Irreplaceable

23

Christmas was amazing. It was like kissing Nathan had opened a door in my brain. Inside were all these ridiculous thoughts that I never knew I would ever have. It was both relieving and terrifying all at the same time. I wanted to kiss him again. It occurred to me that I had not asked him out or anything, so I was determined to do that in the new year.

We were talking again, that much was definitely a relief. He went out with his friends on the day after Christmas to go shopping. I got a few text messages during the day and a few pictures of things to see if he should get them. Yes, to the sexy black jacket. No, to the plaid old-man slippers. I was sort of content with how things were, for now.

When he sent me the message asking if I wanted to join his friends and him for New Years, I admit I hesitated. I really wanted to... but I didn't want to feel weird or out of place. I double checked if it was okay with them and his response got my brain whirling. They insisted. They wanted to meet up with me. I blushed at the thought of last time.

I had thoroughly embarrassed myself in front of them. Maybe I should look at it as a chance to make up for that. I was going to have to hang out with them some time. Might as well get it over with. Oh, hey. I could probably kiss him when the ball dropped too. I felt my face heat up at the thought. Yeah, I was going.

I texted him back the affirmative and he replied that he would pick me up. Oh. Did that make this a date? Maybe it was a date. How does one tell if it is a date or not? This was super hard. Wait a minute, I had an idea. I stuck my tongue out as I typed in my next message. Awesome! It's a date! 😁👨‍❤️‍👨 Then I waited with bated breath for a response.

Lol. Pick you up at eight Cinderella.

What? What the fuck? Oh come on. How was I supposed to interpret this? I fake cried at my phone and my sister gave me a weird look on her way by with an armload of shopping bags. Ah! Sister opinion might be just the thing. Oh crap, then she might still be upset about Nate turning her down. What do I do? What do I do?

"Instead of looking constipated on your bed you can come help me with my bags." She growled at me. I jumped up at the words and tilted my head curiously.

"What? Oh yeah. I can help. How did you know I wanted to talk to you?" I asked sheepishly as I grabbed one handful of them at the door.

"You were mumbling dipshit. Come on then. What has you all freaked out? What did Nathan do?" She led the way into her bedroom and all the bags went on her bed. She began taking things out and organising them by what they were. Shirts, pants, skirts... too much work.

"How do you know it was Nathan that did something?" I asked absently. She chuckled.

"Because you have a confused, vacant look on your face right now. Besides, who else would it be?" She shot me an amused look and I shot her a raspberry.

"Well you aren't wrong. But don't be mean or I won't show you the text messages." I pulled out my phone and waved it around a little. She stopped what she was doing to stare at it like a starving woman. I laughed as she dropped everything and came to sit by me with a smile and a gentle clasping of my arm.

"Why didn't you just say so, dearest brother mine? Of course I would love to help the best brother in the whole entire universe." She said in a sing-song voice that had me a little worried for her sanity.

"A little thick there, but I'll take it." I handed over my phone after unlocking it to reveal the conversation. I watched her scroll back a bit and cringed a bit. I guess she needed context. I watched her facial expressions carefully. They looked excited, interested, she smiled and glanced at me, then she laughed at the end.

"So you have a New Years party to attend, big brother." She said with a grin. She got back up and sauntered over to her clothes pile to continue.

"Yeah I got that part. But is it a date or just a party? Are we going as dates or am I going as a friend to meet his friends? I am so confused." I flopped back on her bed to stare at the ceiling.

"Oi, don't mess up my piles. I think you should treat it as whatever you want it to be. If you act like it is a date, make it really clear to him that you think it is, then he will tell you if you are crazy or not. I mean, I think you are anyways...." She drawled. I growled at her and threw one of her pillows. She laughed and smacked me in the face with it back.

"You aren't helping. What was with the Cinderella comment? Does that make him the prince? I thought I was going to be the prince. You know, woo him and shit to make up for being stupid." I mumbled on as she worked on putting the clothes away in her closet. Her already stuffed closet.

"Oh please. Like you could ever be the prince. Face it bro. You are Cinderella going to her first ball. Just don't lose your shoe. Also, I doubt the 'rents will make you leave at midnight, but after Christmas it's hard to say." She was giving me this look I could not quite interpret. Come to think of it, she looked a lot like Aunt Emily right now.

I got up slowly like a prey about to dash from the predator and slipped out of her room before it got any weirder.