The stairs to the basement were on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen. The game room downstairs from the kitchen didn’t connect with the rest of the basement. It was almost as if two neighboring houses had been stuck together. That could have been the case. The house was so eclectic that it was easy to believe.
The other basement room was longer and narrower than the game room. Blue track lighting ran from one end to the other, illuminating a tiny ecosystem contained in massive tanks. The snake’s tank took up one entire wall.
At first I thought there were recorded nature sounds in the room, then I realized that there were real frogs singing from the wet-dry terrarium at the far end of the room. On the opposite wall from the snake were rat cages and a tank full of crickets.
Chris gestured at the little furry animals and shot me a sneer. “Bet you want to rescue them, huh? You know they’re just going to be given to the snake.”
I walked over to the rat cage and peered in. It wasn’t over-crowded, and there was a barrier which split the cage in half; males on one side, females on the other. It was clean, the rats had water and toys and food, and they seemed happy and docile.
I stuck my fingers in the cage and a small white rat sniffed at my fingers curiously. I smiled and withdrew my hand.
“They don’t need rescuing,” I said. “They’re happy.”
Chris looked surprised to the point of frustration. I nodded at the crickets. “Looks like you got your population back up after that trick at Julianne’s pool.”
He flushed. “Not really. I had two tanks before. I have to get rid of a bunch of them every few weeks anyway, the frogs and geckos don’t eat enough to keep the population stable.”
I sucked in a breath. “You have geckos?!”
This time when Chris grinned there was no animosity in it.
“Come see,” he said.
He led me down to the terrarium at the end and pointed out the lizards clinging to the walls. There were a lot of them, in all kinds of colors; green, yellow, red and orange, and a few I could only see as shadows in the far corners. A thick pane of glass ran down the middle of the terrarium, stopping where the sand and pebbles began.
“They try to eat the frogs sometimes,” Chris explained.
He pointed at the other half of the terrarium. It was set up identically to the gecko’s environment, complete with deep water and lots of leafy plants, but instead of adorably fat-tailed lizards it was full of little frogs splashed with bright red and blue.
“Are they poisonous?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said, grinning. “But they get stressed out if you hold them for too long. Mostly I leave them alone—I like to watch their life cycles.”
He pointed at some of the broad leaves which hung over the pond. What I had taken to be condensation built up on the leaves was something else entirely—jellied dewdrops full of big, curious eyes. I gasped.
“The nursery,” Chris said, sounding like a proud father. “Aren’t they cute?”
I wouldn’t have said so at first, but watching the tiny tadpoles twirl around in their little eggs with their eyes looking everywhere at once made me happy. They were definitely cute.
“Super cute,” I said. “When will they hatch?”
“Five, ten days,” Chris said. “You want to watch?”
I only hesitated for a second, then I nodded. “Yes please.”
He grinned, then moved over to the massive tank.
“Maestro,” he said in a high-pitched voice.
At first it looked like the back wall of the tank had started to move, then a big head levitated up out of the leaves and dust at the bottom of the cage. The python’s color patterns gave him a quaint little smile and a jaunty little mustache and I loved him instantly.
Chris did too. His eyes softened and glowed with adoration as he made little clicking noises and tucked his hand under the lid of the tank to trickle his fingers lightly over the big snake’s scaley hide. It shimmered like velvet under the warming lights.
“Do you want to hold him?” Chris asked softly. “He’s pretty heavy, but I’ll help.”
“Yes.” My voice was an enraptured whisper.
I caught Rudy looking at me with an expression I’d never seen on his face before—it was a lot like the expression Chris had for his snake.
I beamed at Rudy as Chris lifted the little flap and scooped Maestro up, letting the snake crawl in lazy loops around his arm and over his shoulders. The snake wriggled toward me, stretching through the air and flicking at me with his curious tongue.
“His eyes,” I breathed. They were pure gold with stripes of brilliant green, so big and round they looked like hand mirrors.
I held my hand up for the snake and he kissed the back of my hand with his feathery little tongue. I giggled. Maestro apparently took it as an invitation, stretching himself across the space between me and Chris and crawling up onto my shoulders.
“Oh he’s beautiful,” I breathed as his cool weight settled comfortably across my shoulders. He wound down my other arm, then looped across my chest. “How big is he?”
“Six feet,” Chris said proudly. “He’s still a baby. His last owners thought he was a ball python and gave him up once he got bigger than he should have and somebody told them that he was a reticulated python.” He gave me a look which clearly expressed what he thought about Maestro’s first owners.
“Well he’s lucky to have you,” I said. “I mean, look at all this! He’s the king of the castle in here.”
Chris beamed and I was happy that my compliment hit that well. I wasn’t just pumping up his ego, though. It was true. All the work Chris had put into this place made it a haven for the python.
There’s a lot to be said about people who care this much about animals. None of those things were things I thought anyone could ever say about Chris.
I stayed down in the basement with them while they cleaned the cage, playing with Maestro. There was only one moment when I wondered if his predatory nature would take over, but he let me go with an amused glint in his eye. Snakes are a lot smarter than people give them credit for, I think.
By the time the boys were finished, a delicious smell was wafting down the stairs and my stomach grumbled in response. My nerves weren’t nearly as pleased.
“Dinner time,” Rudy said as he wrapped an arm around my waist.
“Does your dad know I’m here? I didn’t see him, I didn’t know it was so late. I could go. I probably should go. I’ll pick something up on the way home.”
Rudy squeezed me, kissed my face, and shushed me. “There’s always room at the table,” he said. “Come on. You can meet the kids!”
There were kids? I vaguely remembered him talking about Jason going to pick some kids up from Houston or Dallas or something, but I guess it didn’t register that they’d be living here.
Watching Jason and the Seymore boys interact with the small boys, who were about six or seven, trashed every remaining concern I had about them.
When we got upstairs, one of the boys was arguing with Jason about whether or not he really needed to wash his hands before dinner, while the other one was trying to climb up on the table to reach the funky little chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Gary said, swooping the kid into his arms. “If you pull that down on yourself we’re going to be having splattered Aiden for dinner.”
Ugh. But it made the kid giggle, and when Gary put him down he didn’t try to get back on the table again—he was too busy staring frankly at me.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Kennedy,” I said.
“Why are you here?”
I cocked my head to one side. “I’m hanging out with my boyfriend,” I said.
The little kid turned bright red and slapped his hands over his mouth. He dropped them a minute later and started running circles around the table.
“Ken’dy has a boyfriend, Ken’dy has a boyfriend!”
; “No! It’s my dirt! It’s mine! You can’t take it!” The heart-rending shriek from the kitchen brought the second kid to a screaming halt. He stared at me for a moment, wide-eyed, then dove behind the long curtain hanging over the sliding glass door.
“Your hands are yours,” Jason was saying gently. “Yours to use, yours to keep, and yours to take care of.”
The kid was sobbing so hard he choked on a jumble of words that I couldn’t make any sense of.
“I know,” Jason said. “I know. Can I tell you something, Andy?”
There was a squeak which sounded vaguely like assent.
“It is your job, as the owner of hands, to care for them properly. How do you think your hands will feel when they’re caked with dirt?”
The boy’s muffled voice answered.
“I think so, too,” Jason said. “So how bout it? I’ll help you.”
Water ran in the kitchen—and down my face. I hadn’t realized that I’d started crying.
I glanced around hurriedly, but nobody was looking at me, or at each other. I didn’t study their faces too closely. The drape over the door shuddered slightly and Bradley went to it, walking impossibly softly across the floor. He knelt down, but didn’t move the drape.
“It’s safe, buddy,” he said gently. “It’s okay now.”
“Andy’s mad,” the little boy said.
“Andy’s just a little scared,” Bradley told him. “He’s okay now, though. Jason helped him.”
There was silence for a beat. “Really?”
“Really, really,” Bradley said with a gentle smile. “You hungry?”
“Uh-huh.”
He crawled out from under the drape and put his tiny hand in Bradley’s. A minute or so later, Andy and Jason came out to the dining room carrying big bowls full of food.
“Haul it in, boys,” Jason said. “Dinner’s on.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real family dinner. I knew I’d never had one like that, full of organic conversation and laughter. It was balm to my lonely heart and I never wanted it to end.
So when Jason invited me to come back the next day for family game night, I didn’t even hesitate to say yes. I drove home feeling content, safe, and utterly untouchable. I was invited to family game night, and I couldn’t stop smiling about it.
There were more noises in my back yard that night. I ignored them. People were expecting to see me the next day, somebody on the planet cared where I was and how I was doing—a few scattered sounds wouldn’t scare me this time.
I slept like a baby.
Chapter Seventeen
RUDY
I picked her up the next day, not because there was anything wrong with her car, but because when someone is about to meet my entire family they need to be prepared for it in advance. I made the mistake of telling her that, and she was a bundle of nerves when she answered the door, all trembly and chewing her lip.
I leaned in, taking my turn on her lips, nibbling them and easing my tongue into her mouth. My cock was already straining at the idea of taking her, but now was not the time.
When I pulled back, the look of panic took hold of her features again.
“Relax, babe,” I told her with a slow grin. “You’ve already met one of them, remember?”
She thought about it for a moment. “The grocery clerk?”
I held up a finger. “Uh, nope! The grocery assistant manager. He just got a promotion.”
She flushed slightly. “Oh, god. He was there when—oh, no. Maybe I should stay home.”
I tilted her chin up and made her look at me. Embarrassment shone from her eyes and I had to suppress a flash of irrational anger. Not at her—but at the people who had set it up so that she had to feel like that at all, ever.
“Yes, he was there. After the worst night of your life. Helping us take care of you.”
“Rudy, I—”
I interrupted her with another kiss. She needed to know that it didn’t matter what she looked like or smelled like or needed in that moment—she’d been rescued.
“Nobody expects kidnap survivors to be fresh as daisies,” I murmured. “It’s cool to be human, you know.”
She chuckled, sounding a little brittle. I took her hand and led her to the car and she came along with only a tiny bit of hesitation.
“But there’s the other two, too,” I told her. “Julio, for one. He’s a couple’s therapist here in town, but don’t bother trying to get anything juicy out of him. He takes his oath very seriously.” I frowned, thinking as I held the door for her. “He takes everything very seriously, come to think of it. He’s the reason we’ve banned Monopoly for good at the Seymore house.”
She giggled, sounding a little better. I grinned and got behind the wheel and made sure that we were in full motion before telling her the next part. My eldest brother’s name had a strange effect on the people of Starline. And…seeing as Julianne liked to reference him whenever she saw us, I knew better than to think Kennedy was oblivious to the rumors.
“Eric will be there too,” I said as I took the turn onto the main road.
I shot a glance at her.
She blinked, then frowned gently. “Eric—the one who was dating Sabrina? I thought he disappeared after his name was cleared.”
I shrugged. “Maybe to most of the people in town. He doesn’t do a whole lot of shopping or anything when he’s here. He moved to Temple.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know where that is.”
“About an hour east of here,” I told her. “Close enough for him to show up for family game night.”
She was very still for a few minutes, staring out the window. “He didn’t do it,” she said, but her voice wavered uncertainly.
“He didn’t do it,” I told her firmly. I thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “If he’s in a talking mood, maybe he’ll tell you about it. From his perspective. You’ve heard all the same rumors everybody else has—he’s heard them all, too.”
She cringed at that. “No wonder he moved away.”
I nodded. “He doesn’t talk about it much. But every once in a while, he’ll rehash it. Especially after a couple drinks.”
“There will be drinks?”
I grinned. “Jason won’t let you touch them, so don’t get any ideas. They’re just for the—” I lifted my hands off the wheel long enough to make air quotes. “—Adults.”
She giggled and I relaxed a little. I don’t know exactly what I expected—maybe that she’d demand I pull over and let her out of the car, or maybe that she’d yell at me and replay all the nasty rumors for me—but she seemed to be more than willing to take my word as truth. I’d be lying if I said that her trust didn’t scare me a little. I wasn’t used to being important, especially in that way.
There was a lump in my throat and I coughed to clear it. She put her hand on my thigh and gave me a warm, liquid look. I wanted to pull the car over right there and turn her smile into a moan of pleasure, but I restrained myself. Barely.
I couldn’t have told you why, but I really wanted her to be there tonight, to be a part of everything.
“Do I look okay?” She asked in a frantic whisper as we left the car and walked toward my front door.
I looked her over. She wore a cute, soft-looking pink t-shirt and a long sherbet-green skirt. She looked fantastic, and I told her so. She beamed at me and took my hand, and we opened the door into a cacophony of sound.
Gary and Julio were loudly debating the role of Nazis in south America after world war two. Benjamin was doing an impression of Lady Gaga while Chris heckled him. The two littles shrieked in excited terror as Jason chased them around the room, roaring like a monster. Bradley and Eric stood by the window, somehow holding a conversation in spite of it all.
She hesitated for a moment, almost expectantly. Jason waved at us with a breathless grin before turning back to the kids and making more monster sounds. Benjamin spared us a grin as he continued his performance. Kennedy looke
d at me after a moment.
“Is it always like this?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Pretty much. It’ll settle down once we get some games going.”
Settle down might have been an overstatement. We’re a loud family. It’s what happens when a bunch of kids who never felt safe get the chance to grow into themselves under Jason’s firm and gentle guidance—all that pent-up childishness just grows and expands into something gloriously raucous.
It took four games and nearly that many hours for the conversation to stay on one thing for longer than a minute or so. Kennedy seemed overwhelmed the whole time – but in the best way possible. Finally, when we took a break so Jason could put the littles to bed, I took her out onto the deck.
“You okay?”
She took in a long breath of the warm, damp night air and let it out again slowly.
“I’m good,” she said firmly. She gave me a smile that lit up the night. “I’m really good. It’s a lot to take in. It’s—different. But I love it. I think I could get used to it.”
She gazed pensively out over the water, the tension in her spine slowly unwinding as she twisted her hips back and forth. It wasn’t just in that moment that I realized that I loved her hips. But in that moment, I really loved her hips.
“I always wanted a big family,” she said quietly. “Or maybe just a family-family.”
I leaned on the railing beside her so our arms brushed against one another’s. “What do you mean?”
She winced, then shook her head. “It’s not fair for me to complain about it to you. To any of you. I mean, I still have my parents as much as I ever did. Lots of solo kids have it worse than I do.”
I slid around behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, and kissed her cheek. I melted against her back, relaxing into her warmth, enjoying the way her firm curves fit against my body. I liked having her there. I felt like I could keep her safe, as long as she was in my arms. Not just from physical crap, but from the heartache I heard in her voice.
“Tell me,” I urged softly.
Something Wicked: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 2) Page 9
