by Mary Martel
I made my bed before going into my closet to pick out clothes. I pulled a black, short-sleeved t-shirt off of a white, plastic hanger. The front of the shirt said Go Float Yourself in white cursive lettering. I had found it for a steal online after becoming obsessed with the television show The 100. I hadn’t read the books yet, but I did order the first one when I got the shirt and had every intention of reading all of them. The shirt and the book had only arrived days ago, and this would be the first time wearing it.
I dug through a black laundry basket on the floor that had my folded clean clothes in it that I had yet to put away. I found a pair of black leggings and a purple bra with matching panties. I grabbed a rolled-up pair of fuzzy purple socks to match the underwear. Not that anyone would see my underthings or care that they matched my socks. Because I planned on spending the rest of my day alone, of course. Not that that would matter.
I left the closet, tossed my fuzzy socks onto my nicely made bed and went into the bathroom. I went to shut the door and hesitated. I had been using the bathroom down the hallway to shower ever since the… accident. Did I really want to shower in here now?
I stared blankly at the counter and could see her head bouncing off the corner like it was happening right in front of my face again. I saw her head hit the floor and the blood start to pool out around her. And her eyes. Those dead, sightless, achingly familiar eyes.
I drew in a deep breath and shook my head, trying to shake free of the memories. It was just a shower in a normal bathroom, I could manage that.
I avoided the counter and moved towards the shower.
I stopped when I caught sight of myself in the mirror and had to take a second to stare at my reflection.
I looked different than I had a month ago. I now had dark circles under my eyes and my tan had faded immensely. My skin would darken again and quickly if I spent a few days outside in the sunshine. Something I needed to consider doing because my face looked unhealthy without the tan.
My shoulder length, ash blonde hair looked a frightening mess from having slept on it and not shampooing it for a few days and also not having brushed it since yesterday morning. Not a pretty look for me. And I had gone downstairs and faced Quinton and Mr. Cole like that. I’m surprised neither of them had run from me or, at the very least, laughed at me.
My green eyes were dull and lacking in any kind of emotion. It scared me, and I remembered why I had been avoiding looking in the mirror.
I dumped my clean clothes on the closed toilet seat, stripped out of my day-old pajamas and got into the shower. I didn’t linger under the hot spray of water. I did my thing and was out in less than ten minutes. I also didn’t linger in the bathroom. I quickly dried off with an oversized bath towel and dressed in the clothes I had picked out. I wrapped a towel around my wet hair so my hair wouldn’t soak through my t-shirt and make me uncomfortable.
I left the bathroom with an armful of dirty clothes and my used towel, I planned on dumping them in the dirty laundry basket in my mostly empty, gigantic closet.
The clothes slid from my fingers, falling to the carpet as I stood in the open doorway taking in my bedroom.
A smile spread across my face as I bent over and picked up the clothing I had dropped. My smile grew bigger as I moved across the room to the closet. I dropped it all in the basket and walked back into my room.
Addison and Abel, the Salt and Pepper twins were both sprawled out on my bed. My mood immediately lifted at the sight.
The watched me step out of the closet with an intensity I was only used to coming from Addison. Abel was the sweeter of the two. Not that Addison couldn’t be sweet or that Abel couldn’t be intense or serious because they could be. I just wasn’t used to getting intense vibes off of both of them at the same time. They usually balanced each other out, one light – one dark. Unless, of course, they were being playful.
The light and dark that balanced out their personalities could also be applied to their looks. They were twins and, for the most part, they were identical. But there was a reason I called them the Salt and Pepper twins.
They were the same height and that height was tall. At least six foot two, that tall. They were the same build. Muscular, with broad shoulders, wide hips and thick, tree trunk like thighs. They were huge, but not fat. Extremely muscular, but not to the point where it was overboard and made them scary looking.
Addison was my Salt twin. He had hair so blonde it was close to being considered white. His eyes were pale and light blue.
Abel was my Pepper twin. His eyes were a bright, vibrant green that practically glowed. His hair was black, so black you could sometimes see shades of blue in it.
And they were both absolutely lovely to look at. High cheekbones, firm, strong jawlines, kissable lips. Lovely.
They even dressed similar and I was convinced they shared clothes. Today, they wore white, long-sleeved Henley’s. Dark blue jeans. Black belts with silver buckles. And they were both barefoot.
“So,” Abel drawled. “Quint tells us you saw our dicks at the full moon ritual. And you didn’t want to stick around so you could play with them? You disappoint me, pretty girl.”
His deep, rough, gravelly voice washed over me like a comforting blanket and not even the embarrassment brought on by his words could kill the smile on my face.
“I’m heartbroken,” Addison said from beside his brother on my bed, in the same voice.
“Me too, twin,” Abel said. “Maybe if she came a little closer she could kiss the hurt away and make it all better?” His voice sounded hopeful, but it did nothing to remove the seriousness in his eyes.
“Mmm…” Addison murmured non-committedly. “I don’t think so, twin. From the way things are looking from where I’m sitting, it’s our girl Ariel who could use some TLC.”
“Yeah, what gives, pretty girl?” Abel asked me. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week and you’ve lost even more weight. Weight you couldn’t afford to lose in the first place. We talked about this already.”
I fidgeted under their scrutiny, twisting my fingers together in front of me.
“Apparently, you don’t listen very well,” Addison rumbled harshly. “We wanted you to gain some weight, not lose more of it. Is it too much to ask that you take care of yourself? I realize you have been going through a lot, and I sympathize with you, I really do, but it’s no excuse for your appearance. Asking you to take care of yourself, to eat, to sleep, to try and be healthy, that’s not asking for too much. It’s something every person should just do on their own. You can be sad, you can be angry even, but you still need to eat.”
He shook his head angrily and ran his hand through his white hair.
He was angry with me and I was glad for it. Abel didn’t seem much happier with me than his brother at the moment.
I remember Abel telling me that the only family he and Addison had left after the death of their parents was Tyson, Quint and the rest of the guys. And now they had me and Addison very much thought of me as family. He had from the very beginning. He also had serious abandonment issues since their parent’s death and he was extremely worried I would just up and disappear on them. Something I had actually gone and done to them.
If it were them who had disappeared on me I wouldn’t have been angry, I would have been hurt. I had a feeling Addison was hiding his hurt behind his anger, so I wouldn’t see that I hurt him.
“Have you not been eating?” Abel demanded to know.
I unwrapped the towel from my hair and let it drop to the floor. I couldn’t have a serious conversation with my hair wrapped up in a towel on top of my head. It seemed ridiculous and I had already filled my quota of conversations with bad hair for the next month or two. Probably even longer than that.
I picked the towel up off the floor and tossed it in the direction of the closet. I was usually much cleaner than this, honest.
“I’ve been eating,” I told them as I moved towards the bed, towards them. I hadn’t lied, I had been eati
ng, just not as much as I should have been. “And, I do sleep. Or, at least I try to sleep. I just…”
“Have been having that awful dream.” Abel said softly.
I didn’t know why I was surprised, I shouldn’t have been. Nothing about me seemed to be a secret between them. I didn’t like that very much.
If everyone knew about my reoccurring nightmare, then did they already know about the kiss I had shared with Quinton? I hoped not. I would like for some things to remain private between the whole lot of us.
“We know about the dream,” Addison confirmed in a soft voice that mimicked his brothers. “Tyson told us this morning.”
I bit my bottom lip, unhappy at hearing this news. I imagined it had been Quinton who blabbed, I never thought it would have been Tyson. His potential BFF status dropped a notch at hearing this news. Best friends weren’t supposed to share your secrets, even if it was only to family. They were supposed to take your secrets to the grave. Or was that only with girls? Were there different rules because he was a boy and I was a girl? I didn’t know, I had never had a best friend before, boy or girl.
I couldn’t think about it, it would give me a headache.
“We also know about Marcus moving,” Addison said, keeping the information flowing.
He sat up on my bed and scooted down until he was at the bottom of the bed and he hung his long legs off the side. His bare feet touched the floor and he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Hunched over like that, he looked older and, for the first time since I walked out of the bathroom, I noticed I wasn’t the only one with dark smudges under my eyes.
Addison had them too.
“And we know about you moving in with us,” Abel said as he moved down the bed until he sat beside his brother. He leaned back into the bed on his elbows and crossed his feet at the ankles.
Why weren’t they sleeping?
And why did they never wear socks or shoes?
I stood in front of them and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Why haven’t you been sleeping?” I asked them both quietly. “You know why I’m having problems. What’s your excuse?”
Addison stood up suddenly and loomed over me. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Abel sitting up straight on the bed. His eyes were all for his brother and he looked worried.
I had to crane my neck back to look Addison in the eyes. I wasn’t short, but I wasn’t that tall.
“There’s this girl,” Addison rumbled angrily. “She means everything to my family and she means everything to my brother and me. But she’s been going through some shit and she’s shut us out. I don’t like being shut out. I don’t like seeing the hurt and the worry in my twin’s eyes. I don’t like it at all, Ariel. And I really don’t like that it’s there because of you.”
Direct shot, straight through the heart.
He raised his big hand and cupped my cheek gently. His hand was warm and felt so nice I couldn’t help but close my eyes and lean into his touch.
“If you’re hurting, we are hurting,” he whispered fiercely, his voice full of some dark emotion. “That’s how family works. But it’s different with you because you are a girl. It’s worse because you’re a girl. There are so few of you female witches and after Annabell we never thought we would get one of our own. Now we have one, we have you, and it was supposed to be different.”
I sucked in a sharp, pain filled breath and would have moved back, away from him, but the hand not cupping my jaw curled around my hip and he forcefully pulled me into his massive body. I didn’t want to be closer to him. I wanted to get far, far away from him and his words.
“No, no,” he said hurriedly. “Don’t take that the wrong way. It wasn’t meant to be taken like that. We’re supposed to watch over you. We’re supposed to take care of you.”
He let out a shuddering breath as he slid the hand on my cheek down to my neck and back. His hand moved back until he palmed the back of my head and tangled his fingers into my wet hair.
“Since meeting you, we’ve messed everything up. Hell, we messed everything up before we met you. I think you know that before we actually met you, before you and your mom moved in with Marcus, that we all shared a dream about you. We all knew you were coming and we all knew what that meant, what that meant for us on the whole. Yet we left for the whole summer anyways. You were left alone with that woman for months while we were off on some bullshit male bonding trip. Quint was right to want to stay here because of you. But we didn’t stay because he was outvoted, and it kills me to think about what you went through when we could have been here for you but weren’t. Then we’re back all of two days and you’re bleeding from a goddamn head wound caused by that awful woman. What kind of messed up things did you go through that we missed while we were gone for the summer?”
His nostrils flared angrily as he sucked in a deep breath.
His light, light blue eyes, eyes I could easily lose myself in, filled with tears and unspoken words. He closed them tightly and when he opened them again the tears were gone. He’d successfully pushed them down and away.
I wished this was a skill he could teach me because I would love to learn.
“We were supposed to take care of you,” he whispered.
My breath hitched at the raw emotion I heard in Addison’s voice.
God.
God.
Fucking God.
What had I done to them when I walked away and refused to see them or take their calls? No, let’s be honest here, when I ran away from them? Admittedly, running away had been a natural reaction at the time, but I hadn’t thought about them and how they would feel when I did it.
“Addison, I’m…” My voice caught in my throat, forcing me to stop speaking. Not that I minded, I honestly had no idea what to say to him. I could apologize but I had a feeling that wouldn’t have meant a whole lot to him. Actions spoke louder than words and my leaving them for weeks on end had spoke louder than any apology I could utter now ever would.
He released me abruptly and stepped back, leaving me alone and cold. So very cold without his warmth wrapped around me.
My eyes burned and my throat convulsed as I watched him pull a shutter down, covering his eyes and hiding his true emotions from me. My heart beat wildly inside my chest as I bit down hard on my tongue, tasting sweet copper. I winced, knowing I’d made myself bleed. Blood was a whole lot better than tears.
“Abel is going to stay with you tonight,” Addison told me in a gruff voice. “I just really need to be alone right now.”
I bit my lips, blinking rapidly.
“Addison,” I choked out.
“Let him go, Ariel,” Abel said in a quiet, subdued voice.
Addison moved past me, heading towards the door.
I couldn’t leave things the way the were. I couldn’t let him walk away from me, not like this, not upset and angry, not with Abel looking so concerned for his brother.
Good, good, grief. I did not do well with this emotional stuff.
I thought about what to do.
Then, I thought to hell with it.
I spun around and flew after him, running. I caught up to him in the hallway and didn’t stop until I crashed into his back. I pressed the side of my head into the middle of his back, wrapped my arms around his middle and held on for dear life.
A deep breath shuddered out of me. I did not want to let him go. If Addison left now, I did not want to be left alone with Abel. I knew Abel wouldn’t blame me, but I’d seen his face when his brother had said he needed some time alone. Abel, the look on his face, he’d been crushed by his brothers need to be alone. As far as I knew, the twins did everything together. One of them had even gotten upset when they found out the other one couldn’t sleep at night and hadn’t bothered to wake up their twin. I didn’t want to be the reason they stopped doing everything together. And I cared about the both of them, so very much. I needed Addison to stay, for both Abel AND myself. I knew I deserved to see him walk away from me like
I had done to him, to all of them. But, the look on Abel’s face had told me he couldn’t handle watching his brother walk away.
I needed to make it right. I would do anything to make it right between us.
“Please,” I pleaded in a quiet voice. “Stay. Stay with Abel and me. Spend the afternoon with us. And, if you really, really, want to be alone, then you don’t have to spend the night with us. But, please, I beg of you, just spend the afternoon with me and with your brother. The three of us, we haven’t gotten to spend much time alone together. I would like to spend time with you.”
I held my breath, waiting for his response. I had put myself out there, something I usually avoided doing at all costs. What would putting myself out there cost me this time?
I held my breath and I waited.
Chapter Ten
Addison remained stiff in my arms, unmoving and making my heart sink to depths I did not even know I carried inside of me.
Now I’d really gone and done it. By putting myself out there with Addison, I feared I had only succeeded in making things worse.
Addison’s big body relaxed against me. His arms came up and he placed them atop of the arms I had wrapped around his middle. His big hands covered my small ones and he laced our fingers together.
“Alright,” he murmured. “I’ll stay with you two. I’m going to run home real quick, then I will be back. Okay?”
Hmm…
If I said okay, then I would be forced to let him go. If I let him go, he might run away and not come back again.
Decisions, decisions…
I let him go and stepped back.
He was mine. Both Addison and Abel were mine in whatever way I wanted them.
He’d come back to me. Even if he didn’t, I knew Abel wouldn’t leave me and Addison wouldn’t leave his brother for very long. He’d be forced to return.
I wasn’t left with much of a choice.
“Okay,” I agreed in a quiet, defeated voice.
I backed up a step, then two. My shoulders slumped, and without looking at him, I turned and walked back into my bedroom. I closed the door behind me, locking it for good measure. If Addison came back, he would be forced to knock on the door. I wasn’t trying to lock him out, promise. I simply did not like being in my bedroom with the door unlocked anymore.
