I'll Be Home For Christmas

For The Win

Later That Evening

The sounds of her nervous heart beating rang louder than the light chatter in the room.  There he stood in the center of the living room in all of his glory telling his father and older brother Kevin a joke about something that happened to him while making his way to the mountains.  Her nails tapped slowly on the small beer bottle, temporarily calming her social anxiety which only seemed to be triggered whenever he was around. 

It was a strange feeling though, she never thought she would be this nervous over someone who she used to call her 'best friend'. He turns ever so slightly to look past his father to gaze at her, and offers her a warm inviting smile. Her heart flutters at the light gesture and though physically on the outside her facial expression remained the same, internally the she longer she looked at him the more she began to slowly panic. She returned his and gesture with a weird shy facial expression that caused him to look at her weirdly. 

She groans, feeling stupid for not being able to express her feelings and averts her attention back to Joe who was rambling about ongoing tour drama between him and one of the lighting designers.  Bri sighs, resting her forehead on his shoulder to hide from the humiliation that just went down between her and his younger brother.

"Either you're upset at something that I said or you just made a weird looking face at Nick and you're hiding from public humiliation." He sighs, looking down at her.

"The second one." She mumbled into his shirt.

"So you didn't hear a word that I said?" Joe sighs.

"Oh I heard, I just wasn't following along." Bri admits truthfully.

"There there little one, why don't you let Joe here give you some big brotherly advice." He says with a smile watching her head lift up slowly.

"Ah, there's that face." He chuckles, extending his  arm out and gesturing her to walk into his embrace.

She huffs, moving her hair to the side and takes a swig of her beer.  Bri obliges not wanting to leave him hanging, and turns her back into his arm that was now snaked across her shoulder.  He pats her back twice, lightly shaking her sideways to cheer her up.

"Here we go, now what seems to be the problem?" Joe asks, waiting on her to spill the tea between Nick brother and herself.

"Uh, well I don't know it just feels really weird to be around him again after so long I mean we haven't really talked in like two years and when we did it was sporadically...how in the world am I supposed to just keep things cool between us?" Bri asks, turning her head to look at Joe.

"Well, the way I see it you two still like each other...you're just afraid of admitting it and after what Nick did to you a few years ago, you don't really want to be bothered by him until he apologizes sincerely but until then you two are gonna have to thug it out and suck it up cause you two are roomies," he sang in a high pitched voice causing others to look around.

Bri shielded her face from other family members looking their way and walks past them with Joe still attached to her hip giving her advice.

"What are you two talking about?" Kevin joins the two of them after hearing Joe belt out in song.

"Oh, Bri still has a crush on Nick." He says nonchalantly causing her mouth to drop.

Bri gasps, hitting Joe for putting her business out there.

"Joe!" Bri yells at him.

"Oh cool, cause Nick still likes Bri too." Kevin chimes in nonchalantly, looking at the two of them.