her fingers and wonder what her favourite colour is. “I’m so sorry. I thought you’d hate me too because of her, but I really wanted to meet you, so I thought I’d risk coming here.” She peeks through her fingers. “Thank you for not hating me.”

I take a deep breath and say, “I wanted to. I tried to hate you. But the sensible part of my brain kept reminding me that none of this was your fault. And … honestly … I wanted to meet you too. I asked my dad—um, our dad—but he said no. How did you find me anyway?”

“Well, you see—” She breaks off as a waitress comes over to take our order. Andi asks for coffee, and I order hot chocolate.

“Hey, you’re Livi, right?” the waitress says before leaving. “Adam’s friend?”

“Uh, yes, that’s me.”

“I don’t mean to put you in the middle of anything, or make you uncomfortable, but can you please tell Adam to just
talk
to me?”

“To talk to you?” With half my mind still focused on Andi and her story, I wonder if perhaps I’ve missed some important detail here. “You both work here, right?” I say to the waitress. “Can’t you just walk up to him and start a conversation?”

She sighs. “I’ve been trying. But he’s managed to avoid me for
three weeks
. I know he’s embarrassed, but it really wasn’t a big deal. He’s an
amazingly
talented musician. I’d hate for him to give up his guitar lessons because of one drunken incident.”

Say WHAT?
Adam’s taking guitar lessons? There was a drunken incident with this woman who looks about a decade older than us? And I’m supposed to figure out what’s going on with the half-sister I only just met sitting right here listening to all this?

I clear my throat and sit up a little straighter. “Whatever it is that happened, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be discussing it with your customers.” Ugh, I sound exactly like my mother. Next thing I’ll be calling the manager and making a scene.

“I—I’m so sorry. You’re absolutely right.” She hurries away before I can say anything else.

“That was strange,” Andi says.

I shake my head, filing that brief interlude away for further examination at a later time. “Anyway. You were saying?”

“Oh yes. My mom’s been refusing to tell me anything about my father for years. She kept saying it was just better that way. Then earlier this year I was looking for old school records in the top of a cupboard, and I found a biscuit tin with a bunch of random stuff in it. Movie tickets, a theatre ticket, a few letters, and … a photo. Of my mom and a guy with red hair. I confronted her about it, and she couldn’t exactly lie. It was pretty obvious who he was. I told her I wanted to contact him, and that’s when she admitted that he was married. He had a wife and … you.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “Did … did she say if she was still in contact with him?”

“She said he sends money every month, but other than that … nothing.”

Well, at least Dad was telling the truth about that.

“Apparently he has a colleague who’s friends with my mom,” Andi says, “so that’s how my mom knows he’s still married and that he doesn’t have any other children aside from you—well, and me, obviously—and that you came to UCT this year. She told me I needed to forget about him because he has his own family and we shouldn’t mess with that, but … I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And you. I found an email address for him online, and even though my mom said not to contact him, I eventually did. Which you already know, because that’s why your family’s falling apart now, and I’m so, so sorry for doing that. I never meant for—”

“Okay, you need to stop apologising. Yes, your email is what caused everything to blow up, but you can’t apologise forever. And our parents are the ones who caused this mess in the first place, not you. They’ve just been hiding it all this time. Also,” I add, “none of this explains how you arrived on my doorstep.”

“Oh. Yes. Well, after my mom used a whole lot of shouting to tell me that my email had potentially ruined someone else’s marriage—

“Like her adultery had nothing to do with that,” I mutter.

“That’s what I said!” Andi exclaims. “And I was grounded for it. Anyway, after that, I decided to contact you instead. A friend of mine—he was my neighbour—is at UCT now. So I asked him how I should go about finding a particular student. I mentioned you name, and he was like, ‘This is crazy, but I actually know who she is.’”

“What?” I sit forward. “Who’s your friend?”

“Damien Sanders.”

“Damien Sanders?” I sit back as our waitress places our coffee and hot chocolate on the table and vanishes without making eye contact with either of us. “Damien, Damien … I don’t think I know—Oh, wait, does he have a girlfriend named Charlotte?”

“I think so.”

“Wow. That is super weird.”

“So all Damien had to do was ask his girlfriend where you live, and it was that easy.”

“You didn’t think to maybe ask for my number and just
call
instead of coming all the way here?”

“Phone calls, texts and emails have a much greater chance of being ignored,” Andi says, sliding her giant coffee cup closer and wrapping her hands around it. “This way, I ran the risk of you slamming a door in my face, but I was prepared to hang out on your front steps or outside your gate for as long as it took for you to pay attention to me.”

“Jeez. You must have been really desperate for a sister.”

“Well, yes,” she says simply. “It was lonely growing up with just me. Wasn’t it lonely for you?”

I pick up my hot chocolate and take a sip. It
was
lonely at times. But I don’t know this girl well enough to admit that to her. “I’m surprised your mom let you fly across the country to see me.”

“Oh, no, she doesn’t know about this. I mean, she’ll find out when I get back on Saturday, but right now she thinks I’ve gone to Kruger for two nights with my friend Ashley’s family.”

“She—she doesn’t know?”

Andi shakes her head. “Damien helped me get here.”

“And … where are you staying?” My mind flashes back to the small suitcase sitting in the lounge.

“That, uh, depends on how generous you’re feeling,” Andi says, purposefully avoiding my gaze.

“You were hoping to stay with
me
?”

She bites her nail, then says in a tiny voice, “Yes?”

My half-sister. In my house. For two nights.

This day could NOT get any weirder.

“Is that okay? If it’s not, I can make another plan. Damien said he could help me find—”

“No, it’s fine, it’s—” I pause, just to make sure I really am okay with this. “It’ll be fun. Like … a sleepover. There’s even a free bedroom in our house right now. I’m sure its usual occupant won’t mind if we put some clean sheets on the bed for you.”

She smiles. “Thank you.”

“Hey, ladies.” Adam stops by our table and leans against it. “How’s it going over here?” I made him promise to check in with me after twenty minutes in case I needed to be rescued from my terrifying half-sibling.

“Everything’s great,” I say. “Andi’s going to be staying with us for two nights.”

“Oh, okay, cool.” He smiles down at me and adds, “You see? I told you she wasn’t scary.”

Heat burns its way up my neck as Andi laughs and says, “You thought I was
scary
?”

“No.”

“She may have compared you to the Chucky doll,” Adam tells her.

Andi bends over her coffee, laughing even harder. “I think I’m supposed to be offended by that,” she says between gasps of laughter. “If only I could take horror movies seriously.”

I cross my arms and lean back in my chair with a huff. “I did not compare you to a terrifying doll. Adam is trying to embarrass me because I walked into the bathroom this morning and saw his SEXY, NAKED BUTT.” I raise my voice on the last three words so that everyone around us will hear.

Adam stares at me, shock morphing into amusement on his face. Wait, why is he
amused
? He’s supposed to be
embarrassed
. “Well, it’s official,” he says with a grin. “Everyone inside
Jazzy Beanbag
now knows that you think my butt is sexy.”

Crapsticks. I said the word ‘sexy,’ didn’t I. Adam smirks and heads back to the bar. I groan and drop my head onto the table.

“Are the two of you this entertaining all the time?” Andi asks.

My groan slowly changes to a laugh. Entertaining. That’s one way of putting it. “Pretty much.”

“Well,” she says, “now I’m looking forward to staying with you even more.”