Professional Disaster

Chapter 36

"Ari, baby? Are you awake?" Kim spoke through the intercom. "Dinner is ready."

After Robert had apologised to Arabella and headed back downstairs to his wife, Ari decided to take a nap. All the crying had left her exhausted, and things for the family were already ten times more stressful than usual with a Gibson once again on the scene. "I'll be down in a second." Her sleepy voice chimed back.

Robert helped set the table, the sound of plates clinking and clacking filling the room. "Jenkin still isn't home."

"I'll ask Ari to run to Jackson's and get him when she's down." She shrugged it off, piling the vegetables onto a plate.

"I heard my name," Ari yawned as she wandered into the kitchen.

"Do you mind going to get your brother? He still isn't home." Kim requested before she popped a piece of broccoli into her mouth.

"Of course. I won't be long." She nodded and kissed her mum's cheek.

Kim furrowed her brows. Jenkin had always been one to give a kiss when he was leaving or greeting, but Arabella on the other hand hadn't been a fan since she was thirteen. Kim took her daughter's hand in hers and pulled her back. "Are you okay?"

Arabella matched her mother's look of confusion. "Yeah... why?"

"No reason." Kim smiled, pulled her daughter for a hug and returned the kiss on her cheek, leaving Arabella with a smile. "Wait, I want one." Robert wrapped his arms around the two women, stopping Arabella from going anywhere.

"If you want me to get Jenkin, you're going to have to leave me go!" She forced her way out of the hug, a fake look of disgust doing a terrible job of hiding the smile on her face. She ran out of the door before she could be stopped once more.

Arabella hadn't even taken a moment to slip on shoes. She ran down the wooden path past her uncle Cole's house, taking a right and running up the stone steps. Luckily for the lot of them - or rather un-luckily depending how you looked at it - all of their houses were built rather close to one another, if Ari really wanted to she could easily spy on Cole with binoculars from her bedroom window.

She pushed the front-door open with ease and wiped her feet on the entry matt. No one knocked there. Jackson had been living in his own home for quite a while now, and Arabella has spent many of hours in the man's home.It wasn't as big as her Father's, it wasn't even as big as Cole's, but Jackson got to pick out every details of his hoe as long as it fit on his allocated plot. It was decorated to his own version of perfection. After popping her head into the living room and not finding them, she headed up into Jackson's bedroom, knowing the two would be playing video games. She could hear the loud tv once she reached the top of the staircase. Arabella pushed the door open only to reveal she was actuallywrong in what she thought. "Oh I'm sorry, I must have opened the door to a new dimension." She swiftly closed the door behind her and stood frozen in the hallway.

She saw the last thing she was expecting.

Jackson on top of Jenkin, their lips locked with one another's.

Ari stood just outside the door feeling her feet glued to the floor, her eyes as wide as cherry pie, she didn't know what to do or say. She didn't know how to react.

She had just seen her brother, half-naked underneath his best friend.

She was very confused. Very.

She hadn't even seen Jenkin that way with girls before, he had always been very sure not to show affection in front of his baby sister, and what she saw was a lot more than affection. With a man. His friend. Arabella never could have expected such a thing.