Chapter Nineteen
“Do you think this is what one would refer to as a twin sandwich?” I heard an amused male voice ask.
Groggily, I thought it was the voice of Damien. What was Damien doing here? Was he moving in now too?
I groaned and tried to roll to my side. I was blocked in on both fronts and unable to move even the barest of inches. I was thoroughly trapped and engulfed in the sweetest burn I had ever felt.
“Holy shit,” Julian whispered loudly.
I wriggled my body, looking for a way out of the trap I had been caught up in. I was confused and trying really hard not to panic at being stuck.
My elbow struck something soft and a very masculine groan came from the body behind me. Addison, I thought. I think he had been on that side of me when I’d fallen asleep.
My Salt and Pepper twins were trying to smother me to death with their big bodies.
The heavy arm around my waist holding me down slid away. The weight pressed against my back moved away and cool air hit my skin.
My… skin?
I shouldn’t have had that much skin exposed for the cool air to hit.
I pressed my palms against the body I was laying on top of and… Shit! I was laying on top of a body. Abel’s big body. I pressed my palms into his chest and pushed myself up as far as I could go. It wasn’t that far. I was able to move my legs around until I could press my knees into the blanket bed. This left me straddling Abel’s thigh.
I stared down at him through the mass of my thick hair and knew there were at least two different people standing behind us gawking.
Next time, whether I had a nightlight in my room or not, we were sleeping in there. I was not a big fan of being gawked at like a side show circus freak.
“Stop staring at us,” Addison growled in his rough, gravelly voice. “You’re going to upset her and that is not fucking cool.”
Addison sounded really upset and I couldn’t blame him. We had just woken up and we didn’t need this, not before our first cup of coffee.
“Right,” Julian mumbled apologetically.
“Sorry,” Damien said loudly, not sounding sorry at all.
I fought the urge to lean down and bury my face somewhere in Abel’s big body. They weren’t trying to be mean or embarrass me, I had to remind myself that. I didn’t really have anything to hide from.
“Coffee would be nice,” I stated loudly, trying to make the situation a little easier. And anything that brought me closer to caffeine in the morning was a blessing for me.
“I’m only making coffee for you, gorgeous,” Damien grumbled. “The rest of them can get their own goddamn coffee. I am not a waiter.”
I bit my lower lip to keep my laughter inside. I succeeded but my body still shook because half of my body was on top of Abel and his body was shaking with hilarity.
Good grief.
Why did they always have to put me in these absurd situations? Yes, I knew I had put myself in this one, but it still sucked and I wanted to blame the rest of them for it.
“Do you think you could get Damien to make us breakfast while he’s in the kitchen,” Addison asked from behind me and I could hear the laughter in his voice as well.
“She sent Damien off to fetch her some coffee,” Abel choked out. “Can you believe that, twin? And he actually ran off to get it for her. Unbelievable.”
On either side of me the twins erupted into hysterics and I was beginning to feel really bad for Damien. I didn’t want him to come back and hear them making fun of him and then feel bad about getting me my coffee. That would make me feel bad for asking in the first place.
“You guys,” Julian said in a quiet voice filled with warning.
I understood his warning, Damien was on his way back to us. Time to get serious before there was damage control to dish out. I didn’t think I was capable of handling damage control at any given time, certainly not before coffee. It seemed a job better suited for Quinton or Julian.
Big, warm hands tugged on the hem of the tank top that had bunched up high on my middle, below my breasts. It must have ridden high on my body while I was sleeping. Because I moved around a lot, my clothes sometimes got all out of whack. Addison pulled it down my stomach, putting it back into place where it belonged.
“Thanks,” I whispered in an embarrassed voice.
Abel shot me a soft smile before sitting up, taking me with him. I gasped in shock as his face was suddenly in mine and his arms wrapped around my hips. He leaned in and rested his forehead against mine. He brushed the tip of his nose against mine before pulling back and away from me.
His green eyes held a promise I couldn’t quite read in them and wasn’t so sure I wanted to.
“Next time, pretty girl.” He promised me in a quiet voice.
I didn’t want to know what he thought we would be doing next time and didn’t care to ask. I was sure I would find out “next time”. I could guess and that was more than enough information for me at the moment.
Abel put his hands into my back and pressed me into his body. My front fit into his and I rubbed the side of my face against his shoulder. He scooted us over to the edge of the blanket bed and placed his bare feet onto the floor.
He stood up, taking me with him. I held onto his shoulders tightly as my feet dangled above the floor. I was wrong in thinking he’d set me down. Instead, he walked around the makeshift bed until we were on the other side of it. Here he dropped me down to my feet. His hands moved from my waist around to my shoulders. He put pressure on my shoulders and I felt myself falling backwards. The backs of my legs met with the couch as my butt met with the cushion.
“Addison and I are going to go upstairs and shower, then get dressed in your room, if that’s alright with you?” Abel asked.
I stared up into his eyes and nodded. If Dash didn’t care that they were staying over then I was sure he wouldn’t care if they used his shower. For all I knew they did this all the time. And if Julian had already gone through my personal belongings what did I care if the twins did it as well. I had nothing to hide from them. Not when they’d already seen the box I’d found in Vivian’s closet.
At my nod, Abel moved away from me. Addison was already picking up blankets from the pile and folding them up. The sleeping bags were rolled up.
I went to get up to help them, but Abel turned back around and put his hand on my shoulder, stopping me from standing fully. He pushed me back down and muttered, “Stay where you are. We can take care of this. We will put everything away then head on upstairs. You stay right where you are. Drink your coffee then, please, pretty please, eat something fattening for breakfast. By the time you’re done with that, my twin and I should be done upstairs. Head on up when you’re done with breakfast and take your own shower. Dash has probably been up for hours already and who the hell knows when Quint will be over and what he has in store for us today. I’m sure he figured out a way to find your dad and we should be prepared for whatever he has planned for us.”
I sat there and watched them take care of our blanket bed. With the two of them working together it didn’t take long.
Julian and Damien watched them in silence from the doorway. Julian looking mildly amused and curious. Damien with a cup of coffee held between his hands and a brooding look on his handsome face. Neither looked at me. Both watched the twins as if they were fascinating animals behind glass at the zoo.
I could hardly blame them. I imagined I sometimes looked at the twins in much the same way. They fascinated me. They baffled me. Sometimes, I even thought they were a little bit insane. They were always very sweet, though, and I didn’t know what I’d do without them. Ty needed to up his game because my Salt and Pepper twins were creeping up on him, wanting to take over his role in my life as my bff. And, yeah, I counted the twins as one. They would have been pissed otherwise.
Abel and Addison left the room with identical condescending smirks on their faces and neither were directed at me. Julian ignored them both entirely. Damien did not. He stared them down, not bothering to hide his frown or unfriendly eyes.
I shook my head and gave Julian a small smile as he sat down on the couch on the left side of me.
The couch moved on the right side of me and I turned to see Damien had sat down beside me as well.
“Good morning,” I murmured when neither said anything and looked like they weren’t about to any time soon.
“It’s after ten,” Julian told me. “Almost afternoon.”
I bit my bottom lip. Shit. Since giving up on school I’d had no reason to get up early in the morning, there’d been no purpose to it so I’d stopped doing it. In the hospital and at the Alexander house time hadn’t really mattered so I’d paid no attention to it or when I’d slept or woken up. I really needed to find a job so I would have something to do.
“Don’t sweat it,” Damien said. “I’d rather stay up all night and sleep all morning, myself. You can sleep until three in the afternoon for all I care. Here,” he pushed the coffee mug in my direction, “take your coffee, please.”
I took the mug from his hand with an appreciative smile.
“Thanks,” I mumbled happily as I took a sip of my coffee.
It was perfect, and this surprised me but shouldn’t have. Damien, who I barely knew at all, knew how I took my coffee. Geez. Were they writing down notes and emailing them to each other so that no one missed out on the tiniest little detail about me? I wouldn’t put it past crazy Uncle Quinton with his gung-ho nature and invasive personality. I could see him taking notes down on his cell phone and sending them out to the others, adding his personal thoughts at the end. I wondered if he’d let me look through his cellphone one of these days. Now I was curious.
I choked on my coffee as I got a good look at today’s coffee mug. It was a half-naked woman in shadow with her leg kicked up high and her hands wrapped around a stripper pole. This was Dash’s? Maybe I didn’t know Dash as well as I had thought I did. Sometimes I forgot that he used to be a really big manwhore who had sex with lots and lots of women.
“Shit,” Damien cursed. He reached for the mug and tugged it out of my hands. “Guess I wasn’t really paying attention when I was pulling a cup out of the cupboard. We got this one on a trip to Vegas last year. Dash always buys something stupid like this, some novelty item from every place we visit. Cups, shot glasses, weird little spoons, snow globes. If you flip the mug around you can see where it came from.”
He flipped the mug around, but I didn’t see it. I was too busy watching Damien’s face. Gone was the brooding and the anger. Complete blankness had filled its space. There was simply nothing there and I wondered how he did it and why.
He continued talking but I missed that as well. I watched his face while he talked, looking for something, anything. But there was nothing going on there. It was a blank slate. The lights were on, but it looked like no one was home.
When looking at the twins or Julian, he’d had no problem showing expression or feeling in his face. When dealing with me, he’d wiped it away entirely. Why? Could Damien possibly be as nervous and uncomfortable around me as I was around him? That couldn’t be it, right? Damien, so self-assured, confident and asshole-ish couldn’t possibly be nervous because of little old me. That would be absurd. I knew he wasn’t afraid of the female gender on the whole because he’d had that girlfriend and from what I’d heard, she’d been the last in a very long list of them. And, unlike with Julian, Annabell hadn’t been his first, either. So it couldn’t have been the fact I was a female witch that made him uncomfortable with me because he’d been around one of those before.
Or, was it something else entirely? Maybe he didn’t like me in the slightest. So much so, he had to wipe his face entirely clean of emotion, making it devoid, in order to deal with me.
To me, this made a lot more sense than him being uncomfortable or nervous around me.
“… so long as you’re cool with it, then here,” Damien said as he tried to hand the mug back to me.
I had no clue what he was talking about, but I took the mug all the same. I nodded my head for good measure.
I took a healthy sip before placing the mug precariously on my knee and wrapping my hands around it.
“Sooo,” I drawled. “Not that I mind, but why are you two here?”
I winced. That sounded rude, even to me. This wasn’t my house, what right did I have to ask this question of them?
Julian smirked at me. I avoided looking at Damien entirely. Maybe if I stopped looking at him he wouldn’t think he had to wipe the emotions off of his face for my sake.
“We got you some things from the mall yesterday,” Julian told me. “We brought them over so you could try them on and see if we need to return anything. We shouldn’t have to, though. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of looking through a few of your boxes in your room until I found some sizes for everything I would need.”
Julian’s lips pinched tightly as his body grew tenser with each word that left his mouth. He had been worried about my reaction to his looking through my boxes. Maybe he really hadn’t been snooping through my belongings. That made me feel better.
“Do you want breakfast?” Damien asked me in quiet voice.
Julian coughed loudly as his eyes bugged out and a look of panic crossed his face.
I looked to the right to see Damien’s fists clenched in his lap and his blank eyes drilling holes into the floor.
I had no idea what was going on between the two of them but knew I did not want to find myself in the middle of it.
“Uh,” I cleared my throat. “I think there are donuts left over from the other day?”
I winced when it came out sounding like a question because I honestly had no idea whether there were any left or not.
“Should be,” Damien said. “I bought enough of them.”
He shot me a small, empty smile and stood up from the couch.
“I’ll go check. Be right back.”
“Uhh…” I said as he walked out of the room. My head whipped around to Julian and I bugged my eyes out at him. “What’s going on?”
Julian shook his head furiously. “If he cooks something for you, don’t eat it,” he said in a quiet rush. “Don’t ever eat it. I’m being serious here.”
I frowned, confused.
“What?” I asked loudly.
“Shh,” he hissed at me. “Quiet or he’ll hear you. It’s a sore spot with him.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“What’s a sore spot with him?” I asked.
“He can’t cook,” Julian whispered harshly, almost frantically. “I’ve gotten sick, actually sick to my stomach, eight different times from eating something he’s cooked for me. It’s that awful. What’s worse, is he keeps trying and never gets any better. I keep eating it because we live together and no one else is stupid enough to come around if they know he’s cooking. He likes cooking and I eat it to make him happy. Thankfully, it’s rare that it makes me physically sick. Unfortunately, it always tastes like shit. But I always eat it. You, though? Now that you know, you should try really hard to avoid it at all costs so that you never have to be subjected to its horrors.”
My lips parted in surprise and I felt a laugh bubbling up inside me. He had to be lying. He had to be. No one was that horrible of a cook. And on the off chance that he wasn’t lying to me, Julian had to be completely off his rocker to continue to eat things that made him physically ill. Who did something like that?
“You’re lying,” I choked out.
He shook his head sadly.
“You have no clue how badly I wish I were lying right now,” he whispered darkly.
He looked as serious as his voice had sounded and I believed him. He must really love Damien to keep eating his food like that. I couldn’t imagine ever loving someone that much.
“Who are you calling a liar now, Ariel?” Quinton asked from behind me.
I rolled my eyes at Julian before twisting around to find Quinton standing with a shoulder against the doorway.
“Does no one know how to knock around here?” I grumbled. “Dash must have some open-door policy that he’s yet to explain to me. I’m surprised there’s even a lock on the stupid door since it doesn’t seem to work very well. Sheesh. No wonder there’s no alarm, it would be a waste of money.”
“He lives out here in the middle of the woods,” Julian said gently. “Who’s out here to break into his house? He doesn’t see a need for an alarm.”
I felt my lips twist in disgust. These people were unbelievable.
I drained my coffee in four large gulps and handed the empty mug off to Julian. I stood up from the couch and turned around to face them and wasn’t surprised to see that there were more of them now. Tyson stood beside his Uncle. Damien stood just inside the room with a donut on a black plate. He had an eyebrow lifted in curiosity and there was a slight curve up to one side of his lips. I think he was amused. Finally. Something other than blank emptiness. I would take it, gladly. I didn’t even care if he was trying not to laugh at me. Anything was better than nothing. Don’t hold me to that, I was likely to change my mind on the subject at any given moment. I’m a girl, this was my right.
I eyeballed them all as I placed my hands on my hips.
“Has no one heard of backwoods butchers? Or, escaped convicts who find a house out in the middle of the woods and they break in and terrorize the people who live there for no particular reason other than they could and they got off on it? Oh, no, wait. That one wouldn’t count because of the breaking in part. Here, they’d simply have to walk right in, no breaking necessary.” I lifted a hand from my hip and waved it around in front of me, dismissing the entire thing. “Never mind. Just forget I said anything. I need to take a shower and unpack some of my things. I don’t want to be living out of cardboard boxes. My not having unpacked so far is rude to Dash. If I unpack some of my things, then he will know that I’m serious and plan on staying. The longer I wait to unpack, the more it will look to him like I could load my boxes into the back of my Rover at any second and take off on him. That’s not a very nice way of saying thanks for letting me move in with you.”
I started walking towards the doorway but came up short when a hand wrapped around my wrist gently. I turned my head to the side and back, seeking Julian out with my eyes.
“Yes?” I asked.
He grinned at me and, for the first time since he sat down beside me on the couch, I noticed what he was wearing. White, short-sleeved t-shirt with a V-neck. Blue jeans so worn there was a hole in one knee and they were frayed at the hem where they kissed the floor. His feet were in flip flops with wide black straps. There was a wide, thick brown leather cuff wrapped around his right wrist and a silver ring glinted off of his thumb. His gold lip ring had been exchanged with a thin black hoop. I liked it and couldn’t help but wonder if he realized we now matched. I thought it looked cute on him. I hoped he thought mine looked the same on me.
“Nice lip ring,” I said and watched in fascination as his eyes darted down to my lips and heated.
I should have kept my mouth shut and not said a word. I would never learn.
“We match,” he murmured. In a louder voice, he said, “Don’t forget Damien and I have clothes for you to try on after your shower. Shoes, too. We got you a few other things. We can bring it up to your room while you are in the shower and we will help you unpack, if you’d like.”
I wanted to say no, out of habit. But the look in his eyes that had switched from heated to gentle as he talked, changed my mind. He only wanted to help. There were no hidden motives with Julian. Damien, maybe. But looking into Julian’s eyes, I knew he meant well.
“Alright,” I agreed quietly as I shook his hand off my wrist.
Why was I always making a scene with one of them in front of several of the others? It seemed I couldn’t help myself.
Julian let me go without hesitation and I appreciated it. Quinton wouldn’t have let me go so easily and we would have gotten into a verbal sparring match because of it. I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t like this about Quinton because, like I said, this would be a lie. But the things I found attractive in Quinton weren’t so attractive in others and the things I found attractive in other people I likely wouldn’t find attractive in Quinton. I liked it that Julian let me go so easily and I liked it when Quinton held on so tight it was a struggle to breath sometimes. They were different people and their actions and words showcased this. I had much to learn about all of them and I looked forward to learning most of. That didn’t mean I would enjoy the half of it.
Quinton stepped forward and to the side, blocking my way and standing in front of Tyson. Tyson must not have liked Quint standing in his way because he side stepped him, moving closer to Damien. Now I truly was blocked off from the exit.
“What?” I snapped angrily at Quinton, not liking that he’d blocked my way and I’d been trapped.
He grinned at me and I shook my head. I was beginning to think Quinton liked it when I threw my attitude at him.
“Who were you calling a liar this time?” He asked me in a highly amused voice.
My jaw clenched. This was payback for that text I’d sent him. This was him getting back at me for calling him out. He thought he knew me and he thought I wouldn’t be brave enough to bring it up face to face and in front of others.
Any other time and I would have agreed with him. But not this time. This time it had been Julian I had accused of lying about Damien’s cooking skills. I wasn’t about to repeat what Julian told me and I sure as heck wasn’t going to bring it up in any way. I titled my head to the side and sought out Damien’s eyes, feeling like he was the best person to have this conversation with.
“Did you know he,” I jerked my chin in Quinton’s direction, “stole my underwear once?”
Damien blinked at me. “We all know about that,” he said. “In truth, I think he picked up the closest thing to him that was small enough to fit in his pocket at the time. Every one of us has given him a hard time about it but he swears it was an accident.” Damien shrugged. “How do you think he always knows where to find you?”
“Wha… What?” I stammered, not understanding what he was saying. In the back of my mind, I was going through each and every encounter I’d had with Quinton. He had always seemed to know exactly where to find me.
I pointed a finger in Quinton’s face. “If you can use magic to find me then you can-”
He cut me off. “It’s different. From everything that I’ve tried, the only thing I can come up with is that your mot… Vivian found some way and someone to aide her in using your magic to create that block between you and your… Rain. I brought over a trunk full of books to look through, but I honestly need a break from it. I’m going to take a nap on the couch, then maybe after dinner and you’ve unpacked and tried on your clothes, you can help me go through the rest of the books and look through what I’ve already found.”
As nice as he worded it, I knew he wasn’t asking. He was telling me what we were going to be doing.
In that moment, while staring into his arrogant face, knowing he expected me to argue with him before giving in, I became inspired. Truly, I was inspired.
Two could play at Quinton’s game. I knew I was an amateur where Quinton was a pro, but I’d be giving it my best effort.
I cocked my head to the side and smiled at Quinton sweetly.
Quinton’s eyes narrowed as he crossed his arms around his chest. He opened his mouth to speak but I was ready for that and I beat him to it.
“You know what?” I asked in a falsely bright voice, a voice I don’t think I had ever used before in my entire life.
Quinton’s body twitched at the sickly-sweet sound of my voice.
Victory was mine and fast approaching.
“I think that’s a great idea,” I gushed. “I’ll even cook dinner for all of us!”
“You know how to cook?” He shot back at me without hesitation.
No matter what, Quinton never faltered. A trait I hoped to one day learn from him.
“I know how to read,” I shot back in my sweet voice. “I’ve made plenty of things by reading the directions off of the back of the box.”
Yeah, like pancakes. I was in over my head but knew with where I was taking it, it wouldn’t matter.
“Just to be safe though,” I said, “since it seems you have a serious lack of faith in me in this department…” I turned my bright, false smile on Damien, and said, “I was hoping you would give me a hand and we could cook dinner together for everyone tonight. I know we really haven’t gotten to know each other very well and I think this would be a great place to start. What do you think?”
Like Quinton, Damien’s eyes had narrowed on my face. I saw the knowledge in his eyes that he knew his cooking was so bad it was to the point of being toxic and he now knew that someone had told me all about it. He probably even knew who. But what he didn’t quite understand was why I was doing this. His eyes slid from my fake smile to Quinton’s arrogant smirk and his entire face softened.
“I would like nothing more,” Damien said quietly. There was something in his voice that told me he wasn’t exactly lying, either.
“Great!” I chirped with meaning.
I smirked at Quinton before walking around him. Tyson moved aside, clearing the way for me. His eyes were on his feet, but I knew he was grinning.
I seriously hoped for my sake that Damien didn’t kill us all at dinner.
If I died, then I’d probably be getting what I deserved.
It would serve me right.