ΑΒΩ
Morning came too early. Even the shower did little to wash away the grogginess and regret generated by last night’s events. I dressed perfunctorily, paying little attention to my wardrobe and descended the stairs with unease, averse to the ribbing that will surely occur.
It surprised me to find the twins awake and mobile. They’d taken advantage of their suspension by sleeping in all week. Once Icarus’s ire passed, he didn’t dwell on things.
Lucius was busy arranging a single file line of bacon onto a paper plate to reheat it in the microwave. I had prepared it the previous night so that I’d have less to do in the morning.
I pulled the eggs from the fridge and began cracking them into a large glass bowl. We went through an eighteen-egg carton in a sitting, so we only ate eggs on Fridays. Wednesday was pancakes, and Monday I’d made french toast, which I prepared Sunday night. Tuesdays and Thursdays the boys had to fend for themselves. In other words, they ate cereal.
At least, that was the planned menu for the week. This was subject to change at my convenience, of course. Hence, I could deduce the reasoning for the boy’s prolonged silence this morning. In essence, and the literal sense, I was the hand feeding them.
“Milk?” Lucius asked curiously, watching as I added some to the raw eggs. He was the most adept in the kitchen, and frankly, the most interested. The others had no desire to cook, which worked out for me because I hated to clean up. We were a match made in heaven.
“It makes them fluffier and moist,” I explained. “Don’t add salt while cooking them. It makes them dry and rubbery.”
“Oh…well how do you know how much milk to put in?”
“I don’t. I just eye it. A tablespoon for two eggs, I guess. So about a half cup for eighteen. But it’s not an exact science. We’re not feeding the Waldorf Astoria.”
“Contrary, our senses are more precise,” the imp interjected, idly twirling a ringlet around her finger. “Too much of one thing and not enough of the other could ruin the whole dish.”
“We’re talking about scrambled eggs, Hailey,” Max said quickly, to my defense. I think his concern was equally divided between my feelings and the procurement of his breakfast.
“She could spit in them and you would eat it,” she sniffed, and left the room. She and I had no miraculous bonding over the past week. Our attitude toward one another was tolerable at best, and that was bordering on the ‘barely’ end of the spectrum.
Max shrugged, blithely. “It’s true. I would.”
“Dude, that’s so disgusting!” Crispin exclaimed, his nose wrinkled in revulsion. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“Well I wouldn’t eat your spit.”
“It’s saliva, Runt,” Caius said. “You’re gonna get some on you when you french kiss a girl someday. When you’re tangling tongues it’s kind of to avoid it.”
“Still nasty.”
“That’s because you haven’t hit puberty yet,” Lucius scoffed. “Grow some hair on your boys and then remind us how disgusting kissing and saliva is.”
Crispin opened his mouth to retort, but glancing in my direction, he flushed and clamped his mouth shut. “I’ve kissed a girl,” he said instead, his chest swollen with pride.
“Oh yeah?” said Bacchus, grinning widely. Mocking smirks filled the room.
“Yeah,” said Crispin, fighting his own smile. “She was wearing Hershey’s lips gloss. I wanted to vomit the rest of the day.”
By the time the laughter died down, I had finished cooking the eggs. I was dividing them among the six extended dishes when Icarus joined the party. Reaching around me, he pressed a light kiss on my cheek, took the pan from my hands and took over divvying the eggs.
Evidentially, last night’s attempt to discourage him from pursuing me was in vain. It didn’t help that my reaction to his entrance was opposing to my qualms over getting involved with him. There was no concealing my attraction to him. It was perceptible every time I flushed with color.
“Sit. Eat,” he ordered. “You overslept. You’ll be late for school.”
He pushed a plate in my direction with the tip of his finger. Grabbing a fork from the drawer, I speared a mass of egg and stuffed it in my mouth, chasing it with a healthy bite of bacon, scoffing my food down before he could press further misplaced attentions upon me.
“Hungry?”
Flushing again, I nodded and averted my eyes to my plate.
“Good. Save your appetite for dinner tonight. I’m taking you to the Inn.”
I made a noise of protest around my mouthful of eggs and bacon, my eyebrows furrowing until a small v appeared in the center.
“I believe we had a deal, Thaleia.”
Swallowing, I nearly choked. My mouth went dry and the eggs stuck in my throat. “A deal? You were supposed to chase Mike off!” I graveled hoarsely. “And a fat lot of good it did! He waylaid me in the hall at school the next day!”
“It was an oversight,” Icarus dismissed. “Which has then since been corrected. Has he bothered you at all this week? I can place a call to Mr. Fleiss this morning.”
“No, but—”
Mercilessly, Icarus shrugged. “Deal’s a deal.”
Dropping my fork to the counter, I left in a huff. This was coercion.
“The twins will be taking you to school today,” Icarus called after me. “I need Max and Lucius elsewhere while I run some errands.”
Elsewhere like hunting down Alec, a kidnapper and murderer. And he was worried about taking me to dinner at some schmancy pants restaurant. Was I the only one thinking clearly? Was I the only one who could see that entering a relationship with him would be wrong on so many levels? There were too many factors working against us. Age. Personality. Fate to name a few. He was setting himself up for disappointment. Begging for failure.
Pushing my arms through the sleeves of my coat, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and left to wait in the Jeep. I was studying for my calculus test when the wonder twins joined me several minutes later. Considering they couldn’t come into the school because of their suspension, Bacchus was prepared for the weather, but Caius was seriously underdressed in sweatpants, sans shirt and shoes.
“You’re gonna catch pneumonia,” I pointed out.
“We don’t get sick,” Caius disclosed. “And I’ll be shifting anyhow. I’m watching the rear of the school in the woods. Bacchus’ll be taking the front.”
“You’re not supposed to be on school grounds.”
“I’ll be watching the front entrance from the jeep.”
“Don’t you think this is a little extreme?” I asked, snapping my textbook closed. “Do you think this guy’s actually going to try and abduct me from school while I’m surrounded by eighteen hundred people?”
“It depends on how desperate he is,” Bacchus answered. “He’ll be looking for vulnerabilities wherever he can. All it takes is a slip up from one of us…” Leaving the end of his sentence hanging in midair, Bacchus pulled to a stop in the rear parking lot.
“We screwed up with Dougherty,” Caius said seriously, “We won’t do it again. Not on our watch.” Tousling my hair, he slipped from the jeep and loped off into the woods, his bronze body disappearing into the thick of trees.
“Icarus couldn’t really have expected you to keep Mike from harassing me,” I said doubtfully. Granted, our classrooms were clustered within the senior hall, it was still a large school, and a vast area to patrol while trying to make it to your next period on time.
Bacchus lifted one shoulder in dismissal. “It was a test of sorts.”
“One that was guaranteed to fail.”
“We can’t fail. That was Icarus’s point. Caius and I fuck around too much.” Shifting into drive, he pulled to the front of the lot and parked off to the side, where he could watch discreetly from the jeep. “We can’t expect to protect you if we’re behaving like kids.”
Outside, our classmates filed off the buses and into the school, laughing and chattering over the day ahead of th
em. I envied them for their blindness of the unknown. Their biggest worry was their trig assignment or counting down the days until Christmas vacation.
Contemplatively, Bacchus turned toward the window. His breath fogged the glass beside him in a crystalline haze. “He’s mad about you, you know.”
“Icarus? He’s too old for me. My mom would have a coronary.”
“You’re immortal, Thale. When Icarus is a hundred, you’ll be ninety. It doesn’t sound so illogical then, does it?”
“It doesn’t matter. It would be stupid to start a relationship when everything around us is so effed up. Someone will end up hurt.”
“You can’t stop what’s not in your control. He’s attracted to you. And you’re certainly attracted to him. I think your feelings are going to evolve whether you want them to or not.”
“Bacchus, I don’t mean to open a can of worms, but you don’t seem overly pleased with the notion, yet you’re sitting here encouraging me to be with him. Are you saying this because he’s your alpha?”
“You think he’s strong-arming me to stay away from you?”
“Well…yeah.”
Bacchus smiled roguishly. “And by ‘can of worms,’ you mean inviting me to hit on you?”
“Yes,” I answered impulsively. I felt bad for shooting him down, but I didn’t need any more drama from uninvited attention, and questioning his feelings was definitely opening a can of worms. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” he dismissed, but he eyes took on that far away look again. He turned toward the window again, using the butt of his fist to clear the glass.
The warning bell rang. I only had five minutes to get to first period.
“It’s because he can take better care of you than I can. I know you worry that we’ll get hurt trying to protect you, or that you and Icarus will be separated, but that’s not the case. We’re old enough to get along without him. If those lycan come for you from up north, Icarus can take you away from here. Somewhere safe.”
Insistently, I shook my head. “I can’t break your family apart.”
“It wouldn’t be permanent. We would meet up later, when you’ve settled in elsewhere,” Bacchus pressed. “And these are all ‘ifs.’ Things might never come to this.”
“I’m going to be late,” I said, popping the door open. I grabbed my backpack from the floor and jogged toward the front entrance, but I couldn’t escape Bacchus’s last words.
“Don’t be stubborn and refuse what he’s offering, Thale. He’s a good man.”
Chapter 12
“You look like crap.”
Glaring, I stared at Mike with blatant aversion. He really didn’t know when to call it quits. I had no interest in him. He was a phase of my life that was over. So over. I had a zillion other things to worry about. The last thing I needed was his continued badgering.
My top priority at the moment was passing my calculus test. East’s curriculum was about two weeks behind West, and having missed a week of school, that left me three weeks off the pace. I was struggling to catch up. Mrs. D assigned double the homework every night, but that was only math. I still had homework assignments for three other subjects to complete as well.
Dropping his tray on the table, Mike straddled the stool across from me.
“Sure, have a seat,” I said sarcastically. As if I were inviting him. As if anybody else were sitting there. I’d been so bogged down with work that I hadn’t had time to befriend anyone. Not even old classmates from before the school division.
“Late night?”
“None of your business.” Bored of the routine, I went back to my work. Perhaps he’d get the point that he wasn’t welcome and go away.
“You’ve been sitting by yourself all week. I’m just trying to be courteous.”
“I’m studying, and you’re disturbing me.”
“What’re you studying? Maybe I can help.”
“Perhaps,” I said, packing up my things, “you can help me with practicing language arts. Goodbye. Au revoir. Sayonara. Arrivederci. Adios.”
Moving to a table on the other side of the cafeteria, I resumed my studying in somewhat peace. Around me, I could hear the hiss and snickers of our senior classmates as Mike’s tray once again plopped down opposite me.
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Fuck off, Mike.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Yet, here you sit.”
“How many times do I have to apologize, Thale? I was sixteen, and drunk. And vainglorious. I was trying to look cool in front of the guys. It was stupid and immature, I know. And I’ve regretted every minute of it.”
I wondered how long it took for him to compose that small speech. About a week was my guess. “Every minute since last Monday when I told you I knew about the bet?” I countered. “I’ve regretted it for two years and running, Michael, so excuse me if I come off as bitter.”
Homework. Concentrate. I was so going to fail calculus.
“Thale.”
…antiderivatives of functions which contain th roots of or other expressions. WTF? I was so going to fail calculus.
“Thale.”
Frustrated, I looked up. “Michael. Can you not see that I’m busy?” I gestured to the books splayed out in front of me with a fan of my hand.
“I meant every word I said. Back when we used to talk about college and our future together. I swear. What happened at the party that night, it was all a show for the guys.”
“What do you want from me?” I said with an aggrieved sigh. “Are you looking for some kind of absolution?”
“I want a second chance.”
“I’m not interested,” I said, returning to my work. I read the same equation for the third time. It made no more sense now than it did the first time I read it.
“Thale.”
Only because of Mike’s solemn tone did I look up. What I saw in his eyes, I almost couldn’t comprehend. This was the same Mike to whom I used to pour out my soul. Those green eyes used to look at me with the same reverence, as if I were a treasure. Those lips used to speak our shared desires. They made promises of a future filled with love and devotion.
“Thaleia?” said a girls voice behind me. “Thaleia Llorente?”
Pivoting on my stool, a short, blonde-haired girl handed me a pass. “You’re wanted in the principal’s office.”
Gathering my things, I shoved them into my pack , thankful for the diversion. Principal’s office or not, it was welcome.
“Later, Thale?” Michael called out.
“Don’t count on it,” I called over my shoulder.
As I disposed of my lunch, I could hear Mike’s buddies chortling behind me, thumping him on the bicep in a show of male camaraderie.
“Man, she shot you down like a lame horse.”
“For now,” said Mike. “Give me a few weeks. She’s coming around."
“Keep dreaming, man. She’s with the twin’s cousin.”
“She’s not with him. I saw her at Jack’s party. She walked right past him. Didn’t give him a second glance.”
“I hate to point it out, but she’s living with him now.”
“I’m telling you, give me a little time and I’ll have her purring like a kitten.”
“Willing to put some money where your mouth is?”
“You’re on.”
I could practically hear the smile in Mike’s voice. It was that which sent me over the edge. After dumping my lunch, I placed the tray atop the stack and walked back to Mike and his team of buffoons. They, all but Mike, scattered like a bunch of filthy cockroaches.
“Thale,” Michael said, his eyes returning to depthless green orbs. Phony freaking fake. I swear there wasn’t a thing he wasn’t good at. He should’ve been in drama.
Me, I wasn’t too bad myself, but I didn’t feel the need to waste time with pretenses. I cocked back my right arm and let it fly, decking Michael with a right upper cut to the jaw. It mightn’t have been pretty, but it did the trick. He went down like
a pile of bricks.
My knuckles exploded with pain. For a few long seconds all I could do was bend over, bracing myself against the agony.
The cafeteria erupted with hoots and cheers. Even the sporadic applause. I was still shaking the pain away when the lunch aides made their way over and dispatched Michael and me to the principal’s office. I showed them my pass with a small flourish.
“Already on my way.”
I was feeling rather good of myself until I opened the door to the office and saw the police standing there. The officer lifted his hat and scratched his forehead. “Miss Llorente?”
ΑΒΩ
I sat in the office, inundated with the smell of manila folders and permanent markers. Roz would occasionally punch her stapler with the force of a jackhammer, staring up at me with her thin-lipped frown. I swear she looked at me like I were a juicy fly for her consumption.
I was so worried over Icarus’s impending temper that when he walked through the office door, I had to do a double take. He had cut his hair and shaved, recently from the fresh scent of cologne emanating from him. Only a light shadow of stubble darkened his jaw. He cropped his shoulder-length hair short, looking more like the Greek Apoxyomenos with his loose curls.
If I hadn’t been blatantly gawking, I wouldn’t have noticed the slight flare on his nostrils as he turned toward me. I flushed as his eyes raked over me and came to a rest on my hand, which was cradled gingerly in my lap. Displeased, his muscles flexed around his squared jaw.
Crossing the small space, he crouched in front of me, taking my hand in his, gently manipulating my fingers. “Can you move them?”
“All but my third finger.”
“It’s probably just bruised, but it could be sprained.” Looking up, he met my eyes. “Did Michael Dougherty have anything to do with this?”
Dropping my chin, I looked up from under my lashes. “I hit him.”
A small grin played at his lips. “I hope you at least got a good shot in.”
“She cracked several teeth,” Mr. Fleiss answered. “He’s currently on his way to the dentist to have them repaired.”
“When we get home, I’ll teach you how to do that without breaking your hand,” Icarus commended, rising from his crouch.
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