My New Unrelated Family

Transition

It was 2 am in the morning and I couldn't sleep.

I didn't know what was wrong. I haven't slept in almost 30 hours, I travelled across the country and I went to a camp and I ate out with strangers. I had a super busy day, my body was exhausted, and I was in the comfiest bed ever, but why couldn't my brain just rest?

After a couple minutes of trying to sleep, I  just gave up and dug through my pink backpack for my working phone. I have a collection of fully charged phones. My prepaid phone which I got here in America, my prepaid phone from last year, my unlocked overseas phone, my camera phone, and my expensive working phone which was great with WiFi connection. Plus I had a cheapo fake tablet which was only good for watching movies on. It's just something about electronics which stop me from throwing any of them away. I guess all my time in disaster areas ingrained an awareness of how important charged electronics are? If one phone dies or breaks, I still have 4 others to work with.

Anyways, I turned my working phone on and was about to chat with my best friend in Asia, when I realized  didn't have the password for the WiFi.

The good thing though was that it seemed like the Hernandez family sleeps late. I could still hear some noise downstairs where John and Jay were.

After a couple minutes of debating whether it was appropriate to go downstairs at 2am, and wondering if the password couldn't just wait for the morning, I finally mustered the courage to get out of my bed and go downstairs. I made sure my pajamas weren't too revealing of course. Sure they are my 'brothers' and they probably aren't malicious or anything but who am I kidding? We aren't blood related and they are still guys. Don't play with fire, girls.

I never wear short shorts anyways. Simply out of habit. If you are walking through a devastated area wearing short shorts, you're just asking for scratches and leg wounds. Plus several third world countries around the world look disapprovingly at a lot of leg showing.

So I tiptoed downstairs in my pajama pants and large shirt and made my way towards the living room. There the two guys were, watching TV on their sofa bed with a mountain of blankets and pillows around them.

I cleared my throat and said, "Um...hey?"

They both looked up and I was greeted by almost identical faces with almost identical voices say at the exact same time, "Oh, hey."

I blinked at how alike they were.

"Sooo, do you guys know the password for the WiFi?"

The older one nudged his brother, "John, you know it right?"

"Yeah, yeah," John said as he climbed out from the blankets, "it's bbros003."

Before I knew it he was walking towards me, shirtless. I turned my body away from him and acted like connecting to the Wifi was such an engrossing task. The reality was that I was so in shock that I couldn't even concentrate on the available networks.

And then a very toned arm reached around my shoulder and tapped my phone's screen. Followed by a masculine voice speaking in my ear.
"Sorry, I thought you already knew which network was ours."

I quickly turned back around to face him and stepped back away from his arm. Much safer that way. I'm just hoping that the room was dark enough to hide my flaming cheeks.

"bbros003 r-right? " I stammered as I clumsily tapped the touchscreen.

"Yeah, no capitals."

We stood the for a couple awkward moments as we waited to see if it worked. It felt like an eternity for me though as I tried to look anywhere but at the very fit boy in front of me.
The few accidental glimpses I did see of his shirtlessness however, showed me that his body wasn't super unrealistically buff like the gym fanatics were into. He had wiry muscles and no body fat that I could see. John's build was very similar to the natives I knew that could climb palm trees in seconds or carry several children while running to higher ground. The muscular build that could actually work and not just pose.

According to my science books, humans are attracted to the healthiest and most likely to survive. So that probably explains why my instincts are screaming ATTRACTIVE MAN ALERT!!

That's just my instincts though. My heart is not so easily wooed by a gorgeous shirtless man.

My wifi signal bar turned blue. A couple seconds later, my phone turned berserk and buzzed nonstop from the flood of notifications that had been building pressure from my day without internet.

I lifted up my still buzzing phone in John's direction and smiled at him shyly.

"Looks like it worked." I joked, "Thank you!"

He shrugged his shoulders and mumbled that it was no problem and walked back to his sofa-bed.

I narrowed my eyebrows at his retreating back. No small talk about why I'm borrowing his room for a month? Not even a good night? Just a shrug is all I get?

I opened my mouth to say good night to John and his older brother, but then I lost my courage at the last second and hurried up the stairs. 

Braving raging rivers and fierce winds was one thing, talking to two guys who I would be spending a whole month with was something else way more frightening.

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