Kerry waved the empty bowl of popcorn at me and raised her eyebrows. “Your turn, Cole.”
Sighing, I grabbed the bowl and made my way into the kitchen. I was actually glad to leave that room for a minute. I needed some time to pull myself together. How could she still affect me so much?
Grabbing the popcorn bag, I turned around and almost slammed into Jasper. He was just standing still behind me like a psycho. “What the hell, man?”
He smirked and cocked his head to the side. “Sorry, dude, did I scare you?” The sarcastic bastard. I glared for a second but then shook my head. There was no point in even trying with him.
His face suddenly turned serious, losing that cocky edge. He took a step closer to me and was uncomfortably close, but I think that was the point.
“What happened? What did you do to her? She’s been crying, and I don’t like it when she’s upset.”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” I replied, frowning. How the hell could he think I did something, anything, to her? “We talked. There were things that needed to be said.”
“Couldn’t it have waited?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest. “She’s my sister, don’t upset her okay?”
“She’s my…” I trailed off, managing to stop myself before I said ‘girlfriend’. She wasn’t my girlfriend, and she hadn’t been for a long time. So why did I still think of her as mine?
Jasper smirked. “Your…?” he prompted.
I gritted my teeth. “Nothing.” Shaking my head, I threw the popcorn bag in the microwave roughly and punched the start button. “If you keep giving me that look I’m gonna punch you, Jasper.”
“What’s the deal with the new chick? If you’re screwing her? Tell me now so I can make sure Oakley’s not around to see it,” he said bluntly.
“Not that it has anything to do with you, but I’m not screwing her. Even if I was it would be Oakley’s fault. She left me. She moved ten thousand, five hundred and fifty-five miles away!”
“Right, because she really wanted to!”
“She still did it!”
He sighed loudly. “Just don’t hurt her.”
What? Was he really saying all that shit to me? “Me hurt her?”
“Yes. Don’t, or I’ll cut your balls off.” He looked at me with hard serious eyes. I stared at him in disbelief, and he shrugged. “Well, big brother bit over. How’ve you been?”
“Jasper, has anyone ever diagnosed you with anything? Personality disorder or…”
He rolled his eyes but grinned too. “Not you too.”
“I think if more than one person comments on it you should make an appointment.”
He grin widened. “There’s nothing wrong with my personalities. They’re all awesome”
“So you all grown up and settled down yet?”
He looked at me as if I’d grown a second head. “You’re kidding, right? Have you seen how hot the girls are in Oz? And we live near the beach. Bikinis baby! I’m never settling down, ever.”
“Okay then.”
“You got over my sister?” I glared. Jasper had no boundaries. “That’ll be a no then. So what is new around here?”
“I can’t keep up with you!” One minute he was the protective big brother ready to rip my head off, then he was back to ‘normal’, if Jasper could ever be described as that.
He shrugged. “Women have that problem too.”
Raising my hands, I started to walk out of the room. Screw the popcorn.
“She’s been miserable you know,” he said.
I stopped and turned around. I needed to hear that she missed me too, and not just from her. “What?”
“I thought she’d be okay after a while but she never stopped looking sad. I hate seeing her that unhappy every single day. Just do me a favour, don’t give her too much of a hard time. She didn’t want to leave. She was going through a lot of… stuff.” He frowned.
“Yeah, I know she was.” Well, I didn’t know. I would never know what she went through, none of us would.
Jasper got the popcorn out of the microwave. “Ouch, popcorn bitch!” he hissed as the bag burnt his fingers.
Grinning, I went back in the lounge. “Your brother hasn’t changed one bit,” I said to Oakley as I sat back down.
“What did he say?”
“Something about bikinis.”
She laughed. “Yeah, he really likes the beach.”
I would have liked it too. Hanging out in the sun with Oakley all day sounds pretty perfect to me.
“This is getting scary so don’t go anywhere,” she said. I’m not the one that goes anywhere.
Shortly after the film finished, Mia and Leona pulled up outside. They never usually took so long, but I was grateful they had – at least there’d been time for things to relax a little between me and Oakley. Mia’s jaw dropped as she walked in. She dropped Leona’s bag and ran to Oakley.
“Oh my God!”
There was a lot of hugging after that. Leona took to Oakley straight away and refused to leave her side.
“We should get to Ali’s now, kids,” Sarah said. “Maybe we can meet up soon though?”