Force of Habit

Chapter 16

I sigh, and blaming that cursed nickname he used and begin to lead him in the direction of my apartment.

"Where's your car?" Eric asks as we pass a parking garage.

"I should be the one asking you that," I say, as an image of my brother's yellow Ferrari flashes in my mind.

"I, um, sold it," he admits.

"What?" I ask as we cross a street.

"I sold my car coming here."

"Why?"

"Mom and Dad wouldn't pay for me to come out here."

My older brother, who pretty much since birth had the utmost priority of pleasing my parents, sold his precious Ferrari to find me instead of staying, which was what my parents wanted him to do.

"What happened?"

"Well when you didn't answer their phone call they said 'good riddance of that troublesome child' and gave up looking. I sort of lost it. I yelled at them for not looking harder for you. I told them that they ought to go out and actually look for you, not just make a call and not even bothering to leave the house. I told them that they should go search for you until you were found. We argued or a while but pretty much they had no intent to go out and find you. That's when I realized how little they cared for you or me. We were just the backup plan in case something happened to Steven, who is getting all of the inheritance."

Steven is our older brother. He's about twenty five, and is married to some skinny brunette model. He's always been the favorite of my parents. They have basically been training him how to run the company when they decide to retire.

"So you're out of the inheritance?"

"Yep," he says, popping the "p", "But you know what? I decided to move to Maine, that's the real reason I'm here. I'm just seeing the country before I head up there to settle in. I'll probably never be able to tour it again, so why not now?"

So he wasn't stalking me. He's in New York to sight see, not to find me.

"Why Maine?"

"You're just little miss questions aren't you?" he states.

"So what if I am?"

He just shrugs, "Maine seemed like a pretty cool place to live in. Plus I'm on a quest to find Storybrook."

"Storybrook, Maine? Like from Once Upon A Time? I thought that you hated that show."

"Not true! I may or may not have at one point had a crush on Snow White, erm, I mean Mart Margaret."

"Yeah, well let's just say that Storybrook does exist. Mary Margaret won't live there, she's a fictional character portrayed by an actor."

"Well I'm looking for my Mary Margaret," Eric admits.

"Eric, you're only twenty. Shouldn't you wait until you're a bit older before you start considering marrying a girl you haven't even met yet?"

"Since when did you start giving advice?" he asks.

"I've always given advice."

"So are you the advice book now?" he teases.

"Yes, yes I am. And I think you should still enjoy being young while you can."

"Oh, I plan on it. That's why I'm going sight seeing around the country."

"Do you want to stay for a few days? I mean if you won't be coming back down here, I can maybe help you decide what you'd want to see in New York before you leave."

"Really?" he asks, his eyes lighting up a bit.

"Yeah. I mean I'll still have to go to work so you'll be alone part of the day and if you don't mind sleeping on a slightly smelly couch."

"That'd be great, thanks. And I'll be out of your hair in a few days."

I nod and we continue walking past the busy traffic of NYC.

"So where's your car?" he asks, watching the sea of yellow taxis flow through the overly stuffed streets.

"Funny story... It's back at my apartment. When I moved here I didn't really have enough money to buy gas, and now I'm just too lazy to go out and get any. Plus it's more pleasurable to walk and it's more environmentally friendly."

"Okay then," he says, not bothering to argue with my statement.

By this time we've reached my apartment. As I dig around in my bag and fish out my keys Eric takes the opportunity to glance around.

"You live under a pizza place? Seriously, this is cool. I can see why you like living here. I bet your apartment always has that heavenly smell of pizza."

"Yeah, I moved here just for the pizza," I say, unlocking and opening the door peeling with green paint, "You can think that my apartment smells like pizzabut it really doesn't. It actually smells really bad, so sorry about that. I'm surprised I don't smell like cat pee and mildew yet."

"You have a cat?" he asks, stepping back from the door.

"No, my apartment just smells like that when it snows."

"That's really strange... Good thing it's March then."

"Yeah, but it could still snow," I say, walking up the rickety wooden steps and into my apartment.

"Let's not think about that," Eric says, crinkling up his nose as he follows me into the apartment.

"Do you remember that time when you were like six and I found that cat, which I named Mr Cuddles and really wanted you to cuddle with him. Oh Mom got so mad that we had found a stray cat, 'which could be rabid!'."

"Yeah Mom was furious! I was covered in cat hair and mud and she yelled at us for forever because she didn't want us to go around picking up rabid cats."

"It was a cute cat..."

"Sure..."

"It was totally worth it though, he was really adorable," I say, reminiscing about that adorable black and white kitten.

"Well I'm still cautious around cats now because of that scarring experience."

"Why because of that rabid cat speech Mom made?"he asks.

"Yeah, plus I'm allergic."

"Well yeah, I mean afterwards you were covered in hives and wouldn't. Quit. Sneezing," he says, laughing at the memory.

"Well mom was pretty furious that you could have been holding a possibly rabid animal. Plus you were covered in cat pee."

"It wasn't just the cat's..." he admits, hiding his blush.

"No way!"

"Hey I was six!"

"Exactly. Eric, you were six."

"So? I was in a slightly terrifying situation."

"It was a harmless cat. Completely harmless."

There's a lull in the conversation and Eric now has the opportunity of looking around my apartment. Yet again, it's littered with stray shoes and dishes from a previous rain fall.

"What-"

"I have this problem with my roof and I absolutely refuse to have it fixed because if I do, then the roof would win the ongoing war."

"Olivia, you're a special one," Eric says, as I lead him into my kitchen to make us some hot chocolate.

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A/N:

Hey guys! Thanks for getting this chapter to over 350 reads! Oh my goodness!!!! I know most people don't think it's that much but I do, so thank you so much!

If you liked this chapter please vote/comment/etc.

Stay beautiful! I love you all so much!

-LN