Bigger than Anything You’ll Know
Delilah
AFTER BREAKFAST, ABEL washed the dishes, I dried.
I was putting the last dish away as he was walking to the milk cartons, talking.
“I’ll go upstairs, shower at Jian-Li’s, then go out and get something to—”
He stopped speaking and I turned to him to see his eyes to the door. He moved that way, opening it and standing in it. A couple of seconds later, his brothers, all of them, came through, one of them miraculously carrying my bags.
Hallelujah.
“For a biker babe, your woman does not pack light,” one of the brothers said as he came in and dumped my bags. He had blond-tipped spikes on top of his short, cropped hair, and he was wearing jeans and a tee that said, Wake up. Kick ass. Repeat. He was shorter than Abel (though, it would be difficult not to be, seeing as I reckoned Abel was at least six foot four). He was taller than Chen, but his other brother was taller than him. He was also taller than me. They all were, seeing as I was five-six.
And he was the one who had chopped the dude’s head off last night.
His eyes came to me. “Yo, I’m Xun.”
“Uh, hey, Xun,” I replied.
“I’m Wei.” I heard and my eyes went to the last one I hadn’t met. The one who might have sacrificed his bike to take out two vampires to save his brother.
He had a faux-hawk, which looked awesome on him. He also had on jeans, but his tee indicated he liked the band Korn.
“Hey there, Wei.”
“Hey, Delilah,” Chen called, and I looked to him.
Chen had a spiky ’do too, but his included ragged bangs that cut across his forehead. This morning he was in a skintight, red Under Armour shirt and black track pants.
If I had to choose, I would pick Xun’s shirt as my favorite, though Chen’s was the hottest.
As for the rest, they all had cut cheekbones that they definitely got from their mom. They also had downward-angled jaws that they didn’t get from Jian-Li, so I guessed they came from their dad. Xun and Chen had sharp, straight noses with flaring nostrils, which, if I was ever asked to tell you what a hot-as-shit nose looked like, it would be theirs. Wei’s was more rounded without the flare, but although his brothers’ noses were awesome, his was far from unattractive.
“Hey, Chen,” I called back.
“Right, the lowdown,” Abel stated, and I looked to him. “Xun’s the oldest. He’s also cocky and arrogant. Further, he’s in your face pretty much all the time, and by ‘in your face,’ I mean he’s in everyone’s face.”
I felt my lips curve and looked to Xun, who lifted a hand to his forehead in order to salute me, apparently unoffended by these remarks.
“Wei is number two,” Abel went on. “He’s cocky and arrogant and a daredevil in a way it’s a miracle he’s still alive.”
I got that with the bike maneuver.
I looked to Wei and he gave me a formal bow when I did, one arm out, the other hand to his chest.
My lips curved bigger.
“You know Chen,” Abel continued. “He’s the youngest. He’s the sensitive one. He’s also the comedian. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t cocky and arrogant and a pain in the ass his own way.”
I smiled outright to Chen as he shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“It’s good you’re here,” Abel carried on. “You can drag Delilah’s shit up to Jian-Li’s so she can get cleaned up and changed. I’m gonna go out and see about finishing up the shower and toilet. I go, she stays up there and I want one of you on her at all times.”
“You’re actually gonna make this dump partially livable?” Chen asked.
“I’m gonna put a shower curtain up and a door on the toilet,” Abel answered.
Chen looked at me. “Miracle.”
I smiled at him again.
“It’s gonna kill the mood of the dungeon,” Wei noted.
“It’s gonna make the place more comfortable for Lilah,” Abel returned.
That made me feel nice.
“Finally. Been here a month and the place is still a shithole,” Xun decreed, then looked at me. But when he went on, with what he’d said, I was only half-listening. “He doesn’t even have cable and still has boxes of shit up in one of Ma’s extra bedrooms, including his stereo and CDs. Don’t know a man who can live without music, but it’s impossible for a man to live without TV.”
“A month?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Wei answered, moving further in and doing it in the direction of the fridge. “Usual drill. Ma and Chen came early, set up the restaurant, got shit sorted. Then I came out. Then Xun. Abel finalized things in Daytona and got here about a month ago.”
If I wasn’t freaked out, I would wonder about the “usual drill.”
But I was freaked out.
I was freaked out because a month ago I woke up with a rabid desire to go to Serpentine Bay. A rabid desire that was not about communing with my biker brethren while on holiday in a cool coastal town. It was a rabid desire for something else. I just didn’t know what it was (then).
I’d gone straight to work and asked my boss for vacation the minute I could get it.
Which meant I lived a month needing to be on the road to Serpentine Bay. A month where my mother gave me shit (as per usual), my father gave me understanding (also as per usual), and I practically counted down the minutes until I could get my ass on the road.
I’d arrived yesterday, unpacked my bags in the hotel, and went out.
Searching.
For what, I did not know.
But I’d found it.
“Lilah?”
Abel calling my name meant my eyes moved slowly to his.
He was studying me closely.
“What’s up?” he asked.
We had an audience. It was clear he was tight with these guys. They were family the way I knew family, that meaning they didn’t share blood but they were family all the same.
Still, at that moment, I didn’t feel like sharing the latest bizarre nuance of all that was happening with anyone but Abel.
And maybe not even him.
Yet.
So I answered, “Nothin’.”
Abel gave me a sharp look that would have been scary if he hadn’t vowed never to harm me in a way I believed him, as in believed him. Then I felt relief when he didn’t push it, just nodded his head and looked to his brothers.
“Grab her bags and get her upstairs so I can get my shit done,” he ordered.
“Roundin’ it out,” Xun stated as he moved back to the bags he’d dumped, “Abel’s the oldest. He’s cocky and arrogant and badass and should be a general, not a biker, seein’ as he likes givin’ orders so fuckin’ much.”
“It’s that big of a pain in your ass,” Abel began. “I’ll take her shit upstairs.”
“I’ll take it,” Xun muttered, grabbing the handles.
“I’ll escort the lovely to Ma’s pad,” Wei said from beside me. I looked to him and saw he’d purloined a hunk of cheese from Abel’s fridge and was gnawing at it. He grabbed my hand, lifting it and curling my arm close to the side of his chest.
That was when it happened.
The room filled with something nasty and everyone went wired.
“Don’t touch her.”
This was snarled by Abel and my eyes flew to him.
Wei let me go.
“Brother,” he murmured.
“You touch her only if I tell you to,” Abel growled.
Holy fuck.
“You know you got nothin’—” Wei started.
“Wei.” Abel cut him off. “No reply necessary. Yeah?”
“Right, yeah. Calm, man,” Wei said.
Abel scowled at him, then I watched him take in a deep breath.
His eyes came to me. “No one touches you, Lilah. You got that?”
“I . . . uh . . .” I stared at him, noting his seriousness was serious, completely forgot about his vow never to harm me, then finished, “Yeah.”
“Right,” he muttered irately, looked through his brothers and ordered, “Go.”
Apparently unperturbed by Abel’s insanely protective behavior, Chen said, “Ma wants a family lunch in the private room upstairs.”
“She’ll get it, but seein’ as it’s near-on eleven o’clock, I don’t get my ass out to pick up the shit, it might turn into dinner,” Abel replied.
It was nearly eleven o’clock?
Well, I guessed after the last night’s late night, I’d slept in.
“Hi-ho, off we go,” Chen muttered, grinning at me and making me feel slightly better after the latest weirdness that had occurred.
I had never really considered what I wanted in a man. It was strange for a chick not to do this, but I didn’t.
And I didn’t for a number of reasons.
One being that my mom and dad had not had a good relationship, not when they were together in the time I remembered them together, and definitely not after. They fought. They hated each other. And they both let me know that in a way, in and of itself, it was enough to make a girl cautious about deciding to let a man in her life.
Two being that I had other concerns. Getting a job. Setting up an apartment. Buying shit for it. Having fun with my friends. And trying to forget there was something I was missing in my life that I feared I’d never find, and, further, that maybe my mom was right and I was whacked in the head.
The last being I was twenty-nine, and although I was getting to an age where I should think about sorting myself out (seeing as I wanted kids, I just wasn’t sure I wanted a relationship to go with them), I was still young. Mom and Dad got together really early. Dad said straight up that was the biggest mistake of his life, and the only reason he didn’t regret it in a way that would make him bitter forever, was that he got me out of it. He’d told me time and again to live my life, enjoy it, figure out who I was and what I wanted, and only then go out and find it. And when I did, not to settle for anything less.
But if I did consider what I wanted in a man, protectiveness would be one thing that would be high up on the necessary side. My dad was protective. His boys were protective. Even when Mom had custody of me, I had that when I was with my dad as well as when I wasn’t. It was all I knew and that was definitely going to be a part of not settling for anything less.
Though, rabid protectiveness to the point a man wouldn’t even let his brother take my hand was totally OTT.
I thought it best at that juncture to get my ass out of there, so I walked to the door. Chen moved aside as I came his way. I felt Wei and Xun moving in behind me.
Then I heard Abel speak.
“Lilah.”
I stopped and looked his way.
“Later,” he finished.
“Yeah. Later, Abel.”
He held my eyes.
I swallowed and left the room.
The boys and I walked down the hall, up the stairs, and into the alley. This was not something I relished because none of this was welcoming—it was dark and damp, even in the daylight—and also because I was only wearing Abel’s tee and had no shoes on.
I didn’t complain. It was Abel’s space. It suited him in a weird way, but I was glad to be out of the “dungeon.”
We were in the back door of the restaurant, the kitchen bustling with activity, when Chen turned right.
He opened a door and I followed him through and up some stairs, feeling and hearing Wei and Xun behind me.
At the top, Chen dug in his track pants, pulled out a key ring, opened the door, and let us in.
I didn’t have the chance to look around before Chen spoke.
“He’s different.”
I looked to him, knowing exactly what he meant. “I know.”
“He can get intense,” Chen went on.
Boy, was he not wrong about that.
“I’ve noticed,” I replied.
Chen moved toward me, dipping his chin to keep my eyes, but stopping several feet away. “He loves with a love that’s bigger than anything you’ll know. He’s loyal beyond reason. He’d die for any of us, endure the worst kind of torture and die. He’d kill for any of us. If we were hurt, he’d avenge us and he would make that painful and messy beyond anything you can imagine. He’s the best kind of man you could know . . . the best son, the best brother . . . times about fifty thousand. Knowin’ that, you understand his intensity. Knowin’ that, you’ll eventually understand everything.”
When he finished his speech, I wasn’t sure if I felt better or more weirded out.
So I just said, “Okay.”
“I hope to God there will be a bunch of days in my life I’ll never forget,” Chen continued. “When I find the woman for me. When I make her mine. When she gives me kids. But I know one thing deep in my heart. I will never forget yesterday, when my brother found what he needed to take away his pain.”
I swallowed again, feeling my eyes sting, and I nodded.
Now that made me feel better.
“He’s protective of us. He’s protective of Ma . . . to extremes,” Chen went on. “It is not a surprise to any of us that that’s ten notches higher with you.”
“Okay,” I repeated.
“So don’t let that shit freak you,” Chen finished.
I nodded again.
Chen held my eyes for a while before he nodded back and stepped away.
I looked to Xun and Wei and saw their eyes on me. They were watching me intently, their faces void.
And I knew they thought this was a test.
A test I had to pass.
I had to accept their brother as he was, cut him some slack, get to know him, get to understand him.
And I could do that, because, as my father had said, when I found what I needed, I’d win it no matter how I had to do that, including making these three loyal brothers believe I could.
“Yeesh, dudes, give me a break,” I said. “Found the man I’ve been waiting for all my life and he’s an overprotective werewolf vampire who drinks bagged blood for breakfast, has the strength of ten men, the speed of a superhero, not to mention we have people who want us dead. This is not something a girl takes in stride. At least give me to lunch.”
This got me three smiles and a room with a lot less tension threading through it.
“I’ll take your crap to the bathroom,” Xun muttered.
“I’ll go tell Ma you’re up here,” Wei stated before turning and using the door.
“I’ll park my ass in front of the TV,” Chen said, moving to the couch.
That was when I took in the space, and at the same time, took in a breath, for the apartment above a restaurant did not look like an apartment above a restaurant but an Asian décor showplace (and a posh one at that).
It was beautiful. Rich woods. Richer materials. Lacquer. Inlays. Intricate carvings. Strikingly formed hinges and handles. Amazing curios—jade, cloisonné, and polished wood statues of foo dogs, dragons, and elephants. Wall hangings, pictures, and a four-paneled freestanding screen in one corner, all of these last depicting delicate birds and flowers.
It was not cluttered, stuffy, and overdone. It was elegant and refined.
I loved it.
“Wowza, your mom could be an interior designer,” I told Chen.
“Yeah, makes every place we go awesome,” Chen answered, clicking on the TV. “But you haven’t tasted her food yet.” He looked over the couch that appeared to be covered in red silk Damask, with dark, woven material at the sides and back. It had carved wood for feet and ornamentation. It was a couch I would not park my ass on to kick back and watch TV. It was a couch I’d probably be afraid to eat on for fear of ruining it. “When you do, you’ll know where her talents really lie.”
That meant I was suddenly seriously looking forward to lunch.
“I’m gone,” Xun stated, coming back into the room from the hall.
“North?” Chen asked mysteriously.
“Yeah. I’ll send Wei south.”
“Won’t be south, brother,” Chen told him. “A man comes out of the bay buck naked, a biker will give him a pair of jeans and a bottle of Jack and ask no questions. He does that shit down south, they’d call the police.”
This was something I knew about Serpentine Bay. As much of a biker mecca as it was, it was also an old northwest coastal town, a beautiful one at that, so it had its ritzy side. But the ritzy side and the uppity folk who lived in it kept well to their areas of fancy restaurants, boutique shops, and cliffside mansions down south, while the bikers and their hangers-on did their thing in the bars, pool halls, and poker rooms up north.
“You’re still going after him?” I asked, knowing from their words that they were going to keep searching for the werewolf.
“Could be he’s gone by now,” Chen said. “But we gotta try.”
“That’s cool,” I murmured.
“That’s brotherhood,” Xun said, and I turned back to him.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“You come with Abel. Anything for him, now anything for you,” Xun told me. Then he walked out the door before I could express my further gratitude for the warmth that filled my heart at his words.
“Go, get in something other than my brother’s tee,” Chen told me, and my eyes went again to him to see him grinning. “You don’t, I’ll start havin’ impure thoughts that may lead to me becoming a victim of fratricide.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” I noted.
“No, we would not,” Chen agreed.
I smiled at him.
He smiled back, then jerked his head toward the hall.
I took his direction and headed that way.