Dissolving

Chapter 17 - Cupid

"There you are! I was about to send out another search party," Josh exclaims.

He is sitting closest to where Jo and I are coming from and therefore spots us first. Not surprisingly, his rather loud announcement catches the attention of the rest of my family. I fight the urge to hide behind Jo because, despite the pep-talk she gave me only a minute ago, I still feel embarrassed and definitely don't want to be put in the spotlight.

"Hey, baby girl, are you all right?" Sean asks me softly when I walk up to the table.

He is holding his hand out towards me and when our eyes meet, I rush to him and grab it like a lifeline. I don't pay any mind to Jo as I just leave her standing there. Sean pulls me closer and onto his lap. I instantly start wriggling around, trying to get out of his hold. I don't want to look like a baby in front of my new friend, but he firmly wraps his arms around my body, effectively trapping me in his iron hold.

"Who's your friend?" Jordan wants to know.

At the sound of his voice, my head snaps to him and I witness how he flashes Jo a bright, flirty smile.

Oh, please no!

"I'm Joanna," she introduces herself before I have a chance to say anything. "Us girls bumped into each other in the ladies' room."

I notice how she introduced herself as Joanna instead of Jo, which sounds very formal. But it also kind of suits her.

"I told you that I left Lily with her," Josh remarks.

He sounds a bit annoyed, like they had been giving him a hard time for returning without me. I hope they didn't, because I really appreciate it that he gave me space when I needed it.

"Are you okay, Lily?" Alex echoes Sean's question, completely ignoring Jo's presence.

Instead, he is giving me a concerned look. At least he doesn't seem angry that I ran off. I nod wordlessly, subconsciously cuddling into Sean's embrace. He affectionately rubs his hand up and down my arms, which is very comforting.

"Thanks for bringing her back," Josh says to Jo.

At least one of my brothers has some manners.

"You're quite welcome," she replies easily.

I want to ask her to sit down, but Alex grabs my attention before I have a chance to do that.

"Aidan has something to say to you," he tells me.

Everybody's eyes now shift to my second youngest brother, including mine. Aidan looks a bit put out at first but when he realizes that there is no getting out of this, his facial expression shows defeat as he turns to look at me.

"Sorry," he mutters rather unconvincingly, quickly averting his eyes again.

Not knowing how else to react, I just shrug him off. Aidan obviously doesn't mean it and that's not exactly surprising. We have been through this a million times before. I have done the same to him in the past, too. Alex always makes us apologize to each other and we most of the time only do it to get him off our backs. Why he keeps forcing us to pretend that we do mean it is a mystery to me.

Thinking about it, I am still confused by how easily Aidan said sorry to me the other day when he threw that shoe at my head and it hit me. That was very unlike him and something tells me that he also surprised himself with that. I guess it goes to show that he can be nice, if only he wants to.

"Aidan," Alex growls warningly.

So Alex did pick up on my brother's insincere apology after all.