With his hand wrapped around the knob, he hesitated to open the door. His clear blue eyes roamed over my face, searching.
“You wouldn’t be lying to me, now would you?”
My eyebrows rose. Me? Lying? Never. I smirked and shook my head.
“This isn’t funny,” he whispered, his rough voice darker than normal.
“Would you rather I cried?” I shot back. “I wasn’t lying. She didn’t hurt me again. But, right now, at this very second, she’s having sex with Mr. Cole on the dining room table.”
He blinked. He stared at me a beat before his mouth got tight and his cheeks tinted red in anger. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. Then, louder, “Do you always blurt the truth out like that?”
I thought about it and shrugged. I didn’t know, I’d never really had people to talk to before. Maybe this was my norm?
“You do it all the time,” he pointed out with a small smile on his lips. “It’s rather endearing.”
If he liked it then I must be doing something right. Right?
Something he said earlier bothered me. “You acted like I’d be eating pizza with you, like, you were expecting me or something.”
He opened the door and urged me through. “I was actually on my way to get you. My twin and I played rock paper scissors to see which one of us was going to come and get you. I lost. Don’t take it personal. You can feel free to feel me up at any time you please. Your mother on the other hand….” His entire body visibly shuddered.
I threw back my head and burst out laughing. I laughed so hard I had to wrap my arms around my middle. He grinned at me while he watched the show. I shouldn’t be laughing because it wasn’t really funny. My mother was a total Chester the Molester and the twins had fallen victim to her well-manicured hands. It was his disgust and discomfort I found so hilarious. If I had told her someone shuddered in disgust at the thought of her touch she’d call me a damn liar.
My laughter faded to giggles as he stood there, smiling at me.
“What’s so funny?” Abel asked from behind me. I only knew it was Abel because Addison stood before me.
I whirled around to see not only Abel but Tyson and that Julian person from yesterday. All three watching me. My laughter immediately died in my throat. How long had they been standing there, watching me?
“No, no.” Abel held his hands up with his palms facing me. “Keep laughing.” He looked to his brother and demanded, “Twin, make her laugh again.”
“All I did was tell her to feel free to feel me up whenever the mood strikes her.”
Abel smirked at me. “Same goes for me, pretty girl.”
A surprised burst of laughter escaped me. “I’m not going to feel you up,” I told him honestly.
“Why not? Too forward for you?” Abel crossed his thick arms over his chest. “Don’t worry about it, pretty girl, I’ve got no problem making the first move.”
My face heated up in embarrassment as I fought the urge to run screaming in the opposite direction.
“Shut up,” Tyson snapped as he dug his elbow sharply in Abel’s stomach, making him grunt. “Don’t pay any attention to them, Ariel, they’re both idiots.”
Addison crowded me from behind and placed his hand on the small of my back. He leaned down to whisper at my ear, “I’m with my twin on this one. I’ve got no problem making the first move, either.”
“You’re all weird,” I blurted out.
“You have no idea,” Addison continued to whisper at my ear. I shivered as I felt the tip of his nose run up the outside of my ear. This was not friendly behavior, it was more. Was this him making the first move? My eyes darted around the room, but nobody seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary and I sighed in relief.
“Let’s go into the kitchen,” Tyson said as he reached out and grabbed my hand. He left the foyer with my hand clasped tightly in his, me trailing along behind him.
I let out a deep breath and finally took in my surroundings. There was a wide staircase to the right, then we were on the move. We breezed past what looked to be an office. The walls were a deep, dark red and lined with shelves stuffed full with books and picture frames. A massive black desk sat front and center in the room. Weirdly, there was nothing atop the desk and there was no door to the room. If I had an office and I lived with several other people I’d certainly want it to come with a door.
Tyson’s hand gave me a squeeze as he dragged me along. The next room we passed was a formal dining room. The table was even larger than the one at Mr. Cole’s house. Half the top was covered in books, magazines and what looked like unopened mail. What it didn’t look like was a place to sit down and eat a meal at.
We passed by two closed doors on the left before we entered a bright, open space. I hadn’t realized how dark the rest of the house had been until we stepped into this room. The room was a huge, open area with white walls. Half the space was filled with a state of the art kitchen. Stainless steel appliances, black marble counter tops and a long, wide island with a sink in the middle of it on one side and a row of gunmetal gray barstools on the other.
The other half of the room was a living room. A huge purple L-shaped sectional couch sat in front of the biggest flat screen television I had ever seen. The white walls were weirdly barren, yet the room felt lived in. In the middle of the room there were two sliding glass doors that were side by side and led out to the backyard. There weren’t any curtains either. How weird. Did boys not care about things like curtains, or had those kinds of things been packed away when they left for the summer?