I slowly step toward the island in the center of the kitchen and reach for one of the knives. She’s a few inches shorter than me, and I’m sure I can defend myself, but better to be careful. You never know these days.
“I was thirsty,” she responds, opening the orange juice and drinking from the carton. As if that clarifies why she’s here.
“What are you doing here? How did you get in here?”
My fists clench tight. I look toward the glass doors looking outto the pool, but they’re closed. The alarm didn’t go off in the night either, so she can’t have broken in.
“I came back with your roommate. Harry, I think he said his name was.”
Her blank face meets mine as she puts the bottle of juice down.
“Harrison,” I state matter-of-factly.
My shoulders drop and my fists unclench. I thought we’d gone through this with Harrison already, but clearly, it’s fallen on deaf ears. I move away from where the knives are to reach for the bread and place two slices in the toaster.
Ever since Harrison moved in two weeks ago, he’s been treating the place like a hotel. Going to work. Coming back here after the gym to change. Then out until all hours of the night, bringing back random women to sleep with. Usually, I wouldn’t care. After all, he’s twenty-two and the place is big enough that I can barely hear what’s going on in the lounge from our bedroom, let alone his room on the other side of the house.
But last weekend, one of his hookups snuck her way into our room. She slipped under the covers and slid her hands all over me, startling me awake. I don’t know who was more shocked. Me, at the sight of a random woman, or her, at the fact that I wasn’t Alexander. She was clearly aware of who Harrison’s brother was and had assumed I was him.
Alexander saw the funny side when I told him the next morning, after he got back from his recording trip in Nashville, but he soon realized the seriousness of it all. If he wants to keep his sexuality a secret, Harrison can’t be bringing random girls back to the house.
“Can you go get him for me?” I say to the woman.
My gaze drifts to the stove to avoid looking at her pert breasts and large nipples, pointed straight at me. She’s clearly unashamed of walking around topless in a stranger’s house.
“He’s still asleep.”
She shrugs her shoulders and reaches for the OJ again.
“Then wake him.”
This time there’s anger in my voice, and she scurries out of the kitchen and down the hallway. The last thing I need is to be dealing with this, when I’ve still got to pack the final bits in my house and hand over the keys over before work and Alexander’s pre-Grammy party later.
Harrison strolls down the hallway and into the kitchen, wiping at his eyes.
“What do you want?” he asks, grabbing the bottle of OJ left on the side and swigging the last two mouthfuls.
Guess I won’t be having any OJ with my toast.
“What did your brother say about bringing girls back to the house?”
My voice is lowered, but it loses none of its growl.
The toaster pops and Harrison swipes one of the slices straight out.
“Come on, it’s no big deal.”
“That was mine.” I grab his wrist, forcing him to drop the slice.
“Sorry, your royal highness,” Harrison responds in a mock English accent, shaking his hand free.
I’m not sure I like who I become around him. I’m constantly having to set and reinforce ground rules. Even Alexander has noticed the change in me. He told me I need to take a chill pill. So I guess it’s back to using the stress balls again.
I take a step closer to him and ask Alexa to turn on music to ensure the woman can’t hear us.
“Look, I don’t care who you bring home. Or if you fuck a different girl every night of the week. In fact, if your brother wasn’t who he is, I’d probably be high-fiving you right now.” Instead, I want to high-five him around the face, with a chair. “But no one knows about me and your brother. All it takes is for one of your hookups to sneak into our room when we’re sleepingand snap a picture of us, and then poof. All this goes away. And it’s back to cutting coupons out of magazines.”
I emphasize the last part, to ensure he knows how serious this is.
