Dain yanked me off the table with about as much haste as he had Falin.
“Daddy’s going to spank us both,” I said to Falin. I felt brave. Jackson was here. I had made a mistake thinking I could handle these guys on my own.
Dain turned me around and bent me over the table for real, using the hand he had pulled me up with to wrap my arm around my back and pin me down. I looked up and saw Eloden staring at me with amusement. Didn’t he see I was in trouble?
“Spankings? Another time, perhaps,” Dain said. “If you’re both very good.”
That sounded like harmless smack talk. I hoped it was merely humour. “Let me up,” I demanded.
“Listen to me carefully,” Dain said. He leaned over me and spoke into my ear. “We are going to have to postpone our talk until you come back, but I want you to research something.”
Okay, that was not what I thought he would say to me. Nothing they did was what I expected, leaving me so confused.
“At the lab?” I asked, guessing at the only place I did research.
“On the internet,” Dain replied like I was stupid. Who says on the internet nowadays? You say on Google or social media or list some scholarly portal or database.
“Yes,” I agreed. I would have agreed to almost anything at this point, wiggling against his hold. Falin was getting a great look at my ass, again.
“Fae,” he whispered into my ear. “Light Fae, Dark Fae and Halflings, but mostly, Dark Fae and their court customs if you would like the next conversation to be had face-to-face.”
He released me and stepped back.
I didn’t look at any of them, yanking my hoodie back in place after all the rough-housing had messed with it. I walked over to my buzzer’s intercom and told Jackson I’d be right down and to wait in the jeep. Then, I took great pleasure in kicking all six strangers out of my apartment with instructions to wait until I left with Jackson before they ventured back outside. I left them in the dusty, cheaply carpeted hallway and closed my door with satisfaction.
First, Dain wants me to dream of him, and now, he wants me to look up fairy tales? Aeric thought a pet rat was weird? Those freaks were the weird ones.
I put a piece of apple in Lady Antebellum’s cage and picked it up to take with me.
I totally had lied to them. They could have fun watching my empty apartment. I wasn’t a princess and they sure as fuck weren’t my cosplaying knights.
I didn’t believe in fairy tales.
Chapter 7:
THE LAST FEW DAYS AT home with my parents had been like a vacation. I even went to work at the lab with a smile on my face unless I ran into a curious coworker. Thankfully, few others wanted to work at midnight. I was able to borrow my stepfather’s jeep to get to work since he was fast asleep at night and didn’t need it. I had told him that I wanted to save the miles on Baby while I was here to excuse not going back to the apartment to pick my car up. My stepfather would have agreed to anything to get me to stay home longer for my mother.
I refused to feel guilty just because the reason I was really at home was to avoid the Friday night freaks that I had left at my apartment. Telling my parents would only worry them. My problem should give up on me and leave the apartment if I stayed away long enough and my mother got to spend some time with me. It was a win-win for everyone.
I could almost make myself believe everything that had happened was a dream. Dain had told me to dream of him and my brain had cooked up a doozy. Only, Ms. Chang had texted me to let me know Ai Lung’s fever was gone. It proved that everything was real, including my near-death experience at the gangster’s hands and my panicked rush from the danger tracking me. I wanted to forget it all.
Hiding in a tub of bubbles was a temporary avoidance. My entire apartment could fit into the room my parents left empty for me at home. That was excluding the walk-in closet stuffed full of clothes I never wore and the ensuite with a jetted tub. My apartment only had a shower. Sometimes, I came home just to take a bath. It seemed luxurious no matter how many times I enjoyed it, sinking into a tub full of bubbles up to my chin. I was petite enough that I could float in that tub if I wanted.
Right there, that's my definition of being rich. I didn’t care about the platinum card the twins’ father gave me. I wanted to float my worries away in my tub.
The twins were in my room when I stepped out of my ensuite after a gratifying soak. It wasn't unusual to have one or both in my room when I was home. The twins’ mother died from lung cancer when they were eight, and their father had remarried my mother when they were ten. They loved my mother and treated her as their own, no step part to it, but they had lost something irreplaceable when their birth mother died.
It was something that someone like myself, with so much to lose, realized what they risked by getting close to my mother. The twins had bonded hard to me instead. I felt as close to the twins as they were to each other. I only realized later on that we seemed uncomfortably close to outsiders at times and that the twins purposefully constructed our relationship as their own armour. Sure, they liked girls and dated and things truly were platonic between us, but the impression of more kept anyone else from getting too close.
My moving out didn’t make much of a difference. One day, the twins were going to have to grow up and let go. For now, they would spend every minute with me they could while I was back home.
“I just made the bed,” I said to Matthew. He had tucked himself in while I bathed.
Sleeping with me was one of those things we all knew was inappropriate but chose to ignore. Ai Lung had never met them but she once told me that Chinese families slept in family beds until everyone was ready to separate. She also said I was a cockblock and I better keep all the chicks away until she was well enough to be the peanut butter in their twin sandwich. I wish I had introduced all of them before her illness took away her quick tongue.
Jackson looked up from the chair he was sitting in by my picture window to play with a handheld game. “Matt’s sick,” Jackson said and looked back down at his game.
“Move over at least,” I said.
Matthew did look a bit under the weather. I nudged him over, so I could have a sliver of the bed, too. It was a king four-poster, a complete monstrosity, but I loved it. I had one like it in my apartment and it took up the entire room. Matthew was lying on an angle, otherwise, there would have been enough space for all of us on it.
I shrugged out of my bathrobe and hung it over the bedpost, wearing enough for decency sake, and it wasn't as if my brothers had seen me wearing much more than the boy shorts and tank I had on underneath when we went swimming. They didn't think of me as a girl, really, in that special category of sisters that didn't have a body from the neck down, unless they were protecting me from other guys. Then, they would make all sorts of snide comments about what I was wearing, be it too short or too tight.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“Sugar,” Matthew said.
He was a bit of a health nut, which was funny since his twin was the exact opposite and they had the same bodies. Matthew didn’t really need to keep in shape by adhering to such a strict diet, the football training was more than enough, but he treated eating sugar like smoking cigarettes.
“You didn’t have to eat five cinnamon rolls,” I said, knowing he was complaining about it, although it had been three days ago. “Mom wanted you to try one. The rest were all on you.”
“She bakes them with crack,” Matthew protested.
“I think she gets Dad to buy the Ceylon cinnamon,” Jackson commented, still playing the game.
“No, it’s the icing. How can she make cream cheese so addictive?” Matthew whined.
“Grow up, sweetkins,” I told Matthew. “You shouldn’t restrict on sweet things so much. You know you love them, and then you overindulge and blame the rest of us for being enablers.”
Jackson snickered. Yes, Matthew has a sweeter personality, but that wasn’t why I had given him the nickname sweet
kins.
“I think I’m in withdrawal,” Matthew said, a little horrified.
Made sense, he had long enough to fully digest the sugary treats.
“Just go run it off,” I suggested. The boys ran every day for football, and Matthew said it helped clear his mind.
“No energy,” Matthew whined.
Washed up at eighteen. Jackson sniggered at him again.
I sat up and crawled over to the foot of the bed to grab the light blanket I had folded earlier. I opened it up and spread it over Matthew and myself, settling myself against his warm body. The twins weren’t the only ones that needed the comfort of family. Fuck what society thought, as Ai Lung would say, and know what is real in my own heart. The boys were my brothers.
“Poor baby,” I cooed to Matthew. I laid my head on his shoulder and let him pull me against him, using my free hand to rub his tummy over the blanket. “Let’s nap and it will all be better in a few hours.”
We had barely tucked ourselves in when I felt Jackson’s hand on my back. “Push over,” he said. I guess his game was over.
“There’s not enough room,” I said, too comfortable to move an inch. My voice was drowsy and content.
“Come on,” Matthew said, equally lazy but wanting his twin to join us. He wrapped his other arm around me and dragged my body inch-by-inch across the bed, so I was closer to the center.
“And the little one said, roll over, roll over,” I singsonged, letting my body be moved for me so we could all fit like a bunch of kids doing a sleepover.
“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you before you fall,” Jackson grumbled at me. He was jealous of cuddle time. Usually, I snuggled with him.
Jackson moved closer so I couldn’t move an inch without brushing up against a twin. I was surrounded by warmth and love and security.
“Ugh, cuddlekins, I can’t breathe,” I complained as Jackson added another arm over the blankets to wrap around my chest.
“You’ve had her long enough,” Jackson complained. “Let her lie on me,” he told Matthew.
“I’m sick,” Matthew protested, but he sounded a whole lot better.
“I’m cold,” Jackson whined. He felt like a furnace behind me.
“I’m going to sleep on the couch,” I threatened.
“Just try to escape,” teased Jackson.
“Twin sandwich,” Matthew agreed.
I snorted a protest. Those two would attack me with wet willies on both sides and call that a twin sandwich, too.
“Don’t you have girlfriends to hug?” I asked, exacerbated.
“No,” they both answered.
Commitment issues. I could understand those kinds of reservations.
“One-night stands to seduce?” I asked. “It’s Friday night. There must be a teenage party to crash somewhere.”
“Don’t want to get dressed,” said Jackson.
“You’re a guy,” I said. Even my monotonous outfits were more complicated than his jeans and a t-shirt. He didn’t need a hoodie.
“Guys have to put an effort in, too,” Matthew said. “There’s showering, shaving, cologne, fresh boxers if that’s your thing.”
“Clean underwear should always be your thing,” I said, shifting a bit away from smelly.
“I meant if you don’t go commando, Evie-baby,” Matthew clarified, sounding prickly. I had insulted him, which wasn’t new, but I guess insults to his manhood were extra sensitive to teenage boys.
Humour would lessen the sting. “Because taking three seconds more to free your dick to piss is such an inconvenience. Not worth the rug burn in your pants, if you ask me,” I said.
Jackson laughed. “It is if it’s three seconds more to sink your dick into a pretty piece of pussy,” he said, pulling me closer when I moved away from Matthew.
I gave him the elbow that sleazy comment deserved. “When did you guys become such horn-dogs?” I muttered. I couldn't help but think maybe my moving out had changed things more than I realized.
“Sometime after you lied about Jack’s girlfriend and she told everyone he was batting for the other team when he dumped her.”
A jealous girlfriend of Jackson’s had dared speculate on a threesome with me and my brothers last year since we weren’t technically blood-related. I had told Jackson his girlfriend wanted to suck Matthew’s dick and laughed when he stopped taking her calls. When Jackson found out from Matthew what really happened -I foolishly confessed to Matthew while puking up vodka and he held my hair off my face- Jackson threatened to find me a set of twins to date and explore my fantasies. Last time I tried to protect my brothers from horny girls. To be honest, at eighteen, my brothers may no longer want my protection.
“Guy’s gotta do, what a guy’s gotta do,” Jackson said.
So lame. I rolled my eyes. For guys, any excuse would do.
“Even if it’s plowing half the population at your high-school?” I said.
“What?” Jackson said, not quite catching on.
He was a smart boy. I guess I had overestimated his stamina.
“Is there any pussy you haven’t petted yet at school?”
Matthew choked back laughter, poorly.
“Don’t laugh,” I told Matthew. “I heard that you have a male admirer, so I guess you’re not doing that good of a job projecting lady killer, commando or no commando.”
I hadn’t meant to share that last tidbit, but it had slipped out. Normally, the twins and I didn’t talk so raunchy.
Jackson hooted.
“Which one?” Matthew asked.
I froze. Damn it. Matthew and his perfect memory would recall exactly the last time I had been around guys and could have heard a comment postulating on his sexual orientation.
“Don’t worry, he doesn’t know where you live. Your ass is safe,” I promised.
Jackson hooted even louder. “Were they all gay?” he asked me between fits of laughter.
“Of course,” I lied. “Didn’t you see how they were dressed?”
“Cosplayers are not all gay,” Matthew said, even more offended. He was into massively multiplayer online games, especially fantasy ones. He would be a good source for my research if I planned on completing it.
“Well, these ones were gay. Really, really gay,” I said. Pretty Orin was my best bet to make this lie take root. “Orin practically farts rainbows,” I said.
I could see Matthew lost in thought, using whatever memory trick he had to recall the right face and name from last Friday.
“They didn’t all look gay,” Matthew grumbled.
Even he couldn’t deny Orin’s metrosexual looks. I used his own reasoning about sexuality against him. “Not everyone that’s gay looks like it.”
“Good thing,” Jackson said, finally done laughing. “We were worried you were dating one of those freaks.”
“Not that it would be a bad thing for you to date,” Matthew said. “Just not them.”
“Tyler liked you from Friday night. He’s not boyfriend material, but we could all go over to his house to swim at his pool, watch some movies. He could invite some chicks for Matt and me. His parents are away this weekend.”
Whoa. Subject change needed fast. This was starting to sound like an intervention, only the twins didn’t want to cure me of an addiction. They wanted me to pop my cherry with one of their friends.
“I think that’s called pedophilia,” I reminded them. The twins were eighteen because of where their birthday fell, but the other guys in their class may still be minors. It was a solid excuse. The twins also knew my real reason for not dating or indulging my wild side even though I was in my twenties and living free of parental control.
“Do you need some condoms?” Jackson blurted out.
What? How did this conversation progress to barrier protection?
“I am not borrowing condoms from you,” I said. Some things are best bought for your own purposes.
“Dad bought them for us,” Matthew said. “He bought boxes of them. You can have an unop
ened box.”
I think my brain misfired a little trying to process my professional, salt-and-pepper stepfather buying boatloads of condoms. I suppose this was part of the sex talk that parents had to give their teenage sons. Apparently, it was very different from the one given to daughters.
“What makes you think I plan on having sex?” I asked.
“I don’t care what you say, Evie-baby,” Jackson whispered to me. “I saw the way that big one looked at you.”
They had all been big.
“Dain,” Matthew clarified.
“He wanted to get into your panties and if we hadn’t come on Friday, he would have taken you in the backseat of your Civic.”
“Would the windows steam up so there would be an outline of my hand as I grabbed at the door to lock it and yelled for Dain to take me harder?” I mocked, rolling my eyes again. “You guys have vivid imaginations.”
“Guys know how guys think,” Jackson insisted.
“More like dicks know how dicks think, which is not at all,” I snarked. “I told you, they were all gay. We were talking about an online roleplaying game while they fixed the Civic,” I said.
I had to distract the twins somehow and asking for information about the Fae seemed as good a way as any to do it.
“Really,” Matthew said. “What about?” he asked. He sounded suspicious. This was going to have to be better than the made-up Netflix series.
“Fairies,” I said.
Jackson hooted.
“Will you stop doing that,” I said, elbowing him quiet.
“Like Thumbelina?” Matthew asked.
“She wasn’t a fairy,” Jackson said. “Tinkerbell, you dumbass.”
“Not those kinds of fairies, Fae. Light Fae, Halflings and Dark Fae,” I said. “Uh, and court customs of the Dark Fae. I think that’s the setting.”
“Like Lord of the Rings?” Jackson asked. His friend from Friday had been closer to guessing the costumes of my mysterious strangers than even me.
No Faerie Tale Love (Faerie Series Book 1) Page 9
