Awkward Meet Normal

Chapter Forty-Eight:

Dash:
It was my turn to sit up, worrying about Annabelle.

My mother had texted saying that she had a migraine and that Patrick, my sister, was taking her home.

That had been three hours ago.

I had called Patrick and Annabelle numerous times, and neither of them answered.

I was not about to call my mother and ask if she knew where they were at.

The only thing that let me know she was alive was that #cubsgirl was trending again. It was as if New York City was addicted to finding her and making her trend. Almost as addicted to her as I was.

She was at a downtown club with my sister.

My sister had a large online following. Pat was what everyone called her online, but they all knew she was a socialite. She was famous for just being famous.

This is the greatest friendship ever. One person had twitted. It was a blurry picture of Annabelle and Patrick dancing.

Oh, for fuck sake.

I was at the club thirty minutes later.

When I found Annabelle and Patrick in the VIP section, Annabelle was drunk.

"My knight in shiny armor," she squeaked when she saw me. She threw her arms around me and kissed me. If people were still watching her and my sister, there was a floating of cubsgirl kissing me, and if we were not an item online, we would be by the end of the night.

"Hi"

I said to her after she slipped her tongue out of my mouth.

"Want to dance?" Annabelle asked me.

I wanted to dance with her, but not when we were on public display.

"Not here," I said to her.

Her eyes dropped, and she looked like she was going to cry. She was wasted. "You don't want to dance with me?" She said to me.

"I always want to dance with you. But at the moment, I need to get water in you."

"Water?" She yelled. "Patrick," my sister whips her head back over to her. "He wants to put water in me," Annabelle yells at her.

"You crossed the line!" Patrick walks over and yells at me. "No one wants water."

"Crossed the line!" Annabelle yells at me.

I shake my head at them. "Water now," I said to a waitress walking by.

I should sue them for over-serving them.

"So bossy," Annabelle said, sitting back down in the booth. She put her head back, and I swear she looked like she was going to fall asleep.

If I carried her out - she would be trending for a different way. I knew at my clubs; there was always a back door for the VIPs to come and go as they pleased.

"Back door now, Patrick. I'm not asking; I'm telling." I get Annabelle up, and she leans against me as we get to the secret door. The driver was on the back side waiting, and I am glad I had used them. It would have been too hard to drive and watch them both.

Patrick was on another level.

She rolled the window down after we got in. I knew she was a party girl, but I had never seen this from my sister. Instead of dealing with getting her up to her apartment, we went home instead. Annabelle was fighting sleep on the way home, and she was tucked into my side.

I was plenty upset with her at the moment as well.

"Don't," she drunken whispered at me.

"Don't what?" I asked her.

"Bring me down. I needed this." She practically purrs in my ear, and then a couple of seconds later, she is sleeping against me.

Patrick waltzed into the townhome just fine. I carry Annabelle in, not waking her. She was going to regret her life choices in the morning.

I went to bed after two in the morning, and I had an important business meeting. I left Annabelle sprawled in bed with Rufus with two bottles of water and two Tylenol. It told her to text me when she awoke.

I never got a text.

I rushed home after work, exhausted.

Annabelle was fine. She was sitting in my office working. I stayed in the doorway with my arms crossed, watching her.

"Don't," she said. I didn't know she knew I was standing there. "I can sense your judgment from here, and I don't need it."

"I was worried sick, Annabelle."

"I was with your sister." Was her simple response.

"Oh yes, you were with another woman the same size as you and drank more than your body weight in liquor. That makes me feel so much better."

She stopped working on her laptop and looked up at me. "I feel stupid enough as it is. Do we really need to do this right now?" She asked me.

"Yes," I said.

"Why?" She asked.

"Because I was worried, and I was pissed."

"Why were you pissed?" She asked cocking her head at me. She brought her legs up and went cross-legged in my leather office chair. She was in a fuzzy white sweatshirt, and it took everything in my power not to walk in there and hug her.

"I didn't know where you went. I got a call from my mother saying you left with a migraine which was a lie."

"My mother was there, Dash. My mother." Annabelle said exhaustedly.

"Ok? So you couldn't have called or texted me?" I asked her.

She shakes her head no.

"Why not?" I asked her. I had gone mental last night worrying about where she had ended up.

"Because Patrick understands what I have lived with my whole life. She understands me."

"And I don't?" I asked her.

"Does your mother look at you with complete disgust?"

I shake my head no.

"Does your mother look down at you every moment she talks to you? Does she not think you are living up to your full potential?"

I shake my head no. But it sounded a lot like Patrick's and my mother's relationship. I never understood why my mother always treated Patrick like that, especially since she was named after my mother.

"You still couldn't have texted me?"

She shakes her head no.

"I thought you and Patrick were dead on the side of the road," I said to her. And it seemed to make her lose some of her fight in her.

She looks down at her hands and then backs up at me.

"I'm sorry. Ok? I'm sorry to make you worry."

I walked into the office and picked her up out of the chair. Her legs wrap around me, and I hold her, hugging her.

"I was so damn worried last night."

"I know," she sniffles into my arms.

"Promise next time you call or text."

She nods at me. "I promise."

"Thank you," I said. "Now, can we play nice?" I ask her. I sit her down gently on my desk, she leans back, pushing her laptop to the far corner, and then she lets me have my away with her.