Nellie and the Scare

Author's Note:

This is a stand-alone story that is part of a larger series about the titular character, Nellie. Each story that follows can be read on its own or together, in any particular order, though they will be posted in chronological order. The stories may fall under different categories, but all will tell tales of Nellie's various adventures.

In this adventure, things start to unravel in Nellie's life. Forced to face her fears, she turns to someone she knows is a friend... JUST a friend. This story follows the events of Nellie & The Friend Zone.

**

The phone rang three times before he picked up. His laugh preceded any form of greeting.

"Wow, this must be a Thanksgiving miracle. I think this is the first time you've ever called me out of the blue."

"I need your help."

J.P. laughed. "Babe, you've been in town for less than a day. I already told you we can sneak away from your dad's dinner party thing tomorrow and hook up. You're the one who insisted we couldn't get together today."

"It's not that," I hissed. "I need you to be serious, okay? I need help. I'm... I'm not joking. At all."

Whatever laughter was in J.P.'s voice as he teased me vanished.

"What's wrong, Nellie?"

I glanced at the closed bathroom door. I was sitting on the edge of the tub in a closed-and-locked bathroom, inside my closed-and-locked bedroom, on the second floor of my father's massive mansion. He was sitting on the first floor in the dining room with his girlfriend, Kimberlee, a woman twenty years younger than he was who looked thirty years younger than he did, drinking coffee and laughing with one of his investors. Even if I'd screamed, it was unlikely anyone would hear me, and yet I could barely bring myself to whisper.

"Don't laugh," I said to J.P., my voice cracking. "I need you to not laugh, to just... I'm... don't laugh at me, okay?"

"I mean, is it funny?" he asked.

"J.P.!"

"Okay!" he said, masking a chuckle. "I won't laugh."

"I wouldn't be asking if I had literally any other option," I said. "Seriously. I can't get out of the house without my dad asking why, I don't know where to go, I just... I need you to do something for me."

"What?"

"And I need you to not freak out."

He sighed heavily. "Nellie. Babe."

"Do not call me babe. I'm not your babe. We are friends. We are just friends, and just because sometimes we fuck doesn't mean that you can call me babe. So don't, okay? Don't call me babe."

He chuckled again. "Okay, jeez. Take a deep breath and tell me what's going on. Otherwise, I'm gonna start thinking you're pregnant or something."

When I didn't respond, he chuckled again, though almost nervously.

"Nellie?"

"I need you to bring me a pregnancy test," I whispered.

J.P. didn't laugh. He went completely silent, so quiet that for a moment, I thought he might have just hung up, blocked my number, and disappeared off the face of the planet. There was barely a breath, barely even a hint that someone existed on the other end of the phone.

"You're joking," he finally said, his voice hoarse. "Babe, you're joking."

"I'm late, okay?" I hissed. "I just... I didn't realize it until today, but... I mean, it might be nothing, but I'm freaking out."

I was prepared for any number of reactions from J.P. I was prepared for him to get angry, for him to panic, for him to ask incredulous questions like "didn't you say you were on the pill?" and "is it mine?" and "so you're getting an abortion, right?"

What I wasn't prepared for was him to take a breath, let it out slowly, and then speak to me calmly.

"Here's what's going to happen," he said. "I'm supposed to go to my parents' for dinner tonight anyway. Ask Anne-Marie to come over to hang out. I'll come by to 'get her' when it's time for dinner and I'll drop the bag off near the front door or something, wherever I can get away with hiding it. I'll text you where I leave it. You go, you do the pee thing, you call me while you're waiting and we'll find out together."

"I... what?"

"What?" he asked.

"That's almost... logical."

"Amazing what you can do when you're not freaking out," he said.

"I think I have a bit of a right to be freaking out," I huffed.

"Freaking out isn't going to do you any good," he said. "Shit happens, let's figure out what's going on and take it from there."

"Since when are you so level-headed?"

"It's a pretty good trait for a lawyer, babe."

"Don't call me babe."

I could almost hear him smirk. "One of these days you'll stop saying that."

"One of these days you'll stop doing it."

"I wouldn't do that to you," he said. "I know how much you love it."

I glared down at the bathroom floor, hating the fact that he was a little bit right, and absolutely loathing the fact that it was true.

"Nell?" he said. "It's gonna be okay."

"Easy for you to say."

"It's not, actually," he said. "It'd be a hell of a lot easier if you weren't just my friend."

"Don't do this to me right now."

"Not intending to. I'm just saying, it's not easy."

"We are just friends," I said. "We're not... it can't be anything more and I don't want it to be. This... this is just..."

"I get it," he said. "It's gonna be okay. Call up Anne-Marie, get her to come over. She'll be ecstatic, she's been an absolute terror since she found out about... us."

Heat burned through my neck and cheeks as I thought of the last time I'd seen his sister. Anne-Marie had been my childhood best friend, and while we weren't as close as adults, we were certainly still friends. She'd shown up at my apartment unannounced a few weeks earlier, which would have been fine, except J.P. was staying with me that weekend. I'd thought she was insufferably zealous about trying to make me and J.P. consider dating each other before she found out we were sleeping together. That was nothing compared to the unbridled glee when she discovered him sitting naked in my bedroom.

"I haven't talked to her since then," I mumbled.

"Trust me, I know," he said. "I, unfortunately, don't have the same luxury."

"Is she even remotely understanding of the fact that you and I aren't ever going to be a thing?"

There was the briefest moment of hesitation before he answered. "Not really. She still thinks you'll change your mind."

"What am I supposed to... I don't know, do with her?"

"That's up to you, babe. For what it's worth, I think she misses you, so maybe she'll be a little less..."

"Insane? Pushy? Delusional?"

J.P. chuckled. "Yeah. All of those. Look, I gotta go, okay? I'll go pick up the, uh, test. Anything changes or you have any problems, text me, okay?"

"Okay. This is, um... it's really... well, cool of you."

"Oh, wow. You sure know how to flatter a guy."

I rolled my eyes. "This is what I get for trying to be nice. I'm trying to thank you, idiot."

"Careful, babe. Keep talking like that and I'm gonna get all frisky."

"You're disgusting."

"Mmm, that's right, babe, tell me all about it."

"Sometimes I seriously question why I even bother talking to you."

"Nellie! Please! My cock can only get so hard. If you're not going to let me come over there and—"

"Goodbye, J.P."

I hung up while he was still laughing, not quite laughing myself, but feeling slightly less dismayed than I had when I first called him. Not much less, but enough that the crushing feeling in my chest lifted to something slightly less suffocating.

I hadn't wanted to spend Thanksgiving at my dad's, but after my mom decided to book a last-minute trip to Vegas, I had no excuse. It was only after I had arrived at my dad's the previous evening that I found out why: he'd called her.

For four years, I'd been lying to my mom. Her only goal in life was to make sure I didn't end up indebted to my father. She'd left him when I was a kid, doing everything she could to make sure I only spent the absolute bare minimum of time with him. She had created her own downfall: because I didn't know him, I didn't know what would happen when, at 18, I asked him to pay my college tuition.

I called her in a panic as soon as my dad revealed what he had done; she'd answered, and I had cried and begged her to understand.

"I do understand," she said. "I can't pretend it doesn't hurt, Nellie, but I understand. I just wish you would have told me."

"You would have been mad."

"Not mad. Disappointed."

And is there anything, anything in the world that's worse than hearing that? "I'm not mad, Nellie, I'm just disappointed." I didn't know if my heart was more broken by the words or by the cliche of it all.

Then there was the icing on the cake: grabbing my birth control pills that morning at my dad's house only to discover that I should be on my period.

I didn't quite know what it said that my first instinct was to call J.P. Honestly, it should have been to call Sydney. She was my best friend, the person who could talk me down, the one who would have told me to stop panicking and think logically. Maybe it was because Sydney was dealing with drama of her own: she'd recently found out that Greg, the man she'd been seeing for months, was not only cheating, but that she was the other woman.

It was yet another reason why I didn't believe in relationships: he'd broken her heart, and for what? Because he was too much of a pussy to end things with his wife before sleeping around? The whole thing had fucked Sydney up more than she was willing to admit, and I just couldn't add more to her plate.

Although I needed Anne-Marie to come over so J.P. had an excuse to drop off the pregnancy test, I procrastinated texting her until mid-afternoon. At first, I told myself it was because Dad had his investor friends over, and it would be weird for Anne-Marie to be there. Once they left, I decided it was too risky for Anne-Marie to be there at the same time as Dad and Kimberlee. When they left for some reason I wasn't listening to, I couldn't think of anything else to stop Anne-Marie from coming over.

Sighing, I wandered down to the kitchen as I texted her.

Are you home?

Anne-Marie's phone was constantly glued to her hand, and her thumbs moved faster than most people could speak. Her response was buzzing in my hand seconds later.

YES! Are you in town? Please, can we talk, chérie?

I took a deep breath and nearly reached into the fridge for a beer before remembering my predicament. Instead, I sullenly grabbed a bottle of water before responding.

Come over.

She had to have been standing in the foyer of her house, ready to sprint to my dad's house while she waited for my reply. Barely two minutes later, the doorbell was ringing. Pierre, my dad's butler, answered, and stammered an announcement to me as Anne-Marie barged into the house.

"In the kitchen," I said flatly.

"Nellie!" she gasped as she flew into the room. "Ohmigod, I am so glad you finally texted, cherie. I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry. Jean-Paul said I made you uncomfortable and he explained that... well... honestly, I still think you two would be an absolutely magnificent couple but I understand why you're concerned and I'll stop being so pushy about it, okay? If you two want to do... whatever you're doing, that's none of my business, but just know that you would be so good together."

She was talking so fast that I could barely breathe.

"It's fine," I said. "Just... um, one, it's kind of a secret so if you could... not blurt shit like that out in my dad's kitchen..."

Most people would look embarrassed. Anne-Marie clapped a hand to her mouth, but only to stifle a laugh.

"I'm so sorry," she giggled.

"It's fine," I said again. "They're not home."

"Can I just say, Nellie, that you and Jean-Paul would—"

"Don't," I said. "Seriously. You're my friend and he's your brother and I know that's probably kind of weird but—"

"Weird?" She rolled her eyes. "I don't necessarily want to hear all the dirty details about you and my brother, but it's not weird, cherie. You. Are. Perfect. For. Each. Other."

"We're not, and I don't want to talk about this."

"You are, and—"

My jaw twitched. "I invited you over because I still want to be friends, but if you're going to harp on this—"

"I'm not." She folded her arms and raised a perfectly-manicured eyebrow at me. "But, as you said, maybe it is weird that you are sleeping with your friend's brother behind her back, and as such, perhaps you could allow me to say a few words before I agree to drop it."

A slow heat crept up my neck. She had a point. It was a stupid point and I hated it, but it was a point all the same.

"Fine. Just this once. Say... whatever."

"Thank you." Anne-Marie drew herself up to her full height, smiling primly. "Now, Nellie, cherie, my friend. You have been in love with—"

"Stop right there. No, I haven't, and I am not."

She waved a hand at me. "Call it what you want. You have been in love with Jean-Paul since we were children and anyone with even 50% of their vision remaining in one single eyeball could see that. I have said it for years, and I am right. You protest and complain and deny it, but you cannot hide that little sparkle in your eye, and neither can he. If you are too stubborn to admit it, that is to your detriment. You have been with him for months, you loved him enough to let him take your virginity you oh-so-virtuously prized when we were 18—"

The heat in my neck vanished as the blood drained from my face. "Wait, what?! He told you?"

"In excruciating detail." Perfectly white teeth gleamed at me as Anne-Marie grinned. "Though, it was partially my fault. I can be very persistent."

"No shit," I muttered. "I can't believe him."

"Nellie, he cares for you very deeply."

"As a friend. And apparently not enough to not tell you every fucking detail of—"

"He cares for you as much more than a friend," she said. "You know he has not been with anyone else for months? You know how difficult it is to make Jean-Paul commit to anything, let alone to a woman?"

"We're not exclusive," I said.

"Perhaps you aren't, and he knows that, but he does not want anyone else."

I studied her for a moment, glaring at the satisfied smirk on her face.

"You're full of shit," I declared. "He never said any of that to you."

"He told me he took your virginity," she said smoothly. "What else do you think he's told me?"

"I don't care," I said. "He didn't say that, he doesn't feel that way, and even if he does, it's not happening. Thank you for your incredibly unwelcome opinion, Anne-Marie. I'm sorry I slept with your brother and didn't tell you. Now, can we never talk about this again?"

She almost said more, but I think she could see the hardly hidden anger and discomfort in my eyes and nodded graciously. "Of course, cherie."

"How's school going?" I muttered.

"Oh, good," she said, going to the fridge and helping herself to a bottle of water. "Boring as always. The funniest thing happened, though! You remember my friend Jacquie I told you about? So, it turns out she was sleeping with our other friend Wyatt, who was dating our other friend Leigh. And poor Leigh, she's such a little mouse and everyone kind of thought she would just take Wyatt back but as it turns out, she's dating a woman now!"

I wasn't quite sure what the funny part of the story was, but laughed softly as Anne-Marie continued talking... and talking... and talking.

It was a blessing in disguise. We sat at the table, drinking water and eating some chips I found in the pantry. Other than the occasional surprised interjection, I didn't have to say much, and she didn't notice my obvious distraction. It was nice that Anne-Marie and I were on good terms again, but all I could think about was J.P. coming over in a few hours and hiding a pregnancy test somewhere near my dad's front door.

Still, all was going well until Anne-Marie smacked my arm suddenly.

"I can't believe I forgot to ask!" Her lips curled up into a conspiratorial smile. "I've heard the rumours. Are they true?"

"What?" I frowned. "Rumours?"

Her eyes glinted mischievously. "About the new arrival."

My heart nearly stopped, but I shook it off quickly and laughed. There was no way she could mean what I thought she meant. I was reading into it far too much.

"I haven't heard anything about a new arrival. Like, someone moving here, or...?"

Anne-Marie snorted. "Of course not, cherie. I mean about the new little Belanger on the way."

He'd told her.

That bastard.

The fucking bastard.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said. "Are you... he told you?! How... why the fuck would he do that?"

"What—"

"I don't even know yet!" I hissed. "I asked him this morning. This morning, Anne-Marie, and he fucking told you already! I knew I shouldn't have trusted him. Why the fuck did he make me go through this whole charade to get the test if he was just going to tell you anyway?"

"What test?" she asked softly.

"Oh, don't pretend like..."

I trailed off, intending to glare at her, but stopping when I saw the baffled amazement on her face.

"...you don't know," I finished, my voice barely a whisper.

"Nellie!" she gasped. "Oh my God."

"Don't," I said.

"This is—"

"Anne-Marie, don't."

"—amazing!" she shrieked. "Ohmigod, Nellie. Oh, God, of course I mean, I hope you aren't if you don't want to be, but if you are? Can you imagine?! Ohmigod, Jean-Paul would be so excited, he's always wanted—"

"Stop!" I growled. "I just said I don't want to talk about J.P. with you anymore, and this is no exception."

"But you might be—"

The words tumbled out of me faster than I could even think them. "I might be pregnant, but I also might not be, and even if I am, for the last fucking time Anne-Marie, I don't want to marry your goddamn brother!"

"You might be what, Eleanor?"

Anne-Marie and I both froze, staring directly at each other as someone spoke from the other side of the kitchen. Slowly, I turned my neck. My dad stood in the entrance to the kitchen, his face oddly blank, his eyes cold and focused. Beside him stood Kimberlee, her eyes wide.

"Oh no," I whispered.

"Would you like to repeat that?" my dad said, slowly but menacingly moving across the tile floor. "A bit louder, perhaps, since I think some of the neighbours may not have heard you."

I recovered my voice as I turned the rest of my body to him. "Dad, I—"

"Or are you satisfied with just Anne-Marie knowing?" he interrupted. "Perhaps you could just repeat it for us, then, because I believe what I just heard you say is that you may be pregnant."

"That's not—"

"—not what you said? You didn't just admit to being a promiscuous whore loudly to my next-door neighbour?"

"Dad, I—"

"I thought you were better than this," he spat. "Though, I suppose I should have known better. Your mother was just as stupid, it's how we got you in the first place."

"Jeez, that's a horrible thing to say to your daughter."

None of us had seen him stride up behind Kimberlee. No one had heard the doorbell ring. I wondered if maybe it hadn't, if Pierre had just happened to open the front door at the right moment for J.P. to stride inside and toward the shouting coming from the kitchen. When he appeared, my heart jumped back to the place in my chest where it was supposed to be and started pounding hard enough that I nearly lost my breath.

"Jean-Paul," Dad said coldly as he caught sight of him. "What happened to not sneaking in the backdoor to see my daughter?"

Some men would have crumbled under my father's gaze. J.P., on the other hand, smiled that easy grin, glancing around the room as though only just becoming aware of the tension.

"Well, Mr. Belanger, I never snuck in the backdoor," he said confidently.