CASUAL AFFAIR; brendon urie

Chapter Forty-Nine

I found her, sitting on the hood of her car with her legs crossed, hands balled in fists and resting on each knee as she stared off into the distance, her jaw set. I was more than familiar with that expression - she'd always had a habit of jutting her chin out whenever she was mad, or frustrated. It simply had the effect of reminding me of her as a pouty kid, or teenager. Which was probably the opposite of what she wanted me to think of her as right now.

I sat down gingerly beside her, and she let out a huff of breath, angling her posture away from me, and looking down at her lap. "Go away."

I let out a soft laugh. "Now when have you ever known for me listening to that?"

She didn't reply, for the longest time, refusing to look away from her lap. "I'm not waiting here for you." She said eventually.

"I figured." I shrugged, slowly - and a little painfully - bringing my knees up to imitate her pose. Either I was too old or this was just a pose that wasn't natural to me as a guy, I don't know. "He's inside. You can go talk to him ... but, Flo, I wanna talk first."

She snorted. "What makes you think I want to talk to you?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But I'm insistent." I held up one finger. "I know where you live." I held up another. "And I'm your big brother. I will get you to talk to me, eventually." I joked. Any other situation and I probably would have jostled her shoulder playfully.

She shook her head. "Just leave me alone, Dallon."

I sighed, to myself, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder, before thinking better of it, and instead, running it through my hair, grabbing a fistful. It was still damp feeling from the shower I'd had before Breezy let slip, and I stormed over here. Looking down, I noted that I was wearing odd socks, and my shirt was unevenly buttoned, too. A speed dresser, I was not. At least I'd remembered to do my fly up.

I shook my head from the tangent I'd gone down, glancing back over at Florence. My kid sister. The baby Weekes. All grown up, and pissed off with her big, idiot of a brother.

It was quiet for what felt like an hour, but must have only been a minute, save for the distant barking of a dog. Quiet, until I cleared my throat, and said "Look, I know what I did was-"

She finally gave me eye contact then, jerking her head upward, big, brown eyes slightly narrowed in annoyance, one eyebrow arched, her jaw still jutted in defiance. "Stupid? Moronic? A complete and utter dick move? I know." She snorted again, before looking away sharply.

I bit back the reflex urge to retort with a 'was not!', instead pressing the heel of my palm to my forehead and sighing softly. So that clearly was not the way to go.

After a moment's pause, I decided to go for another tactic.

"Remember ... Remember when you were seven, I was fifteen and mom and dad went out for dad's birthday?" I asked. And when I closed my eyes, the memory played like a clip of a movie. Mom was in a black dress, her hair pinned up, pearl earrings dripping from her ears, fussing over dad in a black dress shirt and black trousers. Dad tolerated her smoothing his shirt and fiddling with his hair before saying, with loving impatience 'The reservations for half past seven, we should get going.'

"Yes." mom took a step back, eyes sweeping him, and a dazzling smile broke across her face. "You really do look handsome, Mr Weekes."

"Thank you, Mrs Weekes. May I say you don't look half bad yourself."

I'd made a gagging noise and muttered "Oh, barf," at that point, prompting mom to whirl around to me, peck a kiss on my forehead and say "Bye, sweetie. Take good care of your sister - and remember the rules."