“Uhh…”
“Eat,” Julian mumbled. “You’re too skinny and you’ve lost even more weight over the last few weeks. Are you eating every day? Are you eating at all?”
I tore off a hunk of a breadstick and dipped it into the alfredo sauce before stuffing it in my mouth. I chewed as I thought about how to answer his question. After I ate the first bite, the other three picked up their forks and stated eating. They had been waiting for me to take the first bite.
I ate without taking my eyes off of my plate. The rest of them were quiet as they ate too.
Had I been eating properly these past few weeks? I thought I had been but now I wasn’t so sure. I had been sleeping through breakfast, eating a piece of toast for lunch with a cup of coffee to chase it down and eating dinner with Mr. Cole on most nights which was usually some kind of take out. Huh. Guess I hadn’t been eating as much as I should have. I didn’t think one crappy meal a day and a piece of toast were going to cut it with them.
Before we had moved in with Mr. Cole I would have been more than happy to be able to eat a takeout meal, toast and coffee every day. It would have been a decent change from the normal of ramen and crackers that I ate almost every day.
I chose not to answer Julian’s questions and he didn’t ask again. It wasn’t any of his business how much I ate every day.
“So, Ariel,” Damien said quietly. “When are you planning on going back to school? You’ve missed what, three weeks now? You’re going to fall behind.”
I choked on the breadstick I’d just taken a bite of and had to take a few sips of water to get it to go down.
School.
I coughed.
Of all the things he could pick to talk about and he wanted to talk about school. What would he think if I told him I had zero intentions of going back to school. Being a high school drop-out wasn’t something I thought they would find cute or endearing.
How was I going to explain to them that I wasn’t going back to school? How would Quinton and Tyson take the news? Should I really not go back to school? The thought of going back had me cringing in my chair. The GED test was sounding better and better by the day.
“Hey,” Tyson shouted from the front of the house. “Where is everybody?”
I sat back in my chair and breathed out a sigh of relief. Saved by Tyson. Now I wouldn’t have to answer any uncomfortable questions.
“What’s he doing here?” Damien muttered angrily. He was staring into his plate of food with a scowl on his face.
“Brother,” Julian said in warning.
“Are you brothers?” I asked curiously. They didn’t look to be related and no one had said anything about them being brothers. I would have heard about it by now.
Julian winked at me. “We’re all brothers. It doesn’t matter that the only blood brothers are the twins. We’re all family and sometimes the family we make for ourselves is the best kind.”
I wrinkled my nose at him and asked in a serious voice, “Does that mean you’re going to start calling me sister?”
“Wha… What?” He sputtered.
“Sister,” Damien spit the word out on a disgusted sneer. I didn’t know what he had to be so disgusted about. He had a girlfriend and didn’t see me like that.
“Please, tell me you’re joking,” Julian whined.
This was by far the most awkward dinner I had ever been a party to. And nobody had really said anything. I sincerely hoped Dash wouldn’t expect me to have dinner with him every night. Then again, it was bound to be different with just him and me.
Tyson’s heat hit me. His chin rested on top of my head as he moved into me. He wrapped his arms around my chest and squeezed gently.
“When you didn’t answer me back I got worried,” he mumbled. His chin rubbed against the top of my head with every word he spoke.
Tyson squeezed me tighter and swayed from side to side, rocking us slowly.
“I left my cell phone upstairs,” I told him. “If I had thought you were going to come over here if I didn’t text you back right away, I would never have left the thing upstairs.”
“Do you like your bedroom?” he asked quietly, ignoring our avid audience and changing the subject.
I, for one, was having a very hard time ignoring our audience. Looking through the people seated around the table, I noticed all of them were watching Tyson and not me. Dash’s gaze was drawn towards where Tyson’s chin rested on my head and the sad look was back in his eyes. Why did seeing me with Tyson make Dash look sad? I didn’t understand him. Julian was looking a little higher, at Tyson’s face, and he had a thoughtful expression on his face. And Damien, well his eyes were locked on Tyson’s arms wrapped around my chest. A muscle ticked in Damien’s jaw, indicating he was upset or angry about something. Was he upset because Tyson was touching me? Or, maybe, because I seemed so comfortable with his touch?