31. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Margot
“Mr. Darcy would never,” Danika comments, popping another piece of popcorn into her mouth. As an attempt to take my mind off what’s going on between Alex and I, Sydney suggested a movie night which I happily agreed to…until Danika made non-stop parallels between the leading man and my podcast co-star.
I hit her with my millionth scathing glance of the night but she continues to ignore me. “Do you think Mr. Darcy would be into podcasts if he lived in modern times?”
“No, he would think they’re a frivolous waste of time,” Sydney answers for me, her eyes glued to the screen, as well. Even though we’ve seen this movie over a hundred times (this year), it’s always our number one pick-me-up movie.
Just as Elizabeth is denying Darcy by not returning his affections, a knock sounds on our door. Both of my friends whip their heads to me. Alex better not have shown up right now. I am nowhere near ready to talk to him.
With a sigh, I pull myself off the couch and trudge over toward the door. Taking in a deep breath, I steel myself before pulling the door open. The face that greets me on the other side causes a gigantic smile to erupt on my face.
I scream and immediately Danika and Sydney are at my side, ready to fight whoever they need to fight to protect me.
“Geez, Mars,” my big brother smiles at me from my doorstep. “Can’t say I was expecting that reaction.” Arden laughs before stepping forward and pulling me into a hug. I hug him back before pulling away, looking into his eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
“What, a guy can’t visit his little sis while she’s away at school?” I squint my eyes at him but decide to interrogate him later, instead pulling him into the apartment.
“Hey, Arden,” Sydney says with a smile, as he pulls her in for a polite hug. When he turns his gaze toward Danika, his grin falls.
“Danika,” he says.
“Arden,” she replies.
I roll my eyes, pushing him past them and into the rest of the apartment. I grab his bag from his shoulder, noticing the heaviness of it.
“How long are you staying?”
Arden looks around. He’s come to visit me at school before, but he hasn’t seen this apartment yet. We only moved in here last year and Arden was too busy with work to ever come out and see me.
“Just a day or two,” he says noncommittally. Once he notices the movie on the screen, he immediately grabs the remote. “You, ladies, have a problem.”
Much to our protest, Arden turns the TV off, throwing the remote onto the couch. “It’s Saturday night, you’re young and in college. Why are you not out on the town?”
Danika crosses her arms and juts out her hip. “For once, I agree with Peepants.”
“We are not starting that,” Arden warns Danika. She just scrunches her nose at him. “Brat,” he mutters. His lovely nickname for my best friend. I truly have no idea how they haven’t killed each other yet.
Sydney, having not had the pleasure of growing up with Arden and Danika fighting as if they were the siblings, looks adorably confused. I lean in to explain. “Cause he peed his pants once when we were camping in the woods.”
Sydney smothers her laugh with the back of her hand.
Arden looks at his watch. “It’s 9:30. You have fifteen minutes to get yourselves all pretty and then we’re going out.”
Danika doesn’t need to be told twice, running right into her room to change and swipe on some makeup. Sydney is still laughing as she walks to her own room, much more slowly.
I only look over at Arden. “Is everything okay?” My brother hits me with a smile that is supposed to convince me that nothing is wrong but I know him better than that.
“Everything’s fine, Mars. Let’s go, the clock is ticking.” Arden takes my shoulders and turns me around, shoving me into the only empty room which he deduced was mine. Clearly, something isn’t right, but he needs to blow off some steam before he’ll talk to me about it. So I let him push me into my room, closing the door to change and ponder what could’ve brought my brother seven hundred miles from home.
The bar is full of underage girls, many of which I have classes with. Cannons is notoriously lenient on IDs so all the undergrads will come here if they don’t want to go to another frat party.
Normally, I dislike the bar scene even more than the party scene but I was too excited to see my brother to care where we went. Arden got us the first round of beers, and Danika and Sydney were making their way to the bar for the second time when I finally got a second to sit down with him.
“Alright, enough already. What’s going on? What are you doing here and why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Do I really need a reason to come visit you?” Arden sips his beer, looking around my shoulder for a pretty college girl to make eyes at. I snap my fingers in his face to bring his focus back.
“A reason, no? A phone call beforehand, yes.”
Arden raises his hands in surrender. “You’re right, sis, I should’ve called.”
Satisfied for the moment, I take the last sip of my cold beverage basking in the glow of having my big brother out on the town with me.
“Round two, folks,” Sydney announces, handing me a fresh beer. Danika goes to hand one to Arden but pulls it back right before he can grab it. The staring contest that ensues is vicious and I have to look away before I see one of them burst into flames. My eyes glance toward the door where suddenly the large frame of a very tall, very familiar man takes shape in the doorway.
Sydney clocks him the second I do. “Did you tell him you were here?”
“Nope,” I reply, popping my “p”. I take a very long sip of my drink before turning my head back toward the people I actually want to spend time with. I’m hoping, with the crowd being what it is, Alex won’t be able to find me.
He hasn’t texted, hasn’t called since I left him in the recording studio. Not that I wanted him to. But it would’ve been nice to know he was thinking about me. Clearly, I was thinking about him. Again…not that I wanted to.
My wishful thinking bubble bursts within a few minutes as Alex finds his way over to us. Arden is sitting on my left, cheersing his beer with mine as Alex walks up.
“Didn’t take you very long, did it?”
“Excuse me?” I say, initially intending to ignore his ass but can’t possibly after that comment. All eyes are on Alex and I now. Even Arden is stunned speechless which probably won’t last long.
“One fight and you’re running off with someone else,” Alex gestures toward Arden, and Danika gags on the other side of the table. Alex whips his head around to her, clearly confused.
“Hey, fella,” Arden says, cool as a cucumber with his hand outstretched toward Alex. “I’m Arden.”
Alex looks at Arden, glances at his hand then looks back toward me. “My brother.”
The look of relief on Alex’s face shocks me. He genuinely thought I’d run off with someone else after one small thing. That’s going to bode well for our relationship .
“Brother?” He asks, hope leaking out of his voice. He takes Arden’s hand.
“Brother,” Arden replies, shaking twice then dropping Alex’s hand. “And you must be Alex.”
Alex’s gaze whips to mine, his eyes dancing with mirth. “You told your brother about me.”
“Uh, no,” I look over at Arden. “I didn’t.”
He swallows the sip of his beer before continuing. “Well, I’ve seen your podcast, obviously.” I don’t get a chance to ask him any follow-up questions about how he even knew about the podcast before an ice cold drink is poured directly down my front. Some drunken idiot falls over on top of me and soaks me completely.
“Watch where you’re fucking going, asshole!” Danika shouts but that’s not what intimidates the man. No, it’s the two over six feet tall men that have stacked up in front of me, looking to punch anything that moves.
Grabbing some napkins from a nearby table, I start to dab myself dry. “Down, dogs. Heel.” I scoff, rolling my eyes at their dick-measuring display. When they don’t move, I push past, heading toward the bathroom with Dani and Sydney on my tail.
Thankfully, the line is short and by some miracle the three of us file in and start damage control.
“You’re lucky clear alcohol doesn’t stain,” Danika comments, wetting a paper towel and dapping the wet spots on my shirt.
“I don’t feel lucky,” I reply, quietly. Sydney gets a dry towel and soaks up some of the wetness. “This is so weird, right? My brother is here and he just met the guy I’m kind of dating, kind of not dating.”
Danika laughs. “Definitely weird, but in a good way, I think.”
“What’s good about this?” I gesture toward my wet clothes. Syd and Dani take a step back, admiring my outfit disaster.
I see the lightbulb go off in Syd’s head as she peels off her flannel shirt, leaving her white tank top revealed. She throws the shirt over my head and ties the two sleeves together in front of my chest.
“Fashion, baby,” she says with a wink, turning me toward the mirror. The look isn’t going to get me into any fashion shows any time soon but it hides the stains well enough.
“Thanks, Syd.” She winks and I ready myself to enter the fray again. In my panic to get clean, I didn’t even realize I’d be leaving Arden and Alex alone together.
“Oh god, let’s—”
“Yeah, we should—”
The three of us barrel out the door, expecting to have to break up a full on brawl but instead we find the two guys, enjoying beers and…laughing? That can’t be right.
As we walk back toward them, both sets of eyes glance in my direction. Arden pulls me into his side. “Crisis averted?”
I nod and smile awkwardly. I have no idea what they were just talking about and I’m even more sure I don’t want to know. Anything that my brother and Alex Prescott have in common can’t be good.
“Another round?” He asks, holding up his empty bottle.
I grimace.
“You should know your sister well enough by now to know she’s not down for late nights, peepants,” Danika says, the disdain seeping out of her voice.
“I can take you home if you want, Margot,” Alex says. “So the rest of you guys can keep the party going.”
Danika and Sydney both nod their heads reassuringly and I trust that Arden will take care of them. Not that I really want to spend any extra time with Alex at the moment, the thought of pajamas and a cup of hot chocolate sounds heavenly to me right now.
“See you guys at home,” I say, purposefully avoiding Alex’s hand as he outstretches it toward me to guide me toward the door.
When we finally enter the fresh air, I am able to take a deep breath. The bar reeked of stale beer and hot dogs so being out in the open has helped clear my head a bit. Alex and I start walking in the direction of my apartment without saying a word. After a block of silence, he finally speaks.
“I saw you leave your building tonight.” I look over to see his eyes facing forward, not wanting to meet mine. “I went to your apartment to see if you’d talk to me but I saw you leaving with him. And I was jealous.”
I stare ahead, just as he does, letting him speak. “I was jealous of you being with another man. I didn’t like that feeling at all.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you have nothing to worry about, then,” I mutter.
“Don’t I, though?” Alex stops walking and I stop beside him as we turn to face each other. “What about Ryan?”
“What about Ryan? Clearly I chose you over Ryan.”
Alex runs his hands through his hair in exasperation.
“Why are you trying to start a fight with me right now?”
He sighs, “I don’t know.” Alex is quiet for a few moments before he speaks again. “I talked to Kai. He told me what I’m assuming Ryan told you.”
“Is he okay?” I ask, continuing to walk toward home as we keep walking.
Alex nods. “He’s in some trouble, but we’re gonna figure it out. Anyway, I don’t like how easy it was for something like that to get between us.”
“Us?” I ask. “Is there an us , Alex?”
“I’d like there to be.” And there it was. The most honest thing he’s ever said to me. If I stood my ground, I’d have him go home and wait for my call. If I had more guts, I’d send him packing for good.
Instead, I find myself saying the words I’ve never said to a boy.
“Do you want to come inside?”