Chapter Twenty
I sat with my butt on the floor, a large fluffy black towel wrapped around my otherwise naked body, in-between Addison’s legs. My knees were pulled up to my chest and I had my chin resting atop of the right one.
The twins were seated side by side on my pretty wicker loveseat. I had ended up between Addison’s legs after the two of them had argued over who got to brush my hair. Abel had won. This meant Addison got to blow dry my hair, which he currently was doing.
I had thought they were both nuts.
They had ambushed me when I’d walked back to my room in my towel after my shower. I hadn’t been prepared for them and still in shock after finding out they’d shared a shower together. I knew they weren’t weird about it and they shared everything, but it had still thrown me through a loop.
This had landed me where I was now.
It was made worse by the mountain of shopping bags that covered my bed. A bed, I might add, that was made and hadn’t been made by me. The twins had denied having done the deed, claiming it had already been done by the time they’d come up here. I believed them because the comforter had yellow rose blossoms instead of red ones.
Dash seemed to be the guilty party. Apparently, when he wasn’t injured and was feeling well, he got up early, as in early, and liked to do household chores. Making my bed now seemed like one of his household chores. Given the small stack of folded clothes on top of my dresser, washing my dirty clothes was something he considered to be one of his other household chores.
I didn’t like it and I certainly wasn’t comfortable with it. Any of it.
My laundry baskets hadn’t survived the move from houses because I had yet to see them. I would need to get a few new ones for my room and figure out where the washer and dryer were so I could do my own laundry and make sure Dash never had to do it again. If he didn’t want me using his washing machine, I could always take my things to the laundromat. It didn’t sound like much fun and was a serious time suck, but it had never stopped me before. And, besides, it’s not like I had much else going for me or anything I really needed to spend my time on.
That sounded depressing.
Maybe I should consider going back to school. I knew I couldn’t continue on like this. My current route certainly wouldn’t be lonely but it sure would be sad.
My hair had only been half dried when Julian and Damien knocked on the door.
I panicked, not wanting more people to catch a glimpse of me in my towel. Addison and Abel had invited them in like this was all normal to them.
Neither new arrival had so much as blinked at my appearance. Instead, Julian had asked me if it was okay with me if they started to unpack the boxes that had my clothes in them. I had agreed simply because it would have made me feel awkward not to have.
Addison continued to blow dry my hair as Julian and Damien unpacked my clothes. I had rested my chin on my knee and closed my eyes instead of watching them pull things out of my boxes and put them away. I didn’t want to see them handle my things.
I had closed my eyes and thought about something I had been refusing to allow myself to think about. I thought about Marcus, Mr. Cole. It had been a while since we’d talked. Too long, in fact. He hadn’t been in my life for a very long period of time, but he had made a great impact upon it. I missed him. I wasn’t stupid. I knew Marcus was the reason I was so intent on looking for my bio dad. He was also the reason I was plagued by doubts when it came to Rain Kimber. If a man like Marcus Cole could care about me so much but still want to leave me, what did that say about me? Nothing good, I thought.
I knew down to my bones that I had made the right decision to stay with the guys and not go with Marcus to live with his family in a different state. Even after finding out he had magic, I knew I had made the right decision. Knowing something was right and then actually having to live with your choices were two entirely different things. I never questioned my decision to stay, but I did miss that man a whole lot and whished every single day that he would have stayed behind with me.
It was an incredibly selfish thing to think and every day that I thought it, I wished I hadn’t. Guess that meant I really did love Mr. Cole because his happiness meant more to me than my own ever could. Didn’t make it any easier or mean I missed him any less. It was kind of weird to me, how much I missed him because we weren’t even that close. I think it had a lot to do with him being a decent human being and giving a shit about me and then him knowing my secret and being a part of the guy’s life. Mostly, it was him being a decent human being and giving a shit about me.
“Ariel,” Damien called out over the noise of the hair dryer, snapping me out of my thoughts. He held up a box on its side with the open top aimed at me for inspection. “What about your books? Do you care if I put them on your bookshelf?”
I shook my head.
“No,” I said loudly. “I don’t care.”
I did care.
This seemed all wrong.
Me sitting here in a towel while someone else put away my belongings.
I looked around the room, going from person to person. None of them seemed to care or think anything was wrong here. Abel was relaxed and looking at something on his phone. He didn’t look like he had a care in the world. Julian had two of my dresser drawers pulled all the way out and on the floor. He was busy color coordinating my clothing. Damien had already done this with what they had both decided belonged hanging up in my closet. This was one of the few times where I had been grateful I didn’t have a whole lot of clothes for them to go through.
However, I didn’t want them going through the rest of my boxes. I kept journals and they were in there somewhere. None of them said anything about them but they said other things about my life that I wasn’t really fond of sharing and rehashing.
I was about to say something about it when the hair dryer shut off.
“Done,” Addison said in a proud voice.
Goodness.
These boys were nuts.
And the Salt and Pepper twins really seemed to enjoy brushing and blow drying my hair.
I wanted to jump to my feet but couldn’t out of fear my towel wouldn’t want to come with me and I’d find myself in a bit of a disaster.
“Excellent,” Damien clapped gleefully. “Now, let’s get you something new to try on.”
He sounded so excited that I almost felt bad for him. My idea of a good time was not trying on clothes in front of a group of people. In fact, this sounded like the exact opposite of a good time for me.
I watched in horror as Damien upended bag after bag, dumping them on to my bed. This had to have cost a fortune and it made me extremely uncomfortable to think about. They had spent all of this money on clothes for me that I hadn’t even needed in the first place.
“I don’t really want to-”
Damien waved a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly. “I’m not going to make you try everything on. That would take a goodly amount of time. I just want you to try on a few things to make sure Julian got the right sizes for you. They looked wrong to me, but he seemed sure of himself. I want you to try on a shirt, a pair of shorts, one of these leggings and maybe a pair of jeans. Oh, and one pair of boots.”
I hated to admit it, but I perked up at the mention of boots. I couldn’t help myself. I had been dreaming of a pair of kick ass boots for a while now. What could I say, a girl could only wear flip flops for so long. Eventually it might snow, and I wasn’t really a huge fan of toe socks.
There were a few bags that he didn’t upend over the bed but set aside on the floor. I told myself I wasn’t curious but that was me lying to myself. I didn’t want to be curious.
The twins stood up at the same time. They moved around me as I clutched the towel tightly to my chest.
Abel knelt down beside me, putting himself at my eye level. His eyes swept over my face as he reached up and brushed a strand of blonde hair back behind my ear.
“Do you have more earrings?” He asked me.
I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why?” I asked. “Do you want to run out and buy me some more if I tell you that I don’t have any other ones?”
He shook his head with a small smile playing at his mouth.
“Nope,” he said quietly. “I’m smarter than that. Christmas is coming, though, and every girl needs jewelry.”
I scrunched up my nose at him. Very dignified of me while sitting there in my towel.
“I don’t need any jewelry,” I told him honestly. “I don’t need anything. From the look of things from where I’m sitting, I probably won’t ever need new clothes again. This lot will last me until my late nineties.”
He leaned in closer and placed his hand on my bare shoulder. He shook me gently, and I knew he wished he could shake some sense into me but wouldn’t go there because I was a girl and he didn’t want to risk hurting me.
“Please be nice to them,” he whispered fiercely.
I knew he whispered because he didn’t want Damien or Julian to overhear him. He hid nothing from his brother.
“What’s the worst thing that happens?” he continued in his fierce whisper. “You have clothes to wear until the day you die, and you’ll never have to go to the mall again? Is that really something you should be complaining about? I don’t think it is. I think you should give them a chance and be nice to them. They’re really trying here.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’d only been to the mall a hand full of times and I’d yet to actually buy anything from a mall. If I could help it, I probably never would. In this day and age when you could buy pretty much anything over the internet, why would you ever even want to go to the mall. If I ever had money to go shopping with I would do it on my laptop.
Since I likely wouldn’t be needing clothes until I was creeping up on my one hundredth birthday it didn’t really matter.
“I can be nice,” I promised in a soft voice.
I absolutely could and would be nice. And I could even be a little grateful. But I didn’t like it. I had asked them not to buy me things and I had said I didn’t need any more clothes and my opinion on the matter hadn’t meant diddly to any of them.
They all knew where I’d come from and that I hadn’t grown up with much. I was used to it. I wasn’t going to be comfortable with everything changing overnight. I just wasn’t.
Addison squatted down beside his brother. His blue eyes were dead set and oh so serious.
I wasn’t going to like what came out of his mouth next, I knew it.
“No more going hungry,” he whispered in a voice as fierce as his brothers had been and I flinched.
This is what sharing your secrets got you. They always came back to bite.
“No more Ramen and crackers for you, pretty girl,” he said as he chucked me under the chin. “And no more Goodwill. Get over it and get over yourself. You had to see this one coming.”
I shrugged helplessly. The fight immediately left my body. I remembered how upset Addison had gotten when I’d told him a little bit about how I’d grown up. He’d told me to shut up and that he never wanted to hear about it again. He’d apologized, telling me he hadn’t really meant it, that I could share anything with him, but I didn’t think I’d want to walk that particular road with him again. Not when he got so upset on my behalf.
“I already told your brother I’d be nice, and I meant what I said,” I groused. I left out the part where now I would work even harder at it because of what he’d just said. I didn’t think he needed to hear it when I was certain he already knew it.
It dawned on me in that moment like a light being switched on. The Salt and Pepper twins were managing me. They had been all morning and part of last night. And they were good at it. I couldn’t even be mad.
“You have fun playing Barbie dress up with the guys,” Abel cut in. “We have to go. We have a client at the big house this afternoon. Normally, we wouldn’t even be dealing with these people but with Quinton not allowing Dash to take on any more clients until he’s fully healed, and Julian has been hovering around here because you and Dash are here so he’s out of commission at the moment as well. Then there’s Quint who is incredibly aggressive at the moment and unable to pretend he’s a human being around a normal person right now. He’s out, too. He’s also pissed because Dash put his foot down and won’t allow clients here anymore until you’re comfortable with it. Now they are coming to the big house and Quinton doesn’t enjoy having strangers in our house. You’re really stirring shit up for us, girl.”
I bit my lower lip hard. I didn’t want to stir shit up for them. Why did he sound excited by this?
They were all crazy.
“I’m sorry,” I said for lack of anything else to say. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to what he’d said.
Both Addison and Abel laughed.
“We’ll be back for dinner,” Abel choked out. “I’m sure it’ll be… interesting.”
“Can you cook?” Addison asked me.
“I’ve never really tried before,” I told him honestly.
“Fuck,” Abel burst out. “Twin, this is it. We’re all gonna die.”
“No one’s dying tonight,” I said, trying to reassure him.
They both laughed again.
On the inside I was starting to get scared.
Could you die from food poisoning?
I thought you could.
“He can’t possibly be as bad as all of that, can he?” I whispered urgently.
They simply laughed harder before kissing the top of my head and leaving.
Guess I could always burn whatever it was to the point of being inedible, then at least no one would die from eating it. I could do that, but if I did, I didn’t think Quinton would ever let me live it down.