"You could at least try to not appear so terrified," Sean muttered to me as he lifted his hand and knocked three times on the door.
Each pound of his fist against the varnished wooden door made me flinch.
"I'm not scared," I said after clearing my throat... Twice.
Sean snorted. "Could've fooled me, man."
I scowled at him and straightened myself up to my full height of six feet three inches.
Stop being a bitch.
I repeated the thought over and over in my head until I was semi calm. The door to Neala's apartment opened seconds later, and the semi calm feeling that was previously upon me fled without a seconds warning. I was back to being a sweaty bucket of nerves.
Lovely.
"Hey little sister." Sean grinned to Neala who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
I wanted to laugh the moment her eyes slid to mine. Her whole demeanour changed once it hit home that I was standing in front of her. Her hands balled into fists, her slender body tensed, her lip curled in an oddly attractive snarl, and her eyes narrowed to slits.
Oh yeah, she was pissed.
"You," she growled.
The nervousness I felt moments ago disappeared, and my usual snarky attitude that came out when Neala was around was ready to play and I was grateful for it. Being a dick to her was something I could play well, anything else was out of my comfort zone.
I grinned as I said, "Me."
"What are you doing here?" she hissed.
I blinked when a bad, deploring really, thought entered my head.
I momentarily thought that Neala was hot when she was mad and that was not cool, not cool at all. I only thought of things like dead puppies and homeless kittens when I thought of Neala, not her damn sex appeal.
I shook my head clear and said, "I'm with him," and jammed my thumb in Sean's direction. I felt like I suddenly couldn't speak, so putting the attention on Sean was all I could think of.
Neala switched her burning-mad gaze from me to her older brother.
"Explain," she growled.
Always straight to the point.
I hated to admit it, but I liked that about her. It was probably the only thing I liked about her, besides her body - Stop it! I blinked away the sudden internal battle inside my head and focused on Neala and her brother's conversation.
"It's Christmas next week, and I know it's been tried before, but I figured it was time to finally squash this bullshit you and Prince Charming here have had for the last twenty years. I'm not sitting through another Christmas dinner of awkwardness only for it to turn into an Irish remake of Gladiator." Sean glanced between both Neala and myself and shook his head. "The kids, your niece and your nephew, are old enough to understand the hate you have for one another, and I do not want it to rub off on them. Get your shite together and act like the adults you are."
What the hell?
I thought he was here to help me get back my property!
"But-"
"No buts, Neala. I will not have me child around you both when you're together, and since our families do everything together it means you both won't be invited to anything. Do you understand that? You won't be welcome at birthday parties, anniversary parties, engagement parties-"
"Engagement parties?" I cut in, and asked.
Sean looked to me and grinned which in turn made me grin. I instantly knew he and Jessica had finally picked a date for their engagement party. This news would come as a delight to my mother and Sean's. Our mother's were the best of friends, so it meant they did everything together, and I mean everything. They have both been waiting to get Sean and Jessica's engagement party out of the way so they can buckle down and start planning the wedding.
Hopefully the engagement party would lift Jessica's spirits, too. She has been down since money hasn't been coming in like it used to which was the main reason she didn't want to waste money on an engagement party. She works in O'Leary's Pub in the village along with Justin's wife, Sarah, but their pay wasn't the greatest. I work in construction, I co-own Clarke & Hart Construction with Sean and Justin. It was passed down to us a few years ago from our father's, and unfortunately we have had only have one major job in the last year and a half, rebuilding the Holiday Inn hotel in the village.
The job brought us in a decent wage, but we had to be smart with the amount we continued to invest into the company as well as our own paycheques because we needed to survive too. Luckily, the owners of the hotel were going for bigger and better so that meant longer work for our company, but we would have ideally liked to have more jobs to work on throughout the year to help distribute out more hours for our employees. It killed me and the brothers having to let our lads go when we didn't get enough work. Especially coming up to the holidays.
"You and Jessica picked a party date, for real?
Sean nodded his head. "For real, she wants it before Christmas."
I widened my eyes. "Before Christmas? As in this Christmas on Tuesday?"
Sean laughed. "Yeah, she want's a small party in the local pub on the 21st. This Friday"
Today was Wednesday.
Talk about short notice.
Neala flung her hands up in the air. "Friday… That's in two days!"
Sean rubbed his neck and looked between Neala and myself. "I know, it's short notice, but this is what Jess wanted. You know she is stressed about cut backs at the pub and us not getting another job for the business so she wants this to brighten everybody's spirits."
I was all for a party so I slapped my hand against Sean's outstretched one and bumped my chest against his as we hugged. Neala quickly got over the short notice of the party and put a bright smile on her face when both Sean and I looked back at her. Her smile was for her brother of course, never for me. If her lip was curled up in a disgusted snarl then it would be for me.
"When was this decided?" Neala asked as she stepped into Sean's opened arms.
"Last night. Jess rang Bob and asked could we have it this weekend. Since he needs the business he said yeah without a problem, and since Jess works there we got a discounted rate on the food too - so that's a plus."
Neala chuckled at her brother's excitement and hugged him tightly.
I waited for the brother and sister moment to end before I made my play to move my plan along. I needed to get inside Neala's apartment and I could only think of one logical way that wouldn't be suspicious to her.