Searching (Hidden Truths Book 1)

by Quell T Fox

  “Pinch me.”

  “Huh?” I ask, not sure if I heard Lina correctly. I come to a stop when I realize she is no longer on the side of me. I turn to find her a few feet behind. I follow her gaze and find three very delicious looking guys at a table towards the back of the cafeteria, by the door leading outside. Two of which I have already met. The third, I have not, but I would not be upset if I did. Speechless, yes. But upset? Absolutely freaking not. His back is to me and I can’t see his face, but something in my gut tells me it doesn’t matter. I know he’s just as gorgeous as the other two. Broad shoulders and a lean waist. His black t-shirt hugs his body and I can see every outline of muscle down his back. His skin is darker than the others and his hair is almost black.

  These guys… I’m starting to think they aren’t human. What kind of high school kids look like that?

  “Pinch me, Leona. Please. I need to know this is real.”

  I shrug a shoulder and then do exactly what she asks.

  “Ouch!” she hisses, rubbing at her arm. I grin at her as she scowls. “I don’t even care though. It’s totally worth it to know I’ll get to see them for the rest of the year.” She points to the guys. I look over once again, not minding another glance. Just as I focus on them, the third one turns around. And just wow… this is going to be a problem.

  I think I need new panties.

  Chapter Five

  Leona

  If there ever was a perfect man in this world, it would be him. Or one of them. Maybe all of them. They’re all equally delicious in their own way. The last one must be Castor. I think back to Lina’s text with their names. Castor Leventis. It suits him. Plus, Leventis is Italian and this boy screams Italian. The olive skin, dark hair and eyes. A woman’s wet dream in the flesh. The stubble along his jaw is as dark as the hair on his head, but not overbearing. I can still make out the sharp lines of his jaw. And standing on the side of his friends? I must have died and gone to heaven. There is no way three men that gorgeous can be friends. And here, in my school, not thirty feet from me. This just can’t be real life.

  Though that is how it is, isn’t it? Hot people hang out with hot people and the plain people hang out with the plain people. I look over to Lina, feeling a bit self-conscious all of a sudden. Lina is gorgeous. Her hair is pin straight and black. Large, brown eyes, a straight nose, and perfect lips. Her teeth are straight and she’s never had braces. And to top it off, she isn’t a complete douche like most beautiful high school girls. She’s the girl everyone wants to be.

  I know I’m not ugly by any means but I’m just me. Just Leona Graves with pale blonde hair, light blue eyes, and pasty white skin. You’d think I never spent a moment outside, when in reality, I spend most of my time under the sun, especially during the summer. My love for gardening outweighs the discomfort the heat gives me. Gardening is one of my favorite things to do, yet my skin holds close to zero pigment, so you’d never know it.

  I huff out a breath and grab Lina by the elbow, dragging her towards the line to get food. No more feeling bad I wasn’t born into the perfect life with a model’s face and body. If we were all the same, there would be no spice in life. Not everyone can have the perfect life and I’ve already accepted it. My life is great. I don’t have any complaints.

  Some days are just harder than others.

  We get our food and go to our normal seats, which happen to be at the opposite end of where the guys are. Lina gets cold easily and doesn’t like sitting near the door. Freshman year, we found ourselves a spot right under a heating vent and it’s been our spot ever since.

  “Leona, don’t freak okay?” Lina says suddenly, her eyes widening.

  “What? Why would I—”

  “Hello, ladies. Mind if we sit?” Now it’s my turn for my eyes to widen. Castor greets us both with his words, but his eyes are glued to me. My chest tightens, my breath getting caught in my throat. I do everything I can to chew the bite of pizza in my mouth and swallow past the lump without choking. I quickly take a sip of water to wash it down.

  “Of course not!” Lina answers, her voice too cheery for my liking. Lina loves a good piece of ass to look at. I mean, don’t we all? As I said, Lina is an extrovert. She’s loud and bubbly. She has no shame. She knows she can get any guy she wants. And this is exactly what terrifies me about her. I keep my eyes on her, silently pleading for her to not make a scene. She just smiles and finds the straw to her soda with her lips.

  Hunter sits across from me and on the side of Lina. She’s loving this, I can tell by the tiny smirk on her lips. The other two take a spot on my right. The tall, dark God directly on my side while the beast I ran into sits behind him. He’s so tall I can see his head right over Castor’s. My chest begins to flutter and my stomach tightens. I’ve never met a guy who gave me physical feelings like this before.

  “I heard you had a little run in with my friend over here.” He hooks a thumb behind him. His expression is dark even though his tone is light. My eyes drift to the long-haired guy and then back to the gorgeous one in front of me. I swear my eyes mustn’t be working right. His face can’t be that perfectly symmetrical. It’s impossible. “I just wanted to apologize. We’re new to this school and I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot here. You know—”

  “Cas! There you are!” someone shrieks from behind me. His mouth forms a thin line and his brows turn in. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Who is this?” She says the last part with a heavy dose of sass, like how dare they be speaking to us. I can only assume they’re friends since she’s on a nickname basis, but you know what they say about assuming. I turn to get a glimpse of who she is. She looks down at me, giving me the look. Oh, you know the look. The one the bitchy girls give to anyone who gets in their space.

  Excuse me? This is my school.

  “Just chatting up the locals,” Cas says without taking his eyes off me. Mine flick back to his for a moment, the tiniest hint of a smirk rests on his lips. His eyes narrow the slightest, as if he’s daring me to say something about this girl.

  “Yeah, well maybe you shouldn’t.” The girl scoffs behind me. I let out a breathless laugh and turn around. Cas’s eyes dip down to my cleavage, his eyebrows furrowing, and his expression darkening.

  “Excuse me?” I say.

  I’ve always been a peacekeeper, but I will defend what is mine. I may not want to talk to everyone I see, I may purposely avoid conversation, but I will not tolerate mean girls. No one in this school takes well to bullies or rudeness. It’s unnecessary and unacceptable. The girl clucks her tongue, swiping her blonde hair (the good kind) over her shoulder. The gesture makes my blood boil.

  “We were just leaving,” Cas says firmly, getting to his feet before the situation escalates. He gives a stern look to Hunter who looks displeased but stands and walks around the table to meet his friends. Thorne follows suit without any questions or hesitation. Castor looks down at me one last time, his jaw ticking as he turns and storms off, the group of girls trailing behind with the blonde hot on his heels.

  “What was that all about?” Lina asks after they’ve left the cafeteria. “I was hoping they were going to ask you out or something.”

  I roll my eyes. “I have no idea. But something tells me we are going to find out.” I push my plate away, no longer able to eat anything. This is easily the weirdest first day of school I’ve ever had.

  When the bell rings, we empty our trays into the trash and head straight to the auditorium for the assembly. A couple more hours and this day will be over.

  Thankfully the assembly goes by quicker than I anticipated. Everyone took their turn in speaking about our future and how important it is. I get why they have to drill this into us. Not everyone cares about their future the way I do. A lot of people don’t worry about it until it’s too late. The entire school is at the assembly, but with the lights off and every seat taken, I don’t see any of the guys. Part of me wants to question them about what happened at lunch. The more I think about it,
the more I realize how weird it was. The other part wants to stay as far away as possible. But also, there is this teeny tiny part that wants to know more about them.

  Castor’s excuse for coming over doesn’t sit right with me. It’s too… generic. What was the real reason they came over? I’ve spent too much time thinking about it so I finally give up. I’m overthinking this for no reason at all.

  Lina drops me off at home and then heads home herself. I brought up the idea of going out to the movies or something, wanting to keep my mind away from these guys, but then her mom called and said she needed her home to babysit. She has three younger siblings who are a handful at the best of times, and Lina watches them a lot since her parents are on-call often. I decided I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her siblings because I’ve already had a stressful enough day.

  “Nana!” Briella shouts as I walk through the door. She runs up to me and wraps her little arms around my thighs. Grim follows her and rubs along my legs excitedly, greeting me in his own way. I squeeze Briella tight before letting her go and then she skips back towards the couch.

  “How was your first day, little sis?” Lenny is walking back and forth trying to get Milo to sleep. He is an awful sleeper; he cries most of the night. I’ve since learned to sleep through it, so it doesn’t bother me anymore, but I feel bad for Milo. He must be so tired all the time. He sleeps best when he’s in a car or when someone is walking around with him, like Lenny is doing now. He’s fussing every now and then but is mostly quiet and settling down.

  Briella lets out a high-pitched laugh and I look over to where she is seated on the couch. She shoves a handful of popcorn into her mouth, little pieces falling all over the couch. I look to Lenny, raising a brow. He looks to her and then back to me, shrugging slightly.

  Not a second later the door opens behind me and Callan walks through. Lenny quickly snaps his fingers, his eyes going wide. He clears his throat and continues to pat Milo on the butt, trying to soothe him.

  “Daddy! What did you do with my popcorn?” Briella whines, looking around for the bowl of popcorn she was just holding.

  “Popcorn? What popcorn? There’s no popcorn allowed in the living room, dear.” Lenny puts on a sweet smile and I can’t help but laugh. Callan just shakes his head and moves to the library to put his stuff away. I head upstairs to get comfy. Once I’m out of my jeans and into sweatpants, I plop onto my bed and pull out my phone. As expected, there is already a text from Lina.

  Lina: Why do you think they came to talk to us? Do you think they like you?

  Me: They don’t even know me. I barely spoke to any of them.

  Lina: Doesn’t mean a thing. They came over for a reason.

  Me: They’re probably trying to feel out the girls. See how easy we are.

  Lina: Then they should have come to see me! LOL

  Me: *eye roll emoji*

  Lina: What? Don’t act like you wouldn’t let them bend you over the cafeteria table and make you call them daddy.

  I burst out laughing at the comment. Yet, my insides warm at the thought.

  Me: You are such an animal.

  Lina: Yeah, but you love me. Gotta go feed the minions. TTYL <3

  I put my phone down on my end table and plug it in.

  Lina is my best friend and I trust her with just about everything, but there are some things I like to keep to myself. Like the feelings I’ve been having all day. And some of the things from when I was with my mom. Those aren’t things I tell many people about. I’ve talked about them with my family, though not in great detail, and my counselor.

  I don’t see her anymore, but I did for a few years. Lenny went back and forth with the idea for a while but in the end decided it was best. He understood I didn’t want to open up to him fully. He knew a counselor was probably my best bet, someone who was trained to help children in situations like mine.

  Corrine Fairleigh was a kind enough person. She made me comfortable from the first day I met her and soon enough it was easy to talk to her about everything and anything I could remember. We talked about the things that happened to me and we worked through it. Well, most of it. Some things I didn’t quite remember until recently, but she taught me techniques on how to pull through. My memories are like a never-ending story that keep popping up at the most inopportune times. She told me I could always go back and see her, but I feel well enough. I’ve learned to deal with the thoughts on my own, usually by keeping myself busy and remembering how good my life is now. What I feel at times, like the not fitting in, that’s something I need to work on, on my own. It’s not something anyone else can fix for me. There are many other kids out there who need Corrine’s help more than I do at this point.

  My attraction towards these guys, my curiosity on why they spoke to me, the hope I have it was because they wanted to get to know me, I don’t want to tell Lina about that either. I can’t exactly place why. Maybe because I don’t like admitting having feelings for anyone. I’m too worried about being let down. I’m too worried about being embarrassed… being rejected. At the end of the day, we all just want to be accepted. But for someone like me? It’s a constant battle.

  Something about coming here and the family I have, I knew I could trust them. It was instinctual. I knew they wouldn’t hurt me and all they wanted to do was help, but there is a reason I still have my metaphorical wall up. I don’t feel comfortable with most people, which is why I did open up to them. I let it all out while I had the chance. I wanted someone on my side, someone to help me. And they’ve done everything right. A lot of the issues I have now are things I need to work on internally. I need to heal my wounds. Wounds that have been treated for five years, but still aren’t fully gone. Wounds that will someday turn into scars which will stay with me forever, but I’ve accepted it. The ugly, scarred, messed up part that lives within. Is just as much a part of me as my smile.

  What I’m feeling towards those boys though, it’s scary as hell. There is a yearning deep within me, calling to them. It’s something I have never felt before and I can barely explain it in words. I’ve been telling myself it’s just a hormonal attraction. It’s only because they’re new and so nice to look at. Anyone with eyeballs could see how gorgeous they are. But deep down, like really deep down, I’m not entirely sure that’s all it is.

  Chapter Six

  Leona

  The rest of the week at school is boring. Boring is better than stressful, so in no way am I complaining. The first day of school is always on a Wednesday, which makes zero sense to me. Why not start on a Monday and have a full week? Either way, I’m thankful the weekend is close. There is a party on Saturday, the first one of the year, and I plan on going.

  Lina and I always go to the parties even though it isn’t our usual scene. All the students end up there at some point. It’s like tradition. You have to go to the first and last parties of the year. If you don’t go to any others, it’s fine, but those two are a must. This year is a big deal though, because this year will be the first time I’m truthful about where I’m going. Past years, I’ve lied and told my family Lina and I were going to the movies. We would time everything just right to make sure it was believable. Problem is, we always ended up leaving the party early. They probably would have let me go if I told them the truth, but what’s being a kid without a few white lies to the ones in charge?

  This year I want to enjoy it. I want to experience all of it, including staying until the late hours of night, or early hours of morning, however you look at it. So, I decide I’m going to tell them. Well, I’m going to tell Friday and she can tell the guys. She’ll understand, they won’t.

  “Aunt Friday?” I call from the doorway of her bedroom.

  “Who?” She looks up at me from her spot on her gigantic bed—it was custom made to fit all five of them comfortably. Milo is feeding and she always prefers to do it in their bed so she can sneak in a nap once he falls asleep. I’m proud of her for choosing to breastfeed. I know it isn’t for everyone and that�
�s totally okay, but it’s a lot of work and I’ve seen how much it takes from her.

  “Sorry, I don’t even know where that came from.” Sometimes my brain reverts to a few years ago and things spill out of my mouth. Like the aunt thing. “Forget the aunt part. Can I talk to you?” I pop my head in and look around, checking that none of the guys are lurking around even though I know they aren’t because I made sure they were gone before coming in here. If they knew I was trying to talk to her alone, they wouldn’t leave. They’re nosier than an elderly neighbor.

  “Of course. Shut the door.” She sits up a little more and adjusts Milo to get more comfortable. “Wait a minute. You aren’t pregnant, are you? Fuck, please tell me you aren’t. I can’t deal with that Leona, the guys would kill me!” she says it in a hushed whisper. My jaw drops and my look must say it all. “Okay, not pregnant. Got it. Phew.” She visibly relaxes, sinking into her pillows.

  I walk to the edge of the bed and sit.

  “There is a party on Saturday and I really want to go, but…”

  “You know they won’t let you, so you thought you’d come ask me?”

  “Yes?”

  “I see.” She pauses for a moment. “Go for it, Nana. Promise I won’t tell them unless they ask.”

  “Really?” I perk up.

  “Uh, yeah. I never got to do that shit when I was younger, which is probably a good thing. Who knows what kind of trouble I would have gotten myself into. But you’re a good kid. I trust you to make the right decisions. Just do me a favor, okay? If you drink, please don’t drive. Call me. I don’t care how late, I’ll get you.” My eyes dip to Milo. “Nope. Not happening.” She shakes a finger at me. “If you don’t agree, then you aren’t going. I’ll tell them all right now.”