Dissolving

Chapter 18 - Oscar

Luke is late.

Fashionably late, as he would probably call it. I have messaged him a couple of times but I think his phone is off or something because the little check marks remain grey, meaning he hasn't even read them.

To be honest, I am in two minds about his delay. Part of me is looking forward to spending time with Luke before he goes away for however long, but the other part is worried that things might go terribly wrong. There are so many "what ifs", it is not even funny and my nerves are a bit frazzled.

What if my plan won't work?

What if he figures out what I am doing and shuts me out?

What if I find out something I didn't want to know?

What if he knows nothing useful at all?

That last question is actually, well, out of the question. The main goal of the conversation I am about to have with Luke is to find out where they lived before the family moved here to the West Coast. Even if he is not privy to all the same information that the rest of the guys are, he will at the very least know where he grew up. Luke was twelve when they moved, so surely he will remember.

The thing I am most worried about is that I will upset him with my questions. That is why I need to be subtle about how I am going to approach the subject. If he finds out too soon what I am doing, I will not succeed.

Luke has made it clear in the past that I am not to ask him anything about our father and that he one hundred percent has Alex' back when it comes to keeping any information about the guy to themselves. That is why I have to be very careful how I phrase my questions so that my main motive remains hidden. And I am not to touch on the subject of our father.

While I am waiting for Luke to come home and pick me up, I am half-heartedly participating in an otherwise rather heated discussion in our girls' chat group. It is about some "boy trouble" that Lauren is currently experiencing. The term "currently" is used rather loosely here, because she seems to be in that sort of situation, like, all the time. Apparently, Connor has done something that she considers "absolutely intolerable" and now she wants to break it off, whatever it is.

My mind wanders back to last night.

I went home only semi-pleased – and rather annoyed at Alex, who must be the most oblivious person on this planet. The rest of the evening was completely drama free, thank god, and the lava cake was amazing. The kind waiter even brought me a fresh one once Will, Sean and I came back inside, because mine had already gone cold. The liquid chocolate was literally oozing out of the warm cake when I broke off the first piece with my spoon.

So good!

Anyway, the less pleasant thing was watching Alex and how he seemed to be completely unaware that there was such a wonderful woman at our table who he should pay attention to. I admit, I may be a bit harsh because he did smile at her quite a few times when she talked directly to him. And once or twice I even saw a smile ghost his lips when he was just listening to her talk to my other brothers. But it was barely there and I only noticed it because I was observing him really closely. There is no way that Jo could have picked up on it.

It was all rather underwhelming after I had gotten it into my head that they would be perfect for each other. And I still believe that this is the case, of course, even after last night. I am not so sure though what needs to happen for those two to actually figure it out, too. Or what I can do to make them see it.

I actually think that Jo was kind of interested in getting to know my oldest brother. But thanks to Jordan constantly engaging her in random conversations and giving her his full, undivided attention all night long, there were simply not enough opportunities for her to talk to Alex. In direct comparison to Jordan, he was so quiet that she probably forgot that he was even there. Being so reserved is not a very helpful personality trait, if what I witnessed last night is anything to go by. It does not get you the girls, that's for sure.