“Is Riley still here?” Her eyebrows shot up, but otherwise she tried to mask the facial evidence that her stomach had dropped again.
A strange look crossed Eddie’s face and she thought she may have been unsuccessful. He shook his head, “Nah, he took off when I pulled up.”
A flash flood of disappointment rushed through Chelle’s body. She tried to do a better job of masking it on her face so that it wouldn’t be as glaringly obvious.
“Chelle?” Her brother’s tone indicated that she had failed to do so. Damn. She was 0 for 2. Eddie's eyes narrowed. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. Really.” She put on her bravest face and used her most confident voice as she answered.
Seemingly convinced, he dropped it.
“So, where’s the douchebag?”
Chelle looked up and saw David walking out of the kitchen holding a beer in one hand. Great. That's all the situation needed. More alcohol!
As soon as she saw the look on David’s face, she got a very strong feeling that this was not going to end well.
“What did you call me?”
Awwww....crap. She reached up and placed her hand on her brother’s arm, “Don’t, Eddie. I’m serious.”
“A douchebag.” Eddie said flatly.
Her head dropped and her shoulders slumped. Why me, she thought. WHY ME?
She saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye as David lunged towards her brother.
Eddie smoothly stepped a foot to the right, causing David to lose his balance and fall flat on his face, sending his beer flying.
“Get out of my house,” David yelled as he tried and failed several times to get up off the floor.
Eddie picked him up by the back of his shirt, spun him around, and pushed him up against the wall. He held him in place with his forearm pressed against his neck.
“Here’s the deal, Douchebag. You have ten minutes to get everything you need and get the hell out of here. This is my sister’s house. She lived here before you moved in. I don’t care what it says on some piece of paper. You don’t live here anymore. You're gonna get your shit, get the hell out of here, and leave my sister the hell alone.”
Eddie stared at David for what felt to Chelle like an hour but was, in reality, probably only a few seconds. David looked terrified.
“Do you understand?” Eddie asked calmly.
David nodded his head in the affirmative. Well, as much as he could with Eddie’s forearm being pressed up under his chin. Eddie released him and David scrambled back to the bedroom, presumably to collect his things.
Chelle stared at the space that David had just occupied and thought to herself, ‘Riley would never have backed down to Eddie.’
Okay. Wow. She really needed to lock that kind of thinking down if she was ever going to get over him!
A knock on the door, she had thought it was Riley. Eddie says Riley called him, she had thought he was still there. David gets punked, and she had compared him to Riley.
Riley hadn’t even been out of her life for an hour yet, and she was already on some kind of Riley-induced emotional roller coaster.
Well, time to get off that ride and get on with her own life. Her real life. Her Riley-free life.
Sigh.
Now she really wanted pizza and ice cream.
Chapter Twenty-two
As he walked up the steps of the bar portion of The Grill, Riley was seriously regretting his decision to call his brother, Alex, to pick him up after he dropped off his rental car. The minute Riley had climbed into his brother’s truck, Alex had declared Riley his wingman for the night and told him they were meeting Bobby for drinks.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend time with his brothers. He did. It was just that he wasn’t really in a social mood. He wanted to be alone. Well, actually he wanted to be with Chelle, but since that wasn’t an option - he wanted to be alone.
Bobby was waiting for them in a booth in the back corner and, as he stood, Riley couldn’t believe his eyes. Bobby and Seth had always resembled each other, both had jet black hair and blue eyes, but now Bobby was the spitting image of Seth at age 24.
“Hey, Bro. Good to see you,” Bobby said as he stood.
Damn, he even sounded like Seth. They both had those deep, sonorous voices which lent everything they said an air of gravitas and made them sound as if they were constantly doing real-time narration of a documentary of their life. Riley felt as if he had just walked into an episode of the Twilight Zone.
“Good to see you, too,” Riley said as they briefly hugged before sitting down in the booth.
A young, attractive waitress came over to take their orders.
“Hey Nina,” Alex greeted her with a wink.
The girl blushed, “Hi, Alex.”