“Do you want to sit on the couch, or do you want to sit at the island?” Tyson asked me.
How was I supposed to answer that when I didn’t know what we were doing? I shrugged.
“Kitchen,” the twins said in unison from behind us.
Tyson guided me to the right and straight towards the island. He pulled out a stool and I slid onto it. I felt so exposed sitting on a stool in the middle of the room with my back to the entryway.
Tyson stood beside me with his forearms resting on the smooth, marble countertop. Abel and Addison sat down on two of the other stools with Abel claiming the one next to me. Despite there being another empty stool, Julian walked around the island to stand with a hip against the counter beside the sink. Where had he come from?
From their rigid posture, it didn’t look like I was the only tense person in the room. The tension was suffocating. I jumped when the doorbell rang. The twins laughed and Tyson grinned at me.
“Pizza’s here,” a male voice bellowed from somewhere deeper in the house. An oddly familiar voice.
“Got it,” shouted a different male voice.
I leaned forward, closer to Tyson, and asked in a hushed whisper, “Exactly how many people live here?”
He scooted closer and tilted his head down closer to mine. We were separated by mere inches. “Only four of us live here,” he told me in the same hushed whisper I’d used on him. “It’s my Uncle Quinton and me. I told you Abel and Addison just moved in. Julian and Damien live in a small house together not far from the school. Dash actually lives further outside of town than we do, but only by about ten minutes. We all grew up together, but Julian, Damien and Dash are Uncle Quinton’s best friends.”
That was a lot of people I didn’t really know. My stomach grew queasy. He pulled back slightly so he could look me directly in the eyes. “You’re going to be just fine, I promise.”
He kept saying that to me, telling me I would be just fine, promising me things. I didn’t know why he bothered, or why it seemed to matter so much to him.
“Do you believe me?” He asked, his voice strained. It sounded important to him so I nodded. I might have just lied to him again. Did it count if I knew he believed it? Close enough. “Did you know there’s such a thing as chicken alfredo pizza?” He grinned at
me.
“Really?” I asked in surprise. I’d never heard of such a thing, but now I absolutely had to try it. Chicken and alfredo sauce on a pizza? Yes, please. Even though I already had my mind made up about it, I asked, “Is it any good?”
“We’ll find out.”
He got chicken alfredo pizza for me? They really had expected me to be here to eat with them. My insides warmed as I smiled brightly at him.
“So pretty,” he whispered as he raised his left hand and ran the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. My lips parted and I stared at him in shock.
“Food’s here,” that oddly familiar voice spoke from behind me. I desperately wanted to turn around so I could put a face to the voice. He’d been in my dreams, for goodness sake, and I had no idea what he looked like.
When he walked around the island and dropped three pizza boxes on the marble countertop I almost fell backwards off my stool. I barely even noticed the other two males who’d walked in behind him. Those dark, dark brown, so dark they were almost black, eyes. They were nearly identical to Tyson’s eyes and I had seen them before. He was the man standing in the shadow of the tree line, watching me. First, he watched me, then he popped up in my dream, now he was inside Tyson’s house. How weird was that?
I could immediately tell he and Tyson were related. They shared the same height and build. Tall with broad shoulders but slim hips. Where Tyson had long, shoulder length hair, Quinton had a buzz cut that matched Julian’s. He wore a black, long sleeved button up with the top three buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up his forearms. Orange and red flames shot up from his wrists. I couldn’t help but wonder how high up his arms that ink went. He had a small silver hoop in each earlobe. He was lovely to look at but the air around him practically vibrated with danger. The way he held himself, the burning in his dark eyes, he was a coiled snake, poised and ready to strike at any given second. Tyson’s Uncle was a dangerous man and one I absolutely did not want to ever mess with.
I swallowed thickly, my throat suddenly dry.
Without taking his eyes off me, Quinton spoke, but not to me. “You didn’t tell me about the wound on her head. What happened?”
“Not now,” Tyson grunted.
“The food’s here. Let’s eat.” One of the new arrivals dropped three more pizza boxes beside Quinton’s stack. He had shockingly bright red hair with a matching beard. He had haunted, light gray eyes that told a story I was too frightened to even try to read. This man had demons, and he’d lived through some serious horrors.
My heart clenched painfully inside my chest as I locked eyes with his haunted gray ones. They radiated a depth of pain I was uncomfortable looking into.
“I’m Dash.” He frowned at me.
At a loss for words, I simply nodded. I didn’t feel the need to introduce myself, the way they talked made me sure they all already knew my name. The stool next to Addison scraped against the floor as it was pulled back before someone sat on it.
“Damien,” he grunted without bothering to look at me. He had blonde hair that was long on top but almost shaved at the sides, it hung down to his ears. His face was thin and sharp, angular with hollowed out cheeks. His skin a golden tan I could tell he’d earned by spending a great deal of time outdoors and in the sun. from what I caught of his eyes, they looked to be a light brown. His eyelashes were thick, almost feminine. He looked like he could be a male model. He certainly seemed to have the attitude for it. From the way he dismissed me he either didn’t approve of my being here or he could give a crap less.
I liked this about him. Everyone else seemed to like me without even knowing me and I thought it was weird. Damien was different. Either that or he was just a dick.