“Will you go and get it and a hair brush for me?”
I lowered my arms and scooted back, off of his lap. I swung my legs down off of the bed and stood up.
I found the hair dryer in the linen closet in the bathroom. I had to untangle it from a whole mess of cords that were connected to a hair straightener and a curling iron. It was a frustrating mess and I almost gave up on it, but I got my hair dryer free. I felt like throwing my arms up in the air in victory. I did no such thing because Abel could see me from his spot on the bed and I didn’t want him to think I was a crazy loon. The hair brush I found on the counter. Both I brought back into the bedroom and held up for his inspection.
He crawled off of the bed and took the hair dryer from me. He plugged it in in the outlet by the window seat and sat down.
“If you sit on the floor in front of me I will dry your hair and brush it out for you.”
I stupidly hadn’t put two and two together when he’d asked me to get the brush and the hair dryer. What else was he going to do with them?
He spread his legs and I hesitantly moved to sit on the floor in between them. I sat up straight, forcing myself to sit still. With gentle strokes, he ran the brush through my hair. Over and over again. Then he turned the blow dryer on and got down to drying my hair. Half way through someone knocked on the door.
I popped up and sprinted across the carpet, nervous about Addison’s return. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Addison stood there with his hand raised, ready to knock again. He had a book bag in his other hand.
“What was that noise?” He asked me.
“Hair dryer,” I explained.
He grinned at me. “I leave you alone in your bedroom with my twin and you decided to do your hair. I bet he loved that.”
“Actually,” I told him, “it was his idea.”
He chuckled. “He’s losing his touch.”
I shook my head and moved out of the doorway, letting him inside. Once the door was shut and locked, I moved back to where Abel was sitting and plopped back down on the floor in between his legs.
As soon as I had my butt on the carpet, Abel turned on the hair dryer and got back to work.
Addison sat down on the floor by my legs and unzipped the black back pack he had in his hands. He dug through it and pulled out a coloring book. Next came a box of crayons and then a metal tin with colored pencils in it.
“What are you doing?” I asked curiously. Had he really gone home to get a coloring book and crayons? That was absurd.
“We, Ariel girl,” he said. “It’s what we are doing. You wanted to hang out and spend time together. We’re going to do it while coloring. I got some sweet adult coloring books off of Amazon. One of them has got swear words in it. I’ve got an Alice In Wonderland one. A doodle one with weird animals in it. I love to color, it’s relaxing. And, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, girl, but you really need to relax.”
The blow dryer shut off and Abel tapped me on the shoulder with the hair brush. “You’re all done now.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, at a loss for words. They’d both robbed me of speech. One wanted to play with my hair while the other wanted to color with me.
I picked a picture out of the swearing book. Coloring in naughty words? Sure, why not. I figured I could maybe give it to Quinton later, he seemed fond of swear words. I used them as well, but I tried to keep them in my head where people wouldn’t judge me for using them.
Addison colored in a picture of a fox and Abel colored a picture of wild flowers. It was cute, ridiculous and probably one of the best afternoons I had had in a very long time.
Chapter Eleven
“Where are we going?” I asked as we turned onto a dirt road. We weren’t far from home and I had no idea where we were going.
It hadn’t occurred to me to ask Quinton where we were going when he’d asked me if I wanted to go for a ride with him and he hadn’t talked the entire drive.
He also didn’t bother answering my question as we came to a stop in front of a cute little cottage.
The only thing around was trees. Trees, trees, and more trees.
The square, two-story home had a washed out stone front. There were two windows on either side of the front door and both had weathered flower boxes overflowing with some type of hanging vines. The shudders around the windows were painted black as was the front door. The chimney sitting atop the cottage had smoke billowing out of it, giving it a charming look. The over grown plants and the black paint on the door and shudders, not so much.
A stone walkway lead up to the house. There was another one off of it that lead around the side of the house, where it disappeared from view. It probably lead to the back yard.