Page 17 of Honey, I'm Home

Wow I didn't get very far at all, did I? I don't even know who's here. I literally came by myself.

I walk up to the front anyway because chances are, whoever had me paged is not feeling very patient.

When I get up there and see it's just my brother, I very nearly turn back around. Because honestly. Is he that lazy that he couldn't just walk around the store and find me? How did he even know I was grocery shopping?

Seeing me hesitate, he nods at the clerk he's talking to, and the page comes over the intercom once more.

“Seriously Anderson? Why are you like this?”

He pats the clerk on the shoulder in thanks, and then literally skips his way over to me. “Hey sis. Funny running into you here.”

I turn my buggy around and wait for him to follow me, quickly gathering the rest of my items on my list.

“You know, for somebody who just got laid, you sure are grumpy.”

I freeze in my tracks, glaring at him. “You know we don't have to talk about this, right? It is perfectly acceptable for us to be adults and acknowledge that I've welcomed certain advances from a certain one of your friends and then move about our day.”

“Wow. Hawthorne must not have done a very good job. You're way too grumpy.”

For fuck’s sake. I slam my hands on the handle of the buggy, grab a can of soup off the shelf, and turn back to him, shaking it in the air. If he takes that waving can of soup as a threat, that’s on him. “If you must know, it was Dev, okay? I know that's the information you're actually looking for. I slept with Dev. We got naked and mashed our naughty bits together and had an incredible time. Is that what you wanted to hear? Are you happy now?”

Naturally, in my irritation, I have raised my voice to the point where I'm practically yelling.

Also at that point, that nose picker kid shows back up at the end of the aisle and is staring at me, mouth agape.Nowhis mother chooses to show up, judging me and yelling, “Shame on you!” before grabbing her kid by the hand and religiously crossing herself three times as she walks to the next aisle and away from me.

“I don't think I'm happy about it, no, but I think that creep over in the frozen food section might be.” I look over there to find an older man I'm not too familiar with, an obvious boner in his pants as he stares at me while licking his lips.

I shudder and then get out of there. Anderson is cracking up as I stalk off, not saying another word until after I check out. He helps me load my car and then hops into the passenger seat without even being invited, doesn't even offer to put my buggyaway for me. Makes me walk it all the way back by myself. Typical. Honestly, it's no wonder he's single.

“So, you guys are official then? You did say you were going to tell me first, you know.”

I buckle up and throw the car in reverse, backing out to head back to mom's place. “I know I did, but you didn't tell me this was like an immediate notice type of situation. It happened like, the middle of night, last night; were you expecting me to call you up the second he pulled out of me and tell you the details? Because we do not have that kind of sibling relationship.”

He starts fake gagging and plugging his ears, letting me have the laugh this time.

Anderson throws his hands up, surrendering. “Okay, okay, maybe I deserved that. But you're not just going to be a ho and sleep with them all, right? You're going to do the whole committed relationship thing with them?”

I slam on my brakes, smirking when he hits his head a little bit on the dash because he was too dumb to buckle up, and give him a dressing down. “Hey. If I want to be a ho, you better believe I'm gonna be a ho. A bee ho, if you will. We haven't worked out any details yet, so we’re not exactly rushing to the altar or anything. It's new and I'm recently out of a relationship. It's not like they've made any formal offers anyway.”

Okay, maybe that last part comes out a little bit quieter than I like, but apparently it was loud enough. A voice comes out of my brother's shirt pocket where his phone is sitting. It's pretty much just yelling, I don't really know what it's trying to say, but my brother picks it up and puts it to his ear then thinks twice about that and puts it on speaker.

Anderson is way too chill about this. “Told you. You guys owe me ten bucks. And a steak dinner. How dare you sully my little sisterwithout any sort of commitment? The level of disrespect from you guys is absurd.”

“Give it a rest, Anderson. Your sister knows she's a taken woman. She clearly just said that to get a rise out of you. Make sure she goes to the right house for me, would you bud?”

Anderson yanks on the steering wheel before I can pull into my parents’ driveway, making me swerve over a small strip of grass and into the driveway of Arbor’s house.

“What the hell?”

“Sorry sis, gotta help out my boys.”

He hops out and I’m just about to back out and head back to my actual house, but there’s suddenly a man standing behind my car, like he knew I was going to drive off. To right next door. Where he totally wouldn’t be able to reach me.

I give my head a good few bangs on the steering wheel before shutting off the ignition and hopping out, resigned to my fate for the time being. “Felt like that was the perfect place to be standing, did you?”

Arbor smiles at me. A plotting, evil type of smile. “Hello, Aster.”

Oh, fuck this. Nope.