When We First Met

The sight of the shorter girl next to Andy catches my eye when I shift from one foot to the other, anxious to reunite with him. I want to have him close again, but I can't say the appearance of another woman hasn't piqued my interest. When he pulls the car up in my driveway, she darts out of the passenger door and takes to smoothing down the fluffed-up tulle of her skirt. In a black tulle skirt, black tights, and a black tank top, she reminds me immediately of Andy, and then it dawns on me. This is Shay Biersack, Andy's little sister and the only other person who saw the personal hell he lived in besides his parents. Unlike him, though, she doesn't dye her hair black. Her hair is deep brown, her eyes hidden by aviator sunglasses.

"Hey, Dragonfly!" Andy yells, sprinting the short distance between us and throwing his arms around my waist, swinging me off of the ground for a kiss. "I missed you, baby. Hey, I brought my little sister to meet you. This is Shay. Shay! Get the fuck up here!"

Shay walks the distance to the front porch, pushing her glasses up on her nose and giving me a quick nod. I smile at her from the warmth of her brother's arms, wondering if the unhappy set of her mouth is mirrored in her hidden eyes. Before I can ask her if anything is wrong, Andy sweeps me inside, babbling about how much he enjoyed tour. Shay follows at a slower pace, dragging her feet, her eyes lingering on everything around her as if she has made it her mission to examine everything she sees. When she steps inside, she waits for the screen door to swing closed, then daintily closes the front door. Her hands are small and pale, just like her face, and she hovers by the couch instead of sitting down.

"I missed you, too, White Rabbit," I mumble at Andy as he snuggles his face into mine intently.

He beams and covers my face with kisses, making it impossible for me to escape for a few minutes. "The guys get boring to hang out with after a few minutes. I wish you could come on tour with us soon. That'd be awesome."

"Maybe I can when I have time," I say, trying to put an inch of space between us. "So, uh, Shay, what do you do?"

"Stuff," she mumbles, looking down at her worn Converse.

Andy rolls his eyes and stretches out a hand to ruffle her hair, which makes her wince and move even farther away from us, closer to the drapes. "She's not always the most social person in the world. She works at some record company or another, organizing clients and just doing secretarial stuff. It's right up her alley, since she loves music. She was in the original line-up for Hollywood Siren before she and the drummer and the singer left. They sound better now, if you ask me. Anyway, here she is."

She mumbles something and sits down on the loveseat arm, folding her arms across her stomach and tugging her sunglasses off. Behind the dark glass, her eyes are incredibly bright, a deep hazel with such a mixture of green and brown it stuns me for a moment. I cock my head at her and offer her a small smile, and, finally, her pale pink lips lift in a tentative smile. Seeing her smile reminds me of abuse victims who think something as simple as an expression will get them hit. But if she was hurting, I'm sure Andy would have known and told me by now. Despite annoying the hell out of her, Andy does love her, and he wouldn't let anyone hurt her.

"Don't listen to Batman there," she says, and I chuckle at the hint of country twang to her voice. Well, she did live down south for a time. "He's just mad because he has the simple task of singing to make the world function. He has no idea what kind of hard work goes into taking a CD from simple audio and chords to the final product."

"That's because I don't have to know," he says matter-of-factly.

I shake my head at the two of them; now that she's warming up, Shay seems a hell of a lot like Andy, and it's clear she does love her brother. "So, other than Andy probably bugging you into coming, what brings you here?"

"Vacation time and a need to do something other than organize my apartment," Shay says, giving me a telltale shrug as she kicks off her shoes and tucks her feet underneath her. "Every time I have time off, I'll spend it cleaning and rearranging my apartment if I don't get out of it. It doesn't need it or anything, since I don't have that much crap, but it's just who I am."

She shakes her hair back behind her shoulders, her eyes flicking down the length of my body and back up. With every seemingly insignificant glance, I can feel my skin getting hotter, my stomach tightening. For some reason, just being close to her is firing pistons inside of me that haven't been fired before. I lick my lips and turns my eyes to the ground, not in the mood to continue this discussion. I can't help the nervousness building up inside of me, a tension that amplifies when Andy excuses himself to the bathroom. I swallow hard and yelp when, all of a sudden, a beautiful young woman is sitting mere feet away from me.

"You shouldn't act so freaked out. You're throwing off vibes in every which direction," she informs me, combing her fingers through my hair and holding it out of my face.

My throat gulps automatically, and I try to lean back before she tries to decrease the already limited distance between us. "S-sorry. I'll try to remember that."

"It would be a good thing to remember the next time this happens," she says, her hand sliding down my neck to rest on my shoulder, the heel of her hand pressed to my chest. "Next time, Juliet, I don't plan on letting you sit here and feel uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong. I won't hurt Andy. But that's just it. I won't let you hurt him either."

Before I can ask her what she means by that, she moves back to her loveseat, and Andy returns soon after. He makes a move to ruffle her hair again, but she catches him by the wrist and drags him over, toppling him easily. They both collapse into laughter as he falls across her lap, his long legs hanging over the edge of the arm.

Hard to believe the girl tickling her big brother mere feet away was half a breath from kissing me mere moments ago.