by Cathy Quinn
More of those protective feelings hit him. How could any guy dump her? As women went, this one was pretty close to perfect in his book. A nightmare, yes, and a bit of a drama queen, but still. Those guys had to be absolute idiots.
He reset his alarm clock. He’d let her sleep one more hour, then he’d have to wake her up so she could go home and get changed for work.
In the meantime, he had a hot date with a percolator in the kitchen.
There was only one problem, he realized, as he tried to inch his way out of bed. Alice wasn’t letting go of him. Her arm around his neck bore striking resemblance to a noose in force and determination. With a whimper he settled back and closed his eyes.
Fine. It was just an hour. He’d ruined Alice’s happy world, his punishment would be an hour’s wait for his rather less-divine source of bliss. He settled down and tried to get comfortable, the feeling of Alice’s warm body next to him alien and unsettling. He would ignore it. Determined, he shut his eyes.
The room turned out to be just as bright with his eyes closed. He opened his eyes again, deciding for sure to do something about that light bulb this week. This month, absolutely. He eyed the light switch on the wall and looked around for something to throw at it, since it was obvious he wasn’t leaving this bed any time soon.
Stretching, he managed to rummage in his bedside drawer, grabbing the first suitable missive. The brightly colored package was unopened, and he couldn’t even remember when he’d bought it, which was probably pathetic. Shrugging, he took aim, and threw. Instantly there was darkness.
Hah! First try. Skills left from basketball training died hard.
He yawned and patted Alice’s back once more before settling down for an hour’s nap.
***
"That woman is a nightmare!"
Yep, Gabriel agreed. She was. Absolutely. But she was also warm and soft and sweet-smelling and a delight to share a bed with.
Then the blasted light went on again. He sat up and blinked, noticing the alarm was still ten minutes away from beeping. "What the hell...?"
Michael fell into the chair in the corner, shoving the pile of clothing carelessly to the floor first. "You’ll never guess what Susan just did to me."
Gabriel looked from brother to sister, his confusion rapidly turning to panic. Alice’s back was to her brother, and obviously Michael hadn’t noticed anything yet, but when he did...
Cold shivers ran down his back.
"Didn’t you notice that doorbell?" he inquired. Why did he even bother to lock the door? Everybody seemed to have a key.
"I did. It’s not working. And I knocked, but you didn’t answer, so I guessed your bedroom door was closed and you didn’t hear, so I just used the key. The doorknob fell, off, by the way. I shoved it back in, but you probably want to fix it properly."
"I’ll put it on the list," Gabriel muttered. "Why don’t you start the coffee brewing," he suggested, hoping this sibling would be more cooperative in the hot beverage department. "I’ll get dressed and be right there."
"Let me tell you what just happened..." Michael said, his voice a growl, and Gabriel groaned. First Alice’s man-trouble, now Michael’s women-trouble?
And didn’t anybody drink coffee anymore?
"Let’s talk about this in the kitchen, Michael. I’ll be right there."
Michael noticed the lump in the bed, and jumped to his feet. "I’m sorry!" he whispered, his eyes on his sister’s dark curls peeking out from under the covers. He winked with a broad smile. That smirk would be wiped off in a microsecond if Michael found out just whose head the curls attached to. "I didn’t notice you had a ... guest."
"That’s okay. You couldn’t know." The words were tripping over each other in their hurry out of his mouth, because he could feel Alice stirring by his side. "Start the coffee and I’ll be right there."
Michael nodded and started towards the door. Gabriel relaxed in relief, but then Alice’s arm came around his neck again and she turned towards him, hooking her leg under his knee. "What time is it?" she asked, yawning against his shoulder.
Gabriel held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for anything, anything at all to happen, just as long as it didn’t involve him and his best friend’s baby sister in bed together.
There was hope yet.
Maybe Michael wouldn’t recognize his sister’s voice. Maybe he wouldn’t look back and see her head on his chest. Maybe an earthquake would hit, tearing the room in half, leaving a hundred mile fissure between him and Michael in big-brother mode.
Three long seconds passed.
"What the hell is my sister doing in your bed?"
Chapter 2
The shout woke Alice fully. It probably woke up several people in the next county. She sat up, bracing her hand on Gabriel’s chest, keeping him down, and glared at her brother. "What the hell are you doing here?" she shot back, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
Michael’s fists were clenched and there was fire in his eyes that didn’t bode well for Gabriel’s health. He ignored his sister and focused his furious gaze on Gabriel, his voice a menacing growl. "You’ve got some explaining to do, buddy."
"Nothing happened," Gabriel protested, struggling to sit up, but it was tricky with hundred pounds of Alice lying half on top of him. "She came here to talk and fell asleep. That’s all. She just got here this morning."
Michael stooped down and picked up the light-switch missive off the floor and threw it at them. "And how do you explain this then?"
"Safe sex?" Alice suggested, picking up the box and examining it. "Ooh. Assorted colors. Interesting."
Gabriel groaned. "Alice, you’re not helping. Tell him I didn’t defile your virtue, will you?"
She ignored him too. Of course she would. A pattern was developing here.
But to his immense relief she threw the sheet off and got out of bed, turning in a circle to display her non-nudity to her brother. "Satisfied, big brother? See, I’m fully dressed and decent, even straight from Gabriel’s bed."
"You’d better be, kid."
"Oh, yeah? If I wanted to sleep with Gabriel, I wouldn’t ask you for permission. Stop meddling."
Gabriel let their bickering wash over him for a second before raising his hand. "Is this it, or can I expect more conference guests?"
He could have been speaking in a vacuum. No effect. He waited full two minutes, then cleared his throat and tried again. "Would one of you please toss me my clothes?" he asked politely, but the two siblings were still too busy throwing verbal darts at each other.
A few more minutes passed, and then he gave up. He threw the covers aside and stalked across the room to retrieve his clothes. Modesty wasn’t worth the bother.
The voices, first Alice’s and then Michael’s, fell silent behind him as he pulled on his jeans and yanked on a shirt before tuning around and facing the siblings again.
Alice was looking intrigued. "Are you always naked under your jeans?" she asked. "Isn’t that uncomfortable?"
Michael grunted. "Alice! You had no business watching him. That’s just rude. You should have turned away."
"Can we move this party to the kitchen?" Gabriel enquired, hands on hips and eyebrows raised. He’d reached a critical point. The siblings and all their mess he could handle, but just a few more minutes and he’d expire from lack of caffeine.
Neither of them responded to his question. Alice leered at him, though, as she answered her brother’s question. "Turn away and miss all that?"
"Alice!"
Gabriel left the room without looking back. The siblings could argue all they wanted – he had more urgent business. He needed black tar in his veins. He needed to kneel down and worship the percolator. He needed a large mug, filled to the brim, almost too hot to touch, the smell weaving in through his nose and teasing his taste buds even before the first gulp....
Most of all he needed Michael and Alice on some other continent.
He had already opened the cabinet when he rem
embered. With a groan he beat his head against the fridge. He’d meant to go shopping for ten days now. Every day he forgot – or decided he had better things to do. He’d run out everything, but of coffee only yesterday, and been determined that would get him shopping. But he’d been home late, and forgotten yet again.
Of all the days to run out of coffee...
He shuffled toward the front door and shoved his bare feet into his sneakers, then thought better off it and kicked them off again. He’d go primal and run barefoot to the store. Alice’s voice carried through the house and underneath it, the low rumble of her brother’s voice.
He shook his head as he let himself out of the house. They were nuts, both of them.
Jogging barefoot in jeans with no underwear wasn’t the most comfortable thing, he had to admit by the time he’d made it to the corner store. He was at the counter greedily clutching a hot paper cup when he realized he’d forgotten any money. The look on his face must have expressed his despair eloquently, since the girl at the counter took pity on him. "It’s okay," she said in sympathy. "On the house."
"Bless you," Gabriel breathed, raising the cup to his lips. At last. Heaven in liquid form. He opened his eyes slowly after the first reverent gulp to find the girl looking at him with a huge grin. "I know," he said with a wink. "I’m a sad case. I blame my mother. Something has to be her fault. I’m guessing not enough caffeine in my bottle."
The girl giggled and wave him goodbye as he left. He walked home – and not only because he didn’t want to spill a drop of his precious cargo. No, he was also in no hurry to face Alice or Michael again.
He pressed the doorbell a few times, and yes, it was indeed broken. His porch light didn’t work either, and he made a mental note to buy a new bulb. Then there was the leaking faucet in the kitchen, the constant dripping that was the reason he kept his bedroom door shut.
Reaching into his pocket he realized he’d forgotten his keys as well as his wallet. Of course. It fit the pattern. Everybody had keys to his house except him. No surprises there. He rapped hard on the door and eventually it opened.
"Didn’t you get us any coffee?" Alice demanded, noticing the cup in his hand, then looked down to see the loose doorknob in her own hand. "Oops. Did you know your doorknob is broken?"
Gabriel stepped over the threshold before answering, in case she got any ideas about locking him out. He took a sip, but the coffee was already only lukewarm, lacking a decent kick. He drank it anyway, staring at her over the brim. "No. I only buy invited bedroom guests coffee. Bedcrashers get their own."
Alice was feeling exhausted, not to mention more then a little cranky and quite a bit embarrassed. Hangovers did that to her – even her half-a-beer hangovers. Then on top of everything else she’d just had to endure half an hour lecture from her big brother about the wisdom of staying out of Gabriel’s bed in the future.
Hah! She should be so lucky. As if Gabriel would ever, ever see her as anything but a kid. He’d been naked in bed with her half the night – and nothing. Admittedly she’d been fully dressed, and drunk, and crying, and probably not looking anywhere close to her best -- but she was pretty sure that even if she performed a striptease for him, he’d just hand her his bathrobe, pat her on the head and call her mother to come get her.
She’d sort of come to terms with Gabriel’s brotherly feelings towards her. At least he was a good – if cranky -- friend, and she could always count on him to speak his mind, even if he usually said things she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear.
Sometimes, she acknowledged, she realized later that she’d needed to hear them.
In the relationship department he was the same abysmal failure as she was. Not a single long-term relationship in his past. The only difference was, he seemed to want it that way, while she wanted a soul mate and a family and a home and happily ever after more than anything in the world.
But now she had only had an hour sleep after a disastrous night, Gabriel didn’t even want to share his coffee, she was due at the magazine in half an hour, and she needed to get home to shower first. What a way to start the day.
"You okay?" Gabriel asked.
"Sure. I hate my life, but other than that I’m fine," she said, raking back her hair as she walked back to the kitchen. God, she needed a shower. And coffee.
"You’ve got a great life. Just cut the self-pity." He looked into his paper cup, then reluctantly handed it to her. "There. Take it."
"You’re giving me your last drops of coffee? Aw. Thanks." She accepted with a grateful smile and forgave him the self-pity comment. He was sweet underneath the rough exterior. He always was. "Michael left."
Gabriel looked up at the ceiling. "Thank you, God!"
"It wasn’t God. It was me. I kicked him out." She glanced around, looking for a place to park her cup. "You need a kitchen table, Gabriel. I can’t believe how empty this place is."
"Don’t tell me – it needs a feminine touch?"
"Bingo!"
"I’ll pass. No fluffy pillows or cute prints, thank you."
"Bachelor pad?"
"Something like that."
"You might need fluffy and cute to reel the babes in. How about I give you a few cute kitten posters?"
"Let me think about it."
She smiled at him. "Okay. Well, I should get going." She stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks. You’re sweet, Gabriel."
Gabriel swore. "Hell, no, I’m not. You’ve got nothing to thank me for." He grabbed her wrist as she turned to leave. "Alice... about what I said last night... " He shook his head and looked rather wretched. "I’m a cynical bastard. Don’t take it too much to heart." He cursed. "What I’m trying to say -- if you believe in true love – keep believing."
"Don’t worry, I’ll live." She looked at her watch, and shoved a hand through her tangled hair. "Hey, can I maybe borrow your shower before I go? That way I can go straight to work." She looked down at the outfit she’d dragged out of the closet in the middle of the night in the fit of self-pity that had eventually brought her to Gabriel. "Ugh. I’m not looking my best, am I? Well, I’ll just tell everybody I decided to have a Casual Monday."
"Shower? Sure. Help yourself. There are towels..." he scratched his head. "Uh, I think there are clean towels in a plastic bag somewhere. I don’t have a washing machine yet, so I’m using a Laundromat."
Alice blinked. "Laundromat? You? J. Gabriel Johnston jr?"
"Yep. Fascinating places."
"Why? Do you go there to meet women, or something?"
Gabriel shook his head in disgust. "One track mind, Alice? I go there to wash clothes."
Alice gave him a strange look. "Laundromat? And I thought you moving to this house was weird enough. Remind me to force the entire story out of you soon. Now -- where would those plastic bags with the towels be?"
Gabriel wandered back to the kitchen. Alice in his shower.
Not something to think too much about, since he was keeping Alice firmly inside a locked ‘off-limits’ box in his brain. Having her fully clothed in his bed had been bad enough – having her naked in his shower didn’t bear thinking about. Soon she’d emerge, clean and damp, smelling of his soap, wrapped in his towels...
He knelt down by the kitchen sink and grabbed a wrench. While Alice was in the shower, he needed to keep his mind on plumbing and that leaking kitchen faucet.
A few minutes later, the scream cut through flesh and bone and made his heart try for take-off to Mars. His head hit the roof of the cupboard under the sink, and he was halfway to the bathroom when he slowed down, realizing that the emergency was more likely to be an itsy bitchy spider than a homicidal burglar, in which case Alice might not appreciate him barging in on her in the shower.
He rapped on the door instead. "Alice? What’s wrong?" He heard only cursing behind the door. "You okay?" he called. "Need me to kill a spider for you?"
The door was flung open to reveal Alice, looking even tinier out of her clothes. Thanks to the size o
f his towels, all but the soaked black curls, laced with white foam, and her furious face was hidden from view – except one wet arm, currently shaking a finger at him. "You do not kill spiders," she stuttered through chattering teeth. "You bring them outside, where they can lead a productive and useful existence in harmony with the ecosystem."
"They won’t, you know," Gabriel sighed. "They like the indoors ecosystem much better."
Alice ignored him. "And besides, if a spider needed killing I’d do the butchering myself."
He peered past her, into the wet shower cubicle. No steam, and a shivering Alice. Those were clues. "No hot water, huh?"
"Oh, yes, there was hot water. If there hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have attempted to take a shower. There were exactly twenty seconds of hot water. Just enough for me to get shampoo in my hair. Then we moved to glacial water." Fresh goose bumps appeared on her naked arm and shoulder, distracting him from the shower, and she cursed again. "I swear, I should have cuts all over my body from the icicles."
Reaching past her, Gabriel turned on the faucet and tested the water. "Damn." One more thing to fix. One more he had no idea how exactly to fix.
What caused hot water to disappear? Was the problem with the faucets? The pipes? The heater? Was this a ten-minute job or a week-long?
He stifled a sigh. He would learn. He had a lot to learn. He stepped into the wet shower to investigate.
Alice closed the bathroom door, trapping them inside.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting dressed," she said, teeth still chattering. "There was a draft in through the door, which was not helping my goose bumps. So, I closed it."
"Okay." He turned a trickle of water back on and ran his hands over the pipes, checking for any warmth. Damn, he didn’t know what he was doing.
