Forever Mine (The Moreno Brothers)

FOREVER MINE - Chapter 25

"Hey, Eric, what's up?"

There was silence for a brief moment, and Angel smiled. He knew his cheery hello would throw Eric."Hey . . . how's everything?"

"You mean with Alex?" Angel chuckled. "That's gonna be the same for a while. But Sofia told me what happened. And it's cool. I'm sorry Alex went off on you like that, man."

Eric cleared his throat. "Nah, it's all good. I know it could've been a lot worse."

Angel laughed. "You think? I say you got damned lucky. You got out of there in one piece."

"No shit. I had to change my pants when I got home though."

"Ha! Romero said you would."

"Yeah, I'm sure that ass had a lot to say."

It was actually a surprise Romero didn't say too much that night. The party was pretty much a wash after that whole mess. Alex was too wound up to relax, so they just started cleaning up, and everyone took off.

Angel lowered his voice when he walked by Alex who was sitting in one of the booths, looking over the restaurant mail from the week before. He was in charge of it while his parents were gone and, of course, he was just now getting to it.

"Listen, I guess it's not unheard of for a little sister to have a crush on her older brother's friend, right?" He paused, but Eric didn't say a word. Angel wasn't sure how to get the rest out without sounding awkward. He never imagined having to have this discussion, but here he was. Awkward or not he was getting it out. "You can't let anything like that happen again, all right? She may think it's harmless flirting but we both know it could turn into something else. And she's too young." That was a little lame, but he'd gotten to the point, and he felt satisfied.

"Angel, she's almost seventeen."

Angel stopped in his tracks and actually looked at his phone. "Are you shitting me?"

"I hear what you're saying," Eric added quickly. "And yeah, you got it, man. But c'mon, how long do you think you can keep her from dating anyone?"

Angel was walking again but could feel the agitation set in. He got that his sister was almost seventeen, but you couldn't measure maturity with a number. Sofie was different. "Don't worry about that. Just promise me you won't give into any of her harmless flirting, will you?"

He heard Eric exhale loudly. "Yeah, yeah, you have my word."

"Thank you." Was that too much to ask for? But Angel couldn't help thinking this was another conversation that hadn't exactly gone his way. This year already sucked, and it had just gotten started.

~*~

When Sarah had gotten back from Arizona, she made Valerie promise not to mention to Alex that she was back. So when he called her New Year's Eve to invite her over for his party, Sarah felt bad that Valerie turned him down.

She'd offered to stay home. She wasn't feeling up to partying anyway, but Valerie was actually kind of pissed about Alex asking her at the last minute. She said he insisted he planned it at the last minute, but she told him she wasn't canceling the plans she'd already made.

"No one plans a New Year's party last minute," she fumed. "He must think I'm pretty stupid."

Sarah knew her stay in California was only for a short while. Her mother had called her on her birthday and told her she'd spoken to her lawyer and things were looking even better.

Things between her and Angel were completely hopeless. Sydney had called her on the day after her birthday and confessed he'd driven out to see Angel just before Christmas. He hadn't told her sooner because he didn't want to make the holidays any harder for her than they already were. But he told her of Angel's refusal to even try to hear her side of it.