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Chapter Eight
“Why does everyone act like I suck men’s souls as a hobby?” Christina asks, pursing her pouty lips. “I have the least hearts in my jar.” She looks at me. “In fact, you have more.”
“I do not,” I say defensively, although she’s probably right. After Eric, I did break more than a few hearts, not on purpose, but because I had no idea who I was or what I wanted then. I was selfish, and I shouldn’t have been dating at all. All I wanted was a distraction; my heart was broken and therefore no one else could touch it. I was safe, but I was also cold, and the men I dated didn’t deserve that. No one does.
“You so do,” she says, licking her ice-cream cone. “Charlie sent me out of the house because his friends are coming over. What am I going to do to his friends, exactly?”
“He probably doesn’t want to see them check you out,” I say, smirking. “Aren’t his friends all nerds? You’re probably the first woman they’ll have seen up close in real life.”
“Nerdy guys are hot,” Christina says, eyes going wide. “But I’d never go near any of his friends, just like I’d expect the same from him with my friends.” She looks at me. “Not that I have many apart from you.”
“And Charlie is safe from me,” I add with a smirk, changing the channel on the TV.
“Everyone is besides Sylar,” she teases, biting into the crunchy ice-cream cone. “Oh by the way, I invited him and Spencer over here for drinks tonight.”
“What?” I yell, jumping up off the couch. “Please tell me you’re joking. Is this you trying to be funny?”
She starts laughing. “Calm down. The house is clean.”
I glance around frantically. “The house is friends-visiting-level clean, it’s not Sylar-level clean. There’s a huge difference.”
She watches with dry amusement as I rush around, cleaning the house, shoving things into drawers so it looks less cluttered, and trying to make the house look like no one lives here.
“You have serious issues,” she mutters, tidying up the pillows on the couch for me. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you, because I knew you’d go straight into a cleaning frenzy and panic mode. Relax. Your house is clean, and I don’t think he’d really care if it wasn’t perfect.”
“It’s about me caring, not him,” I say, dusting a table. “I need it to be clean.” I pause. “If they’re coming over for drinks, don’t we need to actually go out and buy some?”
“Probably a good idea,” she says, wincing. She then stands and grabs her keys. “I’ll do a store run. What do we need?”
Sylar doesn’t drink alcohol, so what would he have instead? Juice? Coffee? I can’t imagine him sitting there, all manly looking with a mocktail in his hand. The mere thought makes me laugh.
“Are you losing your mind over boys coming over to chill?” Christina asks me, being dead serious.
I roll my eyes at her, then grab a piece of paper and write up a quick list. When I hand it to her, she reaches out and pats my arm. “It will be okay, Bree. I’ve got this.”
I wave her away and continue to clean. This is the first time Sylar will be coming to my house, and fuck me if I don’t want to make a good impression. Should I cook something? Men like food. Or is that putting in too much effort? I probably shouldn’t set unrealistic expectations, because I don’t cook that much. Okay I’m definitely overthinking this. I finish tidying up and then wait for Christina to return with the goods. Now that the place is clean, I can look forward to having Sylar in my space. He didn’t come in last time, even though he said he wanted to check out the work that needs to be done, and I was happy that he didn’t. I like to be prepared for these things. When Christina takes longer than I thought she would, I decide to jump in the shower.
Might as well start getting pretty.
*****
I’m in my towel when I hear her in the kitchen, so I venture out. “Hey, what took you so long?” I ask, combing my damp hair with my fingers. I come to a standstill when I see not just Christina in the kitchen, but Sylar and Spencer as well.
Fuck.
I look down, making sure the towel is indeed covering my breasts.
“Look who I ran into,” Christina says, cringing.
“Great welcome,” Spencer says, eyes wide.
Sylar slaps him on the back of his head, gets up, and blocks the view of me with his huge body, his back to the others. Looking down at me, he murmurs, “You going to go put some clothes on, or just stand there looking like a deer in headlights?”
“The former, I guess,” I say, peering over his body to flash an evil look in my best friend’s direction.
She could have warned me!
“Come on,” he says, turning me around and pushing me with a hand on the small of my back. I walk to my room, and he comes in and closes the door behind him. “She tried to call you and tell you we were coming, but you didn’t answer.”
