Relative Design

“Anabel, are you okay?” Adam asked, following one pace behind her as she stormed through the house.
“What’s it look like? You want water? Soda? Juice?” She stopped by the sink and reached up to open the cabinet and get two glasses.
“I’m okay, thanks. Maybe you should—”
“Don’t you start,” she snarled, pouring Adam a glass of water and sliding it across the bar to him.
He took a sip of the icy water, hoping it’d cool his head. “It’s not my business, I know, but…”
She sighed, swallowed her pride, and met his gaze. “I apologize that every time you seem to be around, one of my family members seem to be rolling around on the grass.”
“Well… Beckett hadn’t seemed to be rolling.”
She laughed reluctantly, running a hand through her hair. “True.”
“Anabel,” Eric started, running into the kitchen having heard her voice. He immediately stopped the second he saw Adam, staring at him solemnly.
“Oh, Eric, this is my friend, Adam. Adam, my brother, Eric.”
“Another one?” he asked jokingly, as Eric flinched in surprise at her casual description of their relation. “Nice to meet you, kid.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he said rudely, going to stand beside Anabel. When she nudged him, he shrugged. If she thought he was her brother he had every right to not like this guy. “I thought you were going out.”
“I did,” she began, wondering why she was explaining herself to a ten year old. “We, Zoe and I, went to eat where we ran into Adam who was kind enough to drop me home so maybe you should be a little nicer.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“How was grocery shopping?”
“Cool,” he said, ignoring the sting of knowing he’d been ditched.
Anabel frowned, seeing his stiff shoulders and the slight frown. Taking a deep breath, she fought to keep her voice cheerful. “What’d you get?”
“Stuff.” He turned towards the doorway when Eliza stepped in, trying to tame her disheveled hair. “Hey.”
“Eric, could you give Eliza and I a moment, please?”
“But—”
“Go up to your room. Play with Toby.”
He shrugged, knowing enough of environment to know when to step out while it was still an option, cowardice or not. “’Kay.”
He sent Adam a not-so-sincere smirk on his way out. She’d totally forgotten about the poor sucker.
It was only after he left that Anabel turned to glare at her older sister. “Just because he’s a kid,” she bit out, “does not mean he’s stupid enough to not realize he’s being ditched.”
“Anabel, come on,” Eliza said, laughing nervously and making her sister scoff.
“Would you have done it if it were me?”
“What?”
“Excuse me, is there a bathroom I could use?” Adam asked then, when neither sister answered, ducked out into the hallway.
“Say it was me with you tonight. Would you have ditched me too?”
“Anabel, that’s ridiculous—”
“The hell it is,” she snapped, smacking her palm against the counter in pure frustration. “Why should it be? Because he isn’t blood? He deserves better, Eliza. You don’t want to give him that then just let him be, but don’t treat him like that.”
“It isn’t like that, Anabel! And like what, for the love of—”
“Like he’s a fucking obligation that can be abandoned, dammit!”
Outside the door, Adam jolted in surprise, not expecting her to have that kind of impressive anger in her. Further down the hall, Eric stood in the staircase, shocked enough that his mind was a complete blank.
Even as he tried processing, Eliza, voice raising to match her sister’s snarl, defended, “I wasn’t—”
“You were wrong. At least own it.”
When Anabel stormed out of the room, Eliza sighed and made her way up to Eric’s room, reaching it just seconds after Eric, who’d run up when he heard the swing of the kitchen door. After a brief knock, she stepped in, saw him sitting on the floor with Toby. “Uhm, hey.”
“Hey.”
She waited for him to say something, frowned when she realized he wouldn’t. “So… I’m sorry. About earlier.”
“It’s cool.”
“No,” she sighed, sank down onto the floor beside him. She wished she’d at least changed out of her grass-stained clothes, combed her hair, rubbed some ointment on her fresh bug bites. “It isn’t. I’m sorry. I—that was wrong of me. It’s been a while since I had to care about someone so young.”
And she’d forgotten just how a kid could cramp your style if you cared enough to let them.
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.”
He glanced at her. “Okay.”
She took a deep breath, held it, and on impulse, decided to come clean. “Anabel seems to think I don’t care because you’re not blood.”
He jerked a shoulder, kept his eyes downcast.
“I want you to know that isn’t true. It may seem that way, but it isn’t. When Anabel became my responsibility, she was a little older than you. I could handle that. She’d been around my entire life. We were used to each other. It’s different with you.
“I’m new at this, and that isn’t an excuse for tonight, but I messed up, the way I’m bound to every so often. I don’t give two shits if you’re blood or not. You’re ours, and that’s what counts.” She paused, relieved when he finally looked at her. “Anyway, I’m going to head to bed. I’m sorry, again. Good night.”
He didn’t bother replying, sighing in relief when she shut the door behind her. He wouldn't think of it, not now when he already felt so unsteady. He focused his attention on Toby again and grabbed his favorite stuffed bear, tossing it across the room. When the dog went skidding across the room, he had to smile.
Upstairs, Eliza finally went to her room, while downstairs, Anabel sat on the sofa beside Adam, frowning.
“Did I bring my shoes in?”
“Yeah. You left them by the door.” Even in anger she’d set them down side by side in a corner, out of the way. He wondered why he found it endearing.
She hummed a reply, stretched her feet out in front of her, pointed her toes. “Sorry about all this.”
“Anabel…” His hands cupped her cheeks as he lightly pressed his lips to hers. “Stop. You don’t have to apologize. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I am. Thanks.”
“Sure. So,” he began, knowing she could use the distraction, “I hope you know tonight doesn’t count as that dinner.”
“Why? We were together, we ate.”
“With an audience. Don’t try,” he teased, kissing her again. “I should head out.”
“Yeah. Let me call you a cab.”
“I already took care of it. Thanks, though.” He stood, held out a hand. When she took it, he brought her to her feet.
“Sure. Is it here already?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded and led the way to the front door. “You free tomorrow night?”
“You asking me out?”
“Maybe.”
He kept his expression mildly interested. “I could be.”
“Then maybe we could do dinner.”
Adam’s lips curved in a slow smile as he rocked on his heels. “I’ll pick you up at seven. Good night, Anabel.”
“Get home safe. Good night.”
She let him kiss her goodbye before easing the door shut. Then she dropped her head against the door and huffed. This was not how she’d planned for her night to go.
While Anabel crawled into bed across town, Adam caught up with his friends at Jack’s apartment.
“Hey, guys,” he greeted, dropping onto the sofa. “What’d I miss?”
His oldest friends all exchanged a look, ignoring his frown before finally, pitying him, Chris spoke up. “You’re stuck on her.”
“What?” he laughed. “What is this, the eighties? No one talks like that."
"Focus, Adam. That's not the point, is it?"
He laughed again, though it was a little more forced this time. "No, man. It isn’t like that.”
“Sure, yeah. We get that. Except it’s exactly like that.”
“No,” he repeated, panicking now, “It really isn’t. She’s just this girl I—”
“You hit on her twice, man.”
“I didn’t even remember her the second time I—”
“We’re not judging. We like her. She can handle your ass.”
“I don’t need to—or want to—be handled. We’re just messing around. It isn’t—”
“Avoided it for twenty-two years. It was bound to happen,” Jack said, sitting back and popping his feet up on the table.
“Look, just because you’re serious with your girl doesn’t mean—”
“Man, remember when he wouldn’t shut up about that girl I dated for two years in high school? Asshole couldn’t shut the fuck up about her. Now look at the poor sucker,” Joe snickered.
“You’re looking a little pale,” Chris taunted.
“Because all my friends have fucking lost it.”
“Yeah? Tell us why you like her.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “She’s quick on her feet. Funny, witty. A looker.” When his friends exchanged knowing glances, he huffed exasperatedly. “What now?”
“We know you, man. The fact that you have that much to say about her… Looks coming in last, says something,” Jack explained.
“Whatever. I need a beer.”
It was a testament to old friendships that had them changing the subject as he got his beer.

Beckett knew his sisters. It didn’t matter if he hadn’t been around the last few years—a fact both of them refused to let him forget—or that things were different now that he was back. He knew his sisters.
He also knew Anabel was more likely to spill.
He managed to corner her the next morning in the small library. “What, no cartoons for you?”
She made a face. “I never liked cartoons.”
“I know. I always thought you’d grow out of that.”
Her eyebrow rose as her lips twitched in amusement. “Of course.”
“Did you have breakfast?”
“I did, you?”
“Yeah, thanks. So…” He sat on the sofa cushion beside her. “What’s going on with you and Eliza?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t.”
“Just leave it alone, Beckett. Since when do you wake up so early anyway? It’s still time for breakfast.”
“Funny.”
“I try.”
“Are you going to continue stalling?”
She sighed and closed the book in her lap. “I’m angry with her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s being a thick headed dolt.”
“Dolt?” he repeated, grinning as he shook his head. “Man, you’re great. Why is she being a dolt?”
“She—did you hear that?”
“Yeah.” His brow furrowed as he looked past the open library doors into the hall. “Who would drop by at this ungodly hour?”
Anabel laughed as she stood. “It’s eleven, Beckett.”
“Like I said, ungodly.”
She was still laughing as she pulled open the door, the laughter dying in her throat when her eyes landed on the middle-aged couple on her doorstep. “Mom, dad.”