Lost in the Moment (A Savioe Family Novel)

by Ginny Atkinson

  “I don’t see what the problem is, Nate. He seems like a nice enough kid.” My mother seemed so sad. “I honestly don’t think he gets the care he needs.”

  I heard my father sigh. “I know, Eva. But there is just something about him that makes me think he’s not what he says he is. I’ve come to trust these instincts, chèr. They’ve helped me out more times, than I can count in court. All I’m going to do is just a little background check. That’s it.”

  “I think you’re overacting but if this makes you feel better. Fine. Just do me a favor and find out what his home life is like. Charles mentioned that he saw a pillowcase stuffed full of clothes in the floorboard in the back of his car. And you heard his reaction at dinner yesterday. I don’t think he’s getting fed. Not to mention when he passed out on that couch last night, I could see the bags under his eyes when I put the blanket on him.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I think he might be neglected or living in a hole.” She gasped and I could just picture her hand flying to her throat. “You don’t think he lives in that car of his do you?”

  “I’ll find out. Until we learn something concrete, the only thing we can do is what we have been.”

  “Nothing.” She mumbled.

  “No, chèr. He’s getting fed here. If it comes down to it, he can crash in the guest room. Under lock and key though. I don’t want to end up like Daniel and walk in on them. Gawd, I’d kill the boy.”

  “Not like you have room to talk. You were in my room many times before I even graduated. Or are you forgetting exactly when we had Beau.”

  I heard the sound of them kissing and scrunched my nose up in disgust. Gross. I knocked on the door to interrupt them. “Hey I just want to grab a book.” I walked into the room with my hand over my eyes.

  “Very funny, child. Grab your book and go to bed.” My mother chuckled at me.

  I quickly grabbed some vampire novel and ran out of the room. Once I was upstairs, I knocked on Charles’s door. He opened it with a grumbled, “What?”

  “Mom and Dad were just talking in the study about doing a background check on Drez. Mom thinks that there might be a huge possibility of him sleeping in his car.”

  He stepped away from his door and waited for me to enter. “Really? A background check, what are they going to do like a full criminal background or something?”

  I shrugged and sat down on his beanbag chair. “It sounded like it. Dad even mentioned that he had one of his feelings about him that screamed he wasn’t telling us everything.”

  “The feeling huh?” Charles plopped down on his bed.

  “Yup.”

  “Well shit. I was beginning to like the guy too.” He rubbed his chin pensively and crossed his legs in front of him on the bed. “Hmm, what did he say during dinner? That the press covered his parents’ death. Wonder if we can Google it.”

  I glanced over at his alarm clock. “We only have thirty minutes to look it up before they turn the Wi-Fi off for the night.”

  “That’s plenty of time, sis.” He jumped off his bed and rushed over to his laptop. He picked it up and took a seat next to me on the floor. “What did he say his name was?”

  “Marcus William Dresden the third from London, England.” I muttered as I looked over his shoulder.

  He snorted at me. “At least pretend to have to think about it for longer than a second.”

  “Oh shut up.” I nudged his shoulder.

  He smirked and typed in Drez’s name. My eyes widened at the list of articles showing up. He clicked on the first link and read aloud. “A well-known St. John’s Wood man and his family lost their lives after their luxury yacht exploded in the waters of Southampton. Shortly after 9 a.m. on Saturday, an explosion on board the ‘Raven’ rocked the harbor. It was so loud local fishermen gathered on the shore to see exactly what happened. Michael Stanton who lives nearby says it, ‘Just sounded like a bomb going off. It was unbelievably loud and rattled the windows in the house.’ The marine policing unit “MPU” said there was black smoke billowing out of the boat when they arrived. The explosion blew one man into the water. The 47-year-old was treated and released from the local hospital. The boat’s owner whose name will not be released until his family is notified was pronounced dead at the scene along with his wife. The survivor claims that a child, 6, was also on board during time of explosion. Officials are currently investigating for signs of foul play.”

  “Oh here’s the obituary.” Charles clicked on it. As we waited for it to load, I couldn’t help but feel horrible that we were looking into this.

  “I’ve heard enough. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to talk about it. Can you imagine if something like that happened to our parents?” I shivered. “You can keep looking it up if you want but I’m heading to bed.”

  “Hey Marie.” He looked over the laptop at me just as I was exiting his room.

  “What?” I stood there with my hand on the doorknob.

  “I know you like him, so do Beau and Luke. I just don’t want you to get hurt by him because of your crush.” He frowned at me and closed his laptop.

  “I know. Believe me I don’t want that either. I’ve already decided to just treat him like one of y’all and if we have to get all smoochy, I’ll just think of it as a play. That way I don’t get my heart involved.” I gave him a sad smile and closed the door. I just hope I’ll be able to do that.

  *****

  My alarm woke me up at six the next morning. I rolled out of bed and stretched my arms above my head. I think I’ll wear my old school uniform skirt today with the black shirt and boots today. I rushed out the room to the bathroom to freshen up. I plugged up my straightener and started scrubbing my teeth. After I spat out the toothpaste and rinsed, I sectioned my hair off in fourths and started straightening it. This always took forever.

  With half my head done, someone knocked on the bathroom door. I flung it open and barked at them. “What!”

  Charles stood there with his hands held up in surrender. “How much longer are you going to be?”

  “Fifteen minutes tops.” I slammed the door in his face and started on the rest of my head. Just once, I would love to have one morning where I didn’t have any interruptions or feel like I had to rush. Maybe mom and dad will finally agree to add on another bathroom. This sharing between four of us was for the freaking birds. Of course, Beau got his own when he moved into the room above the garage and Luke had his own bathroom in the attic. I finished with my bangs and turned off my straightener. I looked in the mirror and decided that a layer of hairspray should keep most of the flyaways tamed long enough to make it through school.

  I opened the bathroom door after leaving a cloud of hairspray floating in there. Charles rushed in after me and started coughing. “Dammit Marie! Ya tryin’ ta kill me?”

  I smirked as I walked to my bedroom to get ready. I pulled on my skirt over a pair of red lacy boy shorts. The matching pushup bra was next followed by the black shirt Roxy gave me. I opened my sock drawer and found a pair of knee-high socks to put on before I slipped on those leather boots with the silver buckles.

  I stood up and looked in the mirror. Yeah, my brothers are going to hate this outfit. While it was in essence the same thing I had on yesterday, just pairing it with the boots made it appear a bit edgier. I smoothed down the shirt, then the hem of the skirt and made a mental note to buy a few more bras like this one. I sat down at my vanity with a smile on my lips and applied my eye make-up just a bit darker today then topped it off with a plum lip-gloss that made my lips look like I had spent the past few hours in full make-out mode.

  Well, it’s now or never. I grabbed my bag from beside my door and headed down the stairs. Charles stepped out of the bathroom rubbing a towel over his head and just stared at me with his mouth agape. “No.”

  “Yes. See you downstairs little bro.” I took the stairs two at a time and headed to the kitchen. Beau was already in there grabbing a cup of coffee by the kitchen counter. Mom
ma stood by the twins at the small breakfast nook.

  She looked up at me and gasped. That must not be good. She didn’t even do that yesterday. I plastered a smile on my face and flounced in the room. “Good morning.”

  Beau glanced over at me and started shaking his head. “Marie….”

  I smiled at him and walked over to the kitchen island. “Beau. Is that regular or decaf?”

  He raised his eyebrow at me, looked over the outfit and shook his head. He lowered his voice so momma didn’t hear him. “Do you realize what you look like?”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee and grabbed a leftover beignet before turning around to face him. “What would that be? I’m wearing the same thing as yesterday except the shoes.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me and growled. “This is going to get you more attention.”

  I wiped the corner of my mouth getting rid of the powdered sugar from the doughnut that had collected there. “Well, good thing I have Drez then, huh?” I took a sip of the coffee in an attempt to hide my smirk.

  Momma glided over to us to try to defuse the budding argument and placed her hand on my elbow. “Marie, is that your old school uniform?”

  “Yes, Momma the skirt is from my old uniform. It’s actually a little longer than the one I wore yesterday. And this one doesn’t slide up when I sit down unlike yesterday’s.” I placed my arm over her shoulder to give her a slight hug of reassurance and whispered in her ear. “Don’t worry, Momma. In comparison to the other girls in school I’m overdressed.”

  “I know, child. There’s just something about this one that makes you look more… mature.” She hugged me back and grabbed her purse from behind me.

  Charles and Luke walked in the kitchen a few minutes past seven with their books in hand. Charles glared at me shaking his head and nudged Luke. “Told you.”

  Luke frowned and set his things on the kitchen island before shrugging his shoulder. “Roxy has worn stuff that’s more revealing than that. I don’t see the problem.”

  The doorbell rang and Charles turned to answer the door mumbling under his breath. “She looks too much like a hot rocker chick in that.” I heard the door open and him greet Drez. “Good. We need your opinion on Marie’s outfit. Luke says it’s not bad, but I don’t think she should wear it. From the looks on their faces I don’t think Beau and Momma approve either.”

  They walked in the kitchen moments later. Charles had his hand on Drez’s back ushering him through the threshold. Drez looked over at me as I stood in between Beau and the kitchen island. He barley raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulder. “I’m with Luke on this one.”

  I bit my inner cheek to keep from frowning at his response. For some reason I was hoping to get more of a reaction out of him. I took a gulp of coffee accidentally scorching my throat as I swallowed to fast. I put it down on the counter and coughed covering my mouth with my hand. “Gawd, that hurt.”

  *****

  Drez

  I woke up this morning to the sound of a train roaring past Grace. I jerked up in the backseat and bounced my head off the roof. It scared me that much. I had probably the one of the worst nights of my life to date. It took me until midnight to find a place that the police didn’t patrol so I could park the car. Even then, every little sound kept waking me up. When the train zoomed by me I just gave up on it. That was at five this morning.

  I went to one of the truck stops along the interstate to use the restroom, shave and scrub my teeth. While I was there, I changed my shirt and pulled on my dark blue hoodie. I reluctantly spent a few dollars for a large coffee and an energy drink for later. All the talk yesterday about my family had me a little melancholy. I found myself driving by my aunt’s house around six. The light was on in the kitchen and his car was gone. If I didn’t have to be at the Savioe’s at seven, I would have stopped to see how she was doing.

  When I pulled up to their house after punching in the code Marie gave me for the gate, I wasn’t in a sociable mood. To have Charles drag me through their house in an attempt to chastise Marie over her choice of clothes just worsened it. Especially when I spotted her.

  Her normally curly hair was stick straight giving it the look that it was a few inches longer. It perfectly framed her heart shaped face. The make-up she had on enhanced those damn bedroom eyes that have bloody well haunted me since Wednesday. Her shirt hugged in all the right places and that skirt hinted at every naughty schoolgirl fantasy I have ever had. But what really got to me today were the black leather boots that hinted of bad girl and the wholesomeness in her gaze. That mixture of innocence and rebellion had me quickly trying to discourage every lustful thought that started running rampant.

  I cleared my throat and said my hellos to everyone. Eva smiled at me waving me over to the kitchen island. “Grab something to eat, honey. We have plenty to go around.”

  “Thank You, Eva.” I walked over to the counter beside Marie and grabbed a cup for some coffee.

  I picked up the pot and began to pour it when Marie handed me a sausage biscuit. “The coffee is a bit weak.”

  “I don’t care. I just need something to try to wake me up.” I grumbled into the cup as I took a drink. I held up the sausage biscuit and nodded to her. “Thank you.”

  She gave me a slight frown and pursed those lips in thought before she leaned against the counter. “Slept like crap, huh?”

  I raised my eyebrow at her over the bottom of the upturned coffee cup. “That’s an understatement.” I refilled the mug and took a bite out of the biscuit. “I got maybe four hours sleep.”

  Her face scrunched up in sympathy and she let out a slow breath. “Here I’ll fix you some that will give you a kick.” She grabbed my cup and poured out the remnants. She then turned to the single cup coffee maker and tossed out the old filter replacing it with a new. The coffee grounds went in next followed by the already steaming water. She turned the machine on to let it drip. After opening the cabinet above the stove, she grabbed two small containers. With a flick of the wrist, she shook a bit of spice into the cup and took the top off the other. When the coffee had finished brewing, she pulled something out of the other container, poured the coffee into the cup and stirred the coffee with it. She turned toward me and held the mug out.

  I sniffed it before I took a tentative taste. I closed my eyes as the taste of chicory and chipotle mixed in a smoky woodsy flavor with a slight kick. I could feel the spice setting my tongue ablaze and my body instantly come alive at the tingling sensation. “Wow that does have a kick. I’m almost afraid to ask what is in it.”

  She gave me a sexy little smirk and rolled her shoulder. “Nothing that will hurt you. I just want to make sure that you are good and awake when we head to school.”

  I drained the cup and rinsed it out blinking my eyes as the caffeine hit my bloodstream. Whatever that was felt like a sudden surge of adrenalin. I turned away from the sink and caught a glimpse of her leaning against the kitchen island. She laughed at something Luke said and her face lit up with pure joy. I felt a slight pull in my chest at the sight.

  Beau looked down at his mobile and announced. “We better get going.” He walked over to his mother and gave her a hug then kissed the top of her head. He ruffled the hair on each twin. “See y’all after work tonight. You still want to go to the game later?”

  Remi’s eyes lit up. “Uh… yeah!”

  “Just make sure you’re ready to leave when you get home from school and I’ll meet you there when I get off from work. Okay?” He looked up at the rest of us and motioned for us to leave.

  We filed out of the door and headed over to the garage. Luke jumped on his bike putting on his helmet and gloves. Charles yawned before he climbed into Beau’s truck. I opened the passenger door of Grace for Marie. She rolled her eyes at me and smiled as she got in. Beau clapped me on the back and whispered in my ear. “Remember keep your hands to yourself. This is all just a pretense.”

  That set my teeth on edge. He didn’t have to remind me of tha
t. It’s not like I’m daft. If he thinks that me talking to her in the kitchen warrants that type of warning, he better prepare himself for what was to come. I pulled my keys out of the pocket of my hoodie and gave him a crooked grin that didn’t quite reach my eyes.

  I walked to the car and got in. Marie sat with her elbow resting on the door and her head propped up on her hand. I looked her over slowly, starting from her head and worked my way to her boots. Yeah, he’s going to blow a gasket when we get to school.

  *****

  We pulled into the carpark. I turned off the engine and looked at her. “Are you ready?”

  Her lips twitched in an attempt to smile as anxiety shone in her eyes. “I guess so.”

  I picked up her hand and pressed my lips against her knuckles. “Then let’s go.” I grabbed my keys and shoved them in my pocket before I exited the car. I rushed over to the passenger door and opened it for her. She slowly got out and adjusted her skirt. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her against me. My body twitched at the feel of her pressed against me. I quickly cleared my throat and started the trek up to the bus loading area.

  Instead of walking in the commons to wait for the first bell to ring, I pulled her over to one of the pillars that stood by the side of the building where a few kids hung out after exiting their buses. I leaned against the one by the window of the commons and grabbed both of her hands. “This way I can still keep an eye on Roxy when she gets off her bus.”

  “Oh.” She looked up at me shyly.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Beau as he took a seat at their table by the teacher’s lounge. His eyes went wide when he noticed us and I saw his jaw clench. The same crooked grin passed my lips as I pulled her closer to me. I gently grabbed her chin in between my thumb and forefinger and tilted her head up. I gazed into her topaz eyes for a brief moment before I lowered my head to hers. I heard her breath catch in her throat at the first feather-light caress of my lips. I closed my eyes as a surge of electricity shot through my veins. Her hand tentatively touched my chest. My heart pounded in my ears as I captured her lips again.