"Hey, Andie, it's me, again. Listen, I know you have some reservations about the move to Florida, but this job is going to open up so many doors for you. And it's as temporary as you want it to be. You're not tied to it. I mean, I'd appreciate it if you gave me at least six months or so, but, regardless, you can return to Chicago anytime. Just get down here, and uh... Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you. Six years is too long. So... Call me."

Frowning, Andie pulled the phone away from her ear and shut off the voicemail. She scowled at the phone for a long moment, squinting at the glare from the sun that reflected from the screen.

She was standing on a beach, just seven miles from Eric. But he didn't know that. He thought that she was still in Chicago, preparing for her journey to the Sunshine State. Little did he know, Andie had arrived yesterday, thinking that perhaps once she was here, she would feel more certain of her decision to work for her entrepreneur stepbrother.

She couldn't have been more mistaken. Now that she was here, she felt more uncertain than ever.

"You're not listening to that voicemail again, are you?"

Andie turned, a smile on her face, because Jen, the bartender at the tiki shack, was quickly becoming one of her favorite people, and not just because she was supplying Andie with alcohol.

Sighing, she stepped back under the shade of the awning, sliding into the barstool she had vacated just minutes ago. Her flipflops dangled in her right hand, and with the other she dropped her phone on the bar and reached for the drink she had briefly abandoned.

"No, I wasn't."

"Liar," the bartender muttered, pursing her lips and propping her fist on her hip. "What's this job anyhow? Why's it got you so torn?"

"Economic Developement Analyst," Andie answered with a face that the bartender mirrored. "But it's not the job. It's—"

"The brother, right, right," Jen interrupted, nodding her head. "And ya'll had a falling out and haven't seen each other in six years."

"Step-brother," Andie corrected before bringing her Sex on The Beach back to her lips and taking a long drink.

"What was the falling out?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I really do!" Jen leaned into the bar and clasped her hands together. "This is why I became a bartender, so random strangers like yourself will befriend me through your troubles because I listened and offered unlicensed therapeutic advice."

Throwing her head back, Andie laughed. "Alright, alright," she raised her hands to ward of any further begging from her new "friend."

"So, what happened was..." Andie took a deep breath, never having really discussed with anyone, aside from Morgan, the overall summary of what happened the night that Eric took the internship. "My mom—and Eric's died—when I was fifteen. Eric was twenty and he had to come home from college to be my legal guardian. He stayed for about four or five months before taking the internship. I was sixteen by then, and still required an adult in the home, so Eric called my aunt in to come take care of me."

"Shit," Jen breathed. "That's rough. So, he just...abandoned you?"

Lowering her head and offering half a shrug, Andie took another long drink of her pink beverage. "You know, we didn't know each other that well... We, uh... Struggled to maintain a decent relationship I guess."

"I understand the hesitation. I'd be holding a grudge too."

"I'm not holding a grudge, I'm just nervous! I haven't seen him in a long time, and things didn't end great. I mean, we've kept in touch over the years, but even that didn't start up until about a year ago. Before then, it was total silence. He didn't come back for holidays, I didn't see him at graduation, he wasn't there when my aunt died... I mean, it was weird, you know?"

"Sounds like a jerk to me." Jen shook her head, frowning bitterly for Andie's sake. Despite the miserable feelings the story brought up, Andie smiled, grateful to be able to talk to someone about it; likely someone who she would never see again, which was part of the benefit.

"Yeah, I guess he was," Andie laughed weakly. "He wasn't always so bad though. I really liked him. When he left, I was angry, but I was more sad than anything. I, uh...missed him. It was a tough time."

"Oh, girl... My heart is breaking for you."

"Oh," Andie gulped through another drink, waving her hand at Jen and dismissing the bartender's sympathies. "It's not a big deal. It sounds tragic, and maybe it was a little, but I'm fine now. That was a long time ago."

"Six years isn't that long."

Frowning, Andie felt her uncertainty intensify. With a little black straw, she stirred her drink around, all the while Jen wiped down the bar with a damp rag while ranting about Andie's stepbrother.

"I mean—to leave you like that when you were just a kid, especially when he was so important to you, I mean, you didn't have to say it, I can just tell. And this job offer that he's suddenly got to offer after all these years? Is he trying to make up for his actions six years ago? I doubt a cushy little job can take away the self-esteem and abandonment issues you've likely gained over the course of your tragic teenage years."

Despite the ache in her chest, Andie smiled. Maybe Jen should be a friend. So far, Andie didn't have any friends in Florida. This beautiful, tall, wise-mouthed bartender could be her first.

"Hey," Andie interrupted Jen's rant. "Would it be OK if I came back and whined about my life some more?"

"Come back? You're not leaving here without my phone number! Here, let me get your digits." From her back pocket, Jen produced a phone. Then, the two girls exchanged phone numbers. "You have to tell me what happens, alright? When does the job start?"

"Well, not for another two weeks. I'm technically not supposed to even be in Florida until the seventh."

"Wait," Jen cut off Andie with a raise of her hand. "He doesn't know you're here?"

"Nope. And he doesn't need to. Not until I'm certain about the job. If it doesn't feel right in a few days, then I'm going back to Chicago. My roommate is holding my room for me just in case."

"Where are you staying while you're here?"

"I'm subletting a place for now...The owner is pretty flexible. If I have to go, I think she'll understand."

"Well, I wish you the best of luck. And if I don't hear from you, and I'm going to track you down so that I can get the story in full."

Grinning, Andie gulped down the rest of her drink, obtaining the buzz that she was hoping for. With a wave of her hand and a mumbled "I'll call you," around the cube of ice in her mouth, Andie picked up her phone and left the bar with her flip flops in hand.

Her little sublet was quite special; just a few blocks from the beach, it was nothing more than a glorified beach shack. It was tiny, and it was perfect, and it would be missed if Andie felt that revisiting a life with Eric just wasn't a good idea.

Andie was trying to leave the past in the past, and for at least four of the six years, she had done a very good job of that. But now that she was this close to possibly seeing Eric once again, her old feelings of betrayal, rejection, and abandonment resurfaced to remind her how badly she had been hurt.

Inside her temperate home, Andie kicked off her flip flops and walked across the cool granite floor to the bathroom where she divested herself of her tank top and cotton shorts. In the shower she washed the sand from her skin, relying on the hot water to scrub her stress and anxieties away. When it didn't work, Andie stepped from the shower, located her phone, and just to torture herself once again, listened to the voicemail for the millionth time:

"Hey, Andie, it's me, again. Listen, I know you have some reservations about the move to Florida, but this job is going to open up so many doors for you. And it's as temporary as you want it to be. You're not tied to it. I mean, I'd appreciate it if you gave me at least six months or so, but, regardless, you can return to Chicago anytime. Just get down here, and uh... Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you. Six years is too long. So... Call me."

Andie's thumb hovered over the call back button. She hadn't actually talked to him during this whole process. When he reached out to her one year ago, it was via email. They eventually moved on to texting, but they hadn't actually talked on the phone yet.

That's why Andie was so obsessed with the voicemail. She hadn't heard his voice in six years...

Biting her lip, she looked at the time. It was a little after 2:00PM, right in the middle of the work day. He probably wouldn't answer his cell if she called. But he likely would if she called his office phone...

Chewing thoughtfully on her lip, Andie located his office number in one of his original emails. Again, her thumb hovered over the screen. Her heart started to race in her chest as if she had already decided that she was calling him today.

She was so worked up, that she figured she might as well follow through with it.

So, she pressed the number, and with a trembling hand, brought the phone to her ear.

She was sitting on the bathroom floor, garbed in nothing but a white towel, when:

"This is Eric."

So, he didn't have caller I.D. on his office phone, Andie thought to herself as her stomach dropped at the sound of his voice.

"Hello?"

His voice was deep, professional, and...commanding. It sent her reeling back to the young sixteen year old girl who obeyed his every comand.

"Hello?" His voice bit through the phone, making her jump. He was impatient now, angry that somebody was wasting his time.

She had to speak eventually.

Click.

Yanking the phone from her ear, she saw that the call had ended. Eric had hung up on her. Well...he didn't know it was her.

Breathing unevenly, Andie put the phone down, scowling at the tile of her bathroom floor, and feeling the strange desire to burst into tears. It had been a long while since she'd dealt with this much personal stress, and it was evidently getting to her.

Rising to her feet, she dressed and dried her hair, before sitting at the edge of her bed and making the ultimate decision to call Eric once again. Enough time had past, that hopefully he wouldn't find the correlation between the two calls.

With a deep breath, Andie redialed the number and waited through three rings before Eric's voice returned, sounding just as professional and commanding as before. This time, Andie was prepared for it... mostly.

"This is Eric"

Swallowing hard, Andie exhaled a shaky breath of hair. "Hi, Eric."

She waited through the strange silence that replied to her greeting, holding her breath for Eric reply.

"...Andie?"

"Yeah...." Andie couldn't help but smile—it had just been so long.