That Unexpected Feeling

Chapter 2

The next morning, Alessa walked sleepily into the kitchen and placed her coffee mug next to her phone on the breakfast table. She was on her second cup, but neither the caffeine nor the cold shower she'd taken had done much to get her blood flowing.

"I should have gone to bed early last night," she mumbled, falling into a chair. Alessa stared at the words going in and out of focus on her mobile as she checked her Twitter feed. Folding her arms, she dropped her head and yawned.

"Good morning! Still the late sleeper as always I see," a voice came from behind.

Alessa raised her face just enough to make eye contact with Justin, who was looking annoyingly awake.

"Please stop appearing out of nowhere!"

"Relax. I didn't mean to scare you." Justin laughed at his friend's reaction. "Tita Lia let me in just before she and Tito Jim left for the sports club." It was a weekend routine for Alessa's dad and her stepmom to be at the village sports club for some gym time and yoga classes.

"Don't you have any friends to hang out with?" she couldn't help but ask, still trying to thumb sleep out of her system.

"Well for starters, we basically have the same set of friends." Justin stated as he chose a seat on the table and helped himself to some pancakes. "Oh, and they're all at Trina's now so you might want to take a shower once you're done because we're going there too."

She made a faint snort as she continued to sip from her mug. "It's the weekend and you're ordering me around like a drill sergeant."

"Well someone has to," he said. "Otherwise you'll spend the entire summer watching re-runs of your favorite sitcom."

"Fine, fine. Give me an hour and I'll be ready." Alessa replied, dragging her steps back to her room.

Justin didn't seem to mind as he happily slathered syrup on the pancakes he had on his plate. "Take your time," he called out.

They made it to Trina's house in less than two hours factoring the traffic in that area. As Justin predicted, all their friends were at the den hanging out. Theirs was a pretty tight-knit group composed of people who've known each other since they were in high school except for Rafa and Trina.

"Hey guys!" Justin greeted everyone as they burst through the room. "Look who the cat dragged in -"

Alessa sheepishly waved as she acknowledged the confused look on their friends' faces. Clearly, no one expected her to be back this early. Disappearing for the majority of summer had been an annual routine of hers for nearly a decade now. It didn't take long, however, for the ladies to engage in their own chitchat while Justin happily observed them from the pool table.

"How long have you known she was back?" Erik asked.

"I saw her last night at the airport," he said. "Her dad picked her up and I happened to be in the vicinity waiting for my mom's flight to arrive."

Erik laughed and patted his friend's shoulder. "Talk about fate, huh?" he quipped. "How do you guys always end up at the same place without knowing it?"

Justin almost spat out the soda he was drinking. His friends were at it again. He never understood why they seem to confuse his and Alessa's relationship for something other than friendship.

"Bro, seriously, I don't get why you're still in denial about it." Benj commented nonchalantly.

"In denial about what?" he asked exasperatedly. "Wait a second, are you implying me and Alessa are an item?"

Erik and Benj fell silent. "You tell us," Rafa amusingly chimed in. "Are you?"

"No! Of course not." Justin flat-out answered. "She's our friend. How could you actually think that?"

"Hey, we're just being honest here." Erik reasoned out. "But if you keep convincing yourself that's how you feel, then so be it."

Justin quickly diverted the topic before any of the girls caught wind of what they were discussing. The guys loved reading into everything he does. For them, anything that involves the ladies always gets misconstrued as something romantic whenever he's involved. They're seeing a thing he doesn't and that confuses him all the more.

"Hey," Alessa approached him minutes later with some chips from the pantry. "What were you guys discussing earlier? It looked pretty serious."

He had to come up with a quick excuse. "It was nothing. Just some girl they're trying to set me up with."

"Oh, that's great," came a flat reply. "Who is she?"

"Her name's Melanie." He lied, thinking of the first random name that came to mind. "She's a nursing student from CDU."

Alessa fidgeted with the bag of chips she was holding. "I see. Well I'd better get back to the girls," she reasoned for a way out. "Jen was right in the middle of sharing something about a former crush adding her on Facebook earlier."

"You mean that lame BS Bio guy?"

"The one and only," she confirmed, validating his suspicion. BS Bio guy was a frat boy first with his pre-med course a far second on his list of priorities. They once took a Comm class with him and the guy barely passed if not for some extra credits from group assignments. "Apparently he's moving to the US for med school."

"Well good luck to him. I hope he has finally outgrown the frat boy phase if he wishes to survive med school."

They had a few minutes of small talk to themselves before Steffi gathered everyone for a round of video karaoke. Afterwards, talk shifted to planning for Trina's birthday party. It was to be held at one of the city's landmark hotels with nearly a hundred guests despite protests from the birthday girl to keep it intimate. All Trina wanted was to have the people closest to her celebrate her special day sans the lavish party. Her parents, however, only wanted the best for their youngest daughter and the party was to double as a belated college graduation gift before she moved on to law school.