Chapter 16 Andrew #3
Soft voices rouse Andrew from sleep, but with this comes an uncomfortable awareness of his own body. He tries to roll over, but his limbs are heavy and his head throbs. This is exactly why he doesn’t nap. He never, ever feels better after.
“Is he okay?” Someone, he thinks Eden, asks.
“I don’t know.” That’s Amanda. “I made him lay down for a little bit since he looked exhausted, but then he just didn’t wanna wake up. I tried when I got the security alert you were here. Where’s Addy?”
“Ella wasn’t feeling good. There’s something going around the school and a bunch of her classmates are sick, too. Even though Charlie and Mrs. King said they could still watch her so Addy could come today, she just wanted her momma.”
“Poor thing, hopefully she feels better.”
“Yeah. Maybe Andrew is sick.”
“I’m not sick,” Andrew interjects.
Being sick is disgusting and deregulating. He refuses to be sick.
“Maybe—” Amanda starts, but Andrew cuts her off.
“I just slept hard. I told you I haven’t been sleeping much.”
“Is Nicki being a dick?”
“No more than usual,” Andrew jokes, but it falls flat when Eden glowers. It occurs to Andrew that aside from Amanda and Denise, Eden is the only one who knows the truth about him and Nicki, which means he deserves to know the truth now.
“You don’t need to worry so much, Eden. Things are…good.”
“Good, how?” Eden asks.
“Good like…good. I really like him, Eden.”
“No shit?” Eden whistles, turning to look at Amanda who shrugs.
“Wow. That’s unexpected. I mean, I know what I said, but that was more because you deserve someone, not because he does.”
“He’s not that bad,” Andrew objects.
“He is a man, so…” Eden shrugs, picking at his flaking nail polish.
“Not all men are horrible,” Andrew points out.
“Men are the worst. I hate them.”
“Charlie’s a man.”
“What’s your point?” Eden grumbles. “Nicholas isn’t good enough for you.”
“Given that we’re standing in the middle of his multimillion dollar beach front home, and he’s both independently wealthy and famous because he’s a professional hockey player, I feel certain that’s not true.”
Andrew sighs, rubbing his temples. Damn, that nap really fucked up his head. It’s fuzzy, not that he needs anyone else to know that.
“This house is hideous, it looks like a museum,” Eden complains, eying it with displeasure.
Given that he actually likes Charlie’s brightly colored, hodgepodge house, it’s no surprise he hates Nicholas’s house with its expansive size, lavish furnishings and white and cream color palette. Andrew loves it.
“Would you believe Nicholas decorated it himself?” Amanda shares. “I mean he hired a decorator, but he picked it all.”
“Did he?” Andrew says, unsure why that makes him like it more.
“See, money can’t buy taste.” Eden frowns at the couch like it’s offended him.
“Speaking of money, Nicki’s personal chef made us brunch,” Amanda says, probably trying to say something she thinks Eden will like, but it has the opposite effect.
“A personal chef?” Eden groans, turning to walk away. “I’m going to the gas station for food.”
That response gets Andrew off the couch and across the room, no hesitation in pulling Eden into a hug from behind. “Easy, Eden.”
“No,” Eden gripes, but he does, in fact, stop moving.
“Are you mad Nicki’s rich or mad he’s a man?” Andrew questions, careful to keep his tone nonaccusatory and gentle.
“Both,” Eden snaps. “I don’t trust him. I don’t want him dating you.”
“Okay, Eden.”
“You’re pacifying me,” Eden hisses, sagging in Andrew’s hold. “You fucker.”
“Would you prefer I told you to relax?”
“Not on your fucking life.”
“Didn’t think so,” Andrew says, knowing that this is a lot for Eden.
Asking him to accept a fake relationship was a reach.
Asking him to accept a real one is even more so.
Andrew shared the truth of his changing relationship with Nicholas in a text to Eden yesterday, the response brief and noncombative.
He’d known he would see the repercussions of his confession in person at this brunch.
“If he hurts you, I’m going to kill him.”
“That won’t be necessary, but the protective instincts are appreciated. You know I love you, right?”
“Shut up, Andrew.”
Shut up. Eden code for I have too many feelings. Andrew lets it drop, both because he can sense it’s not the right time to push Eden and because he genuinely feels like shit. He needs some coffee to wake him up.
“There’s Red Bull in the fridge. The new limited edition flavor you like.”
“Is it Nicholas’s?” Eden questions.
“Yeah, he drinks them sometimes.”
“Good, then I want two,” Eden says, seemingly cheered up by the prospect of drinking Nicki’s energy drinks.
“I want a mimosa,” Amanda says. “Does anyone else want one?”
“I don’t want a mimosa,” Eden pipes up. “Champagne tastes like carbonated piss.”
“I don’t know if I want to know what kind of champagne you’re drinking or why you know what piss tastes like.”
“Not literally,” Eden says with a roll of his eyes. “Oh and uh—” Eden pushes, shoving his hands into his hoodie which is so oversized, it’s covering most of his short, hot pink skirt. “I got you this.”
He removes his hands from his hoodie pocket, holding out a small box towards Amanda.
“Is this that blue eyeliner you used at your birthday?” Amanda asks.
“Yeah, you mentioned you really liked it. It’s just from the drugstore, it's not, like, fancy or anything.”
Eden shuffles from foot to foot awkwardly when Amanda thanks him, and Andrew knows how much this cost Eden, not monetarily but emotionally.
He’s been texting Amanda more recently, both of them loving to complain about Charlie, but also to share makeup tips.
Knowing that Eden is organically finding his own footing in their friendship group, not just because he’s Charlie’s partner but because everyone genuinely adores him, makes Andrew happy.
It also makes him wonder if any of his brothers or their partners will accept Nicki the same way.
Are he and Nicki even headed there? Andrew’s always been a very all-or-nothing man, and his desire to be all in now that he understands his feelings, and Nicki’s, might be too much.
For all they talked that first night, and over texts, they haven’t broached anything about where their relationship stands.
While Nicki said he likes Andrew, it’s hard to know what that really means for a man like Nicki who doesn’t do commitment.
Maybe he does want to date Andrew but not seriously.
Some people do low commitment dating, but that idea makes Andrew feel mildly nauseated.
Or maybe it’s the lack of food and the nap fucking him up.
The closer it gets to Nicki coming back, the more excited Andrew is to see him, but also anxious as shit.
It could be that anticipation that’s doing him in.
Or the nap. Regardless of the cause, Andrew feels like shit.
Something that must show on his face because Eden and Amanda have both stopped talking and are looking at him like he has two heads.
“What?” Andrew asks, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and stave off a sudden wave of dizziness. He must be even more stressed out than he realized.
“Are you sure you’re okay, sweetie?”
“I’m fine, I just need to get the food out and then we can enjoy brunch.”
“We can help,” Eden offers.
Andrew shakes his head, feeling bad enough that he slept while Amanda was here and that brunch is late.
At this point, it’s more like lunch than brunch, which bothers him more than it should.
This is exactly why Andrew should never nap.
All it’s done is make him feel off kilter and somehow make his head hurt worse.
“You guys just relax in the living room. It’s mostly done anyway. Mimosa for Amanda, Red Bull for Eden and coffee for me. Anyone need anything else?”
“I’m good,” Amanda says while Eden shrugs.
Certain they’ll be fine, Andrew leaves them in the living room and heads to the kitchen where he starts to take containers out.
There’s a tray of freshly baked pastries on the counter, a fruit and cheese platter in the fridge and a quiche he needs to reheat.
When he pulls out the quiche and notices the note on the top—no onions—he can’t help but smile.
While that reheats, he grabs a large serving tray Nicki told him to use before he left.
He’s ninety-nine percent sure Nicki bought it solely for Andrew’s brunch, but when he asked Nicki all he got was a grunt in return.
While arranging the tray with the various foods and small plates, he realizes his headache has gotten worse and pauses to make himself an extra strong latte he drinks after finishing setting up.
By the time the quiche is perfectly heated through, he’s made one trip to the living room to drop off half the food and returns with the second tray of drinks and quiche to find Amanda and Eden have found some trashy reality show to put on the television.
He and Amanda have been doing bitch and brunch for almost a year now, their regular monthly get together something Andrew’s come to treasure.
When she suggested they start inviting Eden last month, he’d been nervous, not about Eden being there but about how he might adapt.
Watching Eden chug his Red Bull while yelling at the television and smiling at Amanda, he knows those fears were unfounded.
Pulling out his phone, he swipes open his camera preparing to take a photo.
“Are you gonna send that to Charlie?” Eden asks, looking at Andrew over his shoulder.
“I was,” Andrew confirms.
“I knew it,” Eden says, making a show of flipping off the camera.
Andrew laughs, sending the photo to his brother before dropping down onto the couch.
It’s not until his ass hits the corner that he realizes how tired he still is.
Having a task always distracts him, and he’d gotten so focused on getting everything together, he’d thought he was feeling better, but the waves of discomfort and exhaustion return tenfold.
Hoping neither Amanda or Eden notice, he busies himself by fixing a plate of food he’s not actually interested in eating.
Luckily for Andrew, he’s able to be more of a passive observer since Amanda and Eden are both familiar with this weird reality show and spend the entire time providing live commentary and judgements on everything that happens.
As a rule, Andrew dislikes reality television because it’s the opposite of reality and that confuses him, but with Amanda and Eden narrating the entire thing, it’s not horrible.
He relaxes while watching with a kind of morbid fascination.
Before he knows it, a good chunk of the food is gone, Amanda is tipsy from three mimosas and Eden is over-caffeinated and going on a tangent, yelling at the television about, well—Andrew’s not even sure actually, he zoned out because his head hurts, but there was something about gender norms and advertising.
“I don’t care how bad the product placement is, it worked. I’m going to buy that swimsuit.”
“I think if you wore that swimsuit in public, you’d get arrested for public indecency,” Eden snorts.
“I’m not gonna wear it in public, I’m going to wear it for Denise. Speaking of Denise, I want a kiss. Have you seen her? God, my girlfriend is hot.”
Andrew bites back a smile, wondering when Amanda went from tipsy to slightly drunk before he notices the bottle of champagne on the coffee table. He must’ve really zoned out because he never even noticed her go get it.
Speaking of things Andrew didn’t notice—he didn’t hear the front door open, yet Nicki is standing in the massive entryway staring at them.
He’s handsome as ever, still in his travel suit with not a hair out of place.
His tie has been removed, most of the buttons of his button-up shirt undone to reveal the tattoos that travel across his chest and up his throat.
The same ones that Andrew spent hours memorizing before Nicki left.
Andrew’s fingers itch to retrace them all.
After days without Nicki, seeing him in person solidifies what Andrew has spent days trying to come to terms with—he has feelings for Nicki.
Not a crush or something fleeting, but real feelings. He likes Nicki in a way he’s never liked anyone, and if Nicki doesn’t feel the same, it just might destroy him.