Invited

Thirty-Four - Chevelle

"Look at all the orange trees!" Landon ran ahead of us as he checked out the grove of trees in the Garden. At least someone was having a good time. Timber followed after him, faking a smile well enough, but I knew him well enough by now to know it was fake even if no one else with us could tell.

I lingered back with my mom, watching Landon start chatting Timber up – again. The kid idolized him a lot more than I realized. Either that, or he was overcome with the celebrity factor. Back in the day, I had watched Timber's teen drama rather religiously. Because I had command of the television, my brother suffered through it as well. Landon was also a fan of one of Timber's fantasy cult hits, however, and I think that's where most of the admiration came from. Talk about anything else Timber had made and my brother rolled his eyes. As soon as that one particular movie was mentioned, however, he got all kinds of excited. I couldn't blame him. It was one of my favorites as well.

Maybe the fanboy antics of my brother would help Timber. It offered a small touch of normalcy for the guy. From the beginning of our captivity, I saw how much he struggled with being useful for the ship. I also noticed how Paul seemed to look down on the acting career. Maybe Timber wasn't curing cancer, but being an actor had its purpose as well. I still liked to put on a good movie when I needed some cheering up.

"I'm worried about him," I admitted to my mom in a quiet voice.

She frowned. "Your brother is adjusting fine as far as I can tell." She looked back at my father who was busy talking to Lara while also shooting glares in Timber's direction. "Even your dad is taking things better than expected. Too bad we have to share an apartment. I'm not sure how long that's going to last without one of us snapping."

"I wasn't talking about Landon," I mumbled.

"Oh? You mean..." She tilted her head toward Timber.

I nodded. "It's been a rough twenty-four hours, and he's acting like nothing happened."

"Some people do that. They go into shock, come out of it, and try to distract."

"I understand that, but..." I shook my head. "I'm not sure how to explain it."

Mom leaned in close to my ear. "Are you sure you're not in love with him? You weren't making that whole story about Wicken up, were you?"

"Mom!" I gasped, appalled at the accusation. "First of all, Wicken is very real. Okay? Hi, you've met his mom, so you should know that. Second, I'm not in love with..." I narrowed my gaze. "Nothing about our relationship is romantic."

"Then why didn't you mention him being your roommate for the past three months?" she challenged.

"Because I knew you'd make a bigger deal out of it than it is," I said in a low voice. "We kind of didn't have much of a choice on the matter. I especially didn't want to mention it in front of dad because he would freak out and go crazy."

She nodded. "As you can tell with the way he's fuming right now. I think he's already got the wrong impression of you two. You've got a lot more self-control than me, because I would definitely –"

I covered my ears. "Do not need to hear this."

"Just saying. He's a good looking guy. I kind of want to see a picture of Wicken now, because he's got to be something special for you to ignore that." She pointed to Timber, who of course, was taking off his shirt and draping it over his shoulder.

Why did he have to do things like that? He always picked the worst times too. Like walking out of the bathroom in a towel right as I was going into the bedroom to grab something, or doing his exercises in the living room while I was trying to work. We were roommates, but I wasn't that comfortable with him.