A Twisted Situation

Chapter 9: What Happened?

Sophie walked back into the house, her eyes slightly wide. She looked like her soul has been drained from her body. He kissed me. He kissed me. What does that mean? I thought we were just friends. I can't believe... he kissed me.

"Sophie, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." Cecily was picking up plastic red cups when Sophie walked in.

"Y- yeah. I'm fine. Just a bit cold, that's all." Sophie left to the kitchen and had turned the stereo back on, flipping to a station more tolerable. She started to moved the furniture back into its place. He kissed me, was all that was running through Sophie's mind.

I kissed her. Why did I do that? It's not like I like her. I don't. We're just friends. If you can even call it that, we're really just partners. Okay, maybe I like her a little, but- wait a minute, what am I thinking? I have to apologize to her.

Gabriel reached his front door, and went inside. To the left, in the dining room, was his family, having dinner. When he shut the door, his dad perked up.

"Where were you, son?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, you missed dinner."

"I was out with a friend. It was her birthday today and we were just hanging out for a short while."

"A friend? You don't have any girl friends," Tatiana blurted. She was examining her nails, then proceeded to eat her salad. "Are you dating her?"

"No. We're just friends. Kind of. It's complicated. We're partners for a project and-"

"How is it complicated then?", Benedict asked, picking a newspaper off the table.

"Well-"

"Oh, wait, is it that girl you brought the other day? Sophie?", Gideon asked. His faced seemed to brighten at her name, and his ears turned a bit red.

"Yeah-"

"Wait. Not Sophie Collins?", Tatiana directed her questions towards Gideon. Upon him saying yes, she then directed her next questions to Gabriel. "You're hanging out with that scar-faced snob? She's a loser."

"Shut up," Gideon and Gabriel snapped.

"Boys," Benedict warned, without looking up from the newspaper.

"I didn't know it was her birthday today. Can you give me her number so I can wish her a happy birthday?"

At this, Tatiana groaned.

"Sure, of course, I'll do it later. I'm not hungry, I'm gonna go take a shower." Gabriel headed up the stairs, heading towards his own room. Why did I kiss her?, was replaying through his mind.

Later that night

Gabriel reached up to his brother's door, knocking lightly. A muffled reply came through the door. "Gideon?" Gabriel walked in to find his brother rummaging through his desk, muttering angrily in Spanish.

"¿Dónde está? No puede desaparecer!", Gideon muttered, throwing paper over his shoulder.

Gabriel cleared his throat. "Gideon."

Gideon stopped in his tracks and looked up to find Gabriel standing in his room with a piece of paper in his hand. "Oh, hey. What's up?"

Gabriel shot Gideon a short of weird look before his tongue remembered how to form words. "You wanted Sophie's number, right? To wish her a happy birthday?"

"Oh si! Yes, si. Thank you." Gideon jumped forward and took the paper out of Gabriel's hand. He looked at his brother and noticed a slight difference in him. "Are you okay?"

Gabriel looked at Gideon with surprise. "Yeah, I'm fine. Something happened tonight and I'm just really confused."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Gideon offered, sitting down on his bed.

"Well," Gabriel trailed, taking a seat next to his brother on the bed. What could he tell him? That he kissed Sophie? He'd never stop teasing him about his "first crush." "I have this friend. And he thinks he might like this girl, but he's not sure about it. They don't really know each other all that much, but they became good friends."

"Okay," Gideon nodded, trailing along the story. "What's the problem?"

"He doesn't know how she feels. And like I said, he thinks he might like her... What do you think he should do?"

Gideon looked down at his feet, thinking. "Well," His head tilted with thought. "He should do something about it. Something to find out the answer to both."

"He has already kissed her."

"Perfect. The key simply lays in her reaction to the kiss and how it felt."

"It felt...", Gabriel trailed off, his mind lost in the memory. "Amazing."

Gideon stared at his little brother with an astonishing and confused look on his face. Gabriel snapped back to reality and scrambled to explained his sudden answer.

"That's what he said. My friend," Gabriel added. "How did you get to be this wise?", Gabriel asked, his chin sticking up.

Gideon just laughed it off and messed up Gabriel's hair.