Girl Next Door (Complete)

Chapter 19

~Owen~

The next morning, the boys begin to arrive at my house at 8 o'clock, all except for Sean who worked the graveyard shift last night. He'll be meeting us later on for dinner. As we're exiting the house to head to breakfast, Nathan stops short and looks over to Sang's house.

"We should invite her to come with us," he murmurs. "It's not like she's got too many friends to hang out with."

"That cool with you Si?" North asks as he nudges Silas. "It is your day after all."

"I'm fine with inviting Aggele," he responds. "She could use a day of fun."

"Fat chance," Gabriel grumbles. We look at him in confusion before he continues. "I tried to invite her last night. She said she's got to work, and she'll be gone most of the day."

"Then why don't we invite her to dinner?" Luke questions.

"Tried that too," Gabriel nods. "She seemed interested, but didn't want to impose. I told her if she got hungry after work and didn't want to cook, she knew where to find us."

"I think that's probably the best thing you could've done," Kota comments, adjusting his glasses. "We don't want to force her into anything. She has to want to come, want to be around us."

"I think she's opening up to the idea," Victor adds. "We just have to give her some time."

"Does that mean we can't text her?" Luke asks.

"You can text her," I surmise. "Just don't overwhelm her. Now let's get going, we don't want to be late to the game because breakfast ran long."

With nods all around, and a few longing looks towards her house, we all head into our respective cars and head off to the restaurant for breakfast.

**************

Hours later, as we're all driving back from the game, I can't help but think how exciting the day was. I may not be as heavily into baseball as Silas himself, but I did enjoy myself. The teams that played were Silas's favorite, the Boston Redsox, v.s. The Minnesota Twins. We had the perfect seats, center of rows five and six right behind the dugout. Silas had the chance to interact with a few of the player, and even caught a couple of the balls. One of which he gave to a little boy who was there for the first time with his father. The other, he kept for himself, to later get signed by the team. The Redsox won 15-4 and Silas was ecstatic.

It really was an amazing day. The only thing that could've been missing, was a girlfriend to share the experience with. Somehow, as I think this, Sang's smiling face from yesterday pops into my head. Could she really be the one we've been looking for? We all seem to get along with her well enough, and she did open up to us a bit yesterday. Maybe we have a chance. If she chooses to come tonight, I'll see how she interacts with the boys in a more private setting before talking to them about it. We haven't known her for that long, but something tells me that she just might be it.

~Sang~

Work today was an interesting affair. The kind of normal that I've always craved, but didn't know until I had it. And the whole time I was there, there was only one thing on my mind. Well, nine things really. Nine people. Those boys.

I finally got to meet Jessica, and she's an exact copy of Kota. Just, ya know, in female form. Her long brown hair is the same shade as his, she's around my height, maybe an inch or two taller, and she has the cutest purple framed glasses.

It turns out that Saturdays are much busier than during the week, so while I manned the cash register, Jessica handled the stacks and took care of any customers that had questions on a particular book. Cassie stayed in the back most of the day to do inventory and invoicing.

When it was time for Jessica and I to take our break, Cassie took over the register while we ate in the back. Jessica kept up a steady stream of conversation, but I couldn't pay too much attention to her. My mind kept going back to what the boys were doing today for Silas's birthday and if I would indeed join them for dinner tonight. If I did, I knew that I wanted to get him something, but if I didn't, I'd feel weird about declining their invitation.

Jessica had asked what had my mind so occupied, and when I told her, she immediately brightened. She told me that she'd always been close to her brother's friends, and that they were like surrogate big brothers for whenever Kota couldn't be there for her. She told me all about the various things each of them had done for her while growing up, like North teaching her how to drive and Luke teaching her how to cook. Her obvious endearment for them only made me think that much highly of them. They had wormed their way into my life, and now, listening to Jessica, I could see myself spending more time with them.

After telling her about their invitation, and having no idea what to get Silas for his birthday, she gave me her suggestion. And that's how I find myself now, pacing the living room, his present sitting in a brown paper bag, having absolutely no idea if I'm actually going to go over there or not.

When I got home a few minutes ago and saw their cars already in Owen's driveway, I decided to head home first to collect myself. Now I can't seem to talk myself into leaving the house and heading over there. And I can't even figure out what the problem is. I bought the present, obviously I planned on going at some point, I just can't seem to figure out when my brain made that decision.

Gah! What is wrong with you? You are Sang Sorenson. You don't get nervous when thinking about guys, you get sassy! Grow a pair and go over there already!

Taking a deep breath, I grab the bag off the couch and pull up my proverbial big girl pants, before exiting the house and marching next door. Before I can even think of stopping myself, I raise my fist and knock on the door three times. The music inside stops, making the blood rushing through my ears, and the pounding of my heart the only sounds I hear.

My grip tightens on the bag as I hear footsteps walk to the door. I breathe deeply, exhaling slowly as the door opens. I put on a small smile as I look up into steel grey eyes.

My heart feels like it's about to explode as I open my mouth and say, "Hey, got room for one more?"

Hismouth hitches up in the corner into that beautiful millimeter smile I'mstarting to love as he responds, "Always."