Turning away from the mirror, I quickly wrapped myself in a luxurious, fluffy white towel that must have been half an inch thick. I’d had the same towel for a year, and it had been secondhand when I’d gotten it. How ridiculously rich did a person have to be to afford towels that cost more than my entire wardrobe? The extravagance both awed and horrified me. How many rooms in this house stood empty while people like my mother and me slept in cars—or much worse?
As I wound my hair up and prepared to leave the bathroom, my mind returned to something my mother sometimes said. We were the lucky ones. We weren’t completely homeless—we had our car, and she always managed to get jobs that paid cash. It was true.
At those jobs, she made friends, however briefly. She told me stories about them, about her kindly coworkers and cranky managers, quirky customers and clients. I never talked to anyone. And yet, I hadn’t been lonely. The thought that she needed more should have made me sad, but instead, that little flame of resentment flickered again. Why did she have to need other people? I didn’t need anyone else.
Then I remembered Peyton skipping over to stand beside me and saying we could be sisters. And the way I felt when Zeke turned that dazzling movie star smile on me. Mom had always told me we didn’t need anyone else. But if she could change her mind, then maybe it was okay for me to start needing other people in my life, too.
Chapter Seven
Zeke
I stood in the shower scrubbing my nasty feet, thinking about what had just happened. I didn’t know what it was about this girl, but I wanted to know more. Something weird was going on, and she was the key. I’d felt it when I walked into the dining room at dinner, and I knew she’d felt it, too. Whatever was going on, I was going to find out.
I’d wanted to hang out in her room a while, but I was getting the vibe that she needed space. Girls didn’t regularly give me that vibe. They were usually the ones hanging on like left tackles while I tried to shake them loose.
Still, when I got done lathering up, I decided I’d stop by and remind her of the invitation to hang. The others must have been dying to get to know her, too, and they’d all gotten a shot first. Ever since Dad had announced that he’d invited a mysterious lady and her daughter to come stay with us, I’d been going nuts with curiosity. Dad didn’t do stuff like that. Since Mom died, he’d had his hands full with the five of us. Having five teenagers in the house couldn’t have been easy for anyone, even if one of them hadn’t been Xander.
Now the lady had arrived, and though she was a little strange, I was way more interested in the mysterious daughter. I didn’t want to waste my shot at getting to know her by hanging out in the shower too long, but I also didn’t want to gross her out with my stinky pits.
When I was scrubbed clean as a newborn baby, I shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. The bathroom was so full of steam I could barely see the full length mirror that stood next to the sink. I stepped up to it and wiped a spot clean, leaning in to check for budding zits. My skin was clear, though—that junk Peyton had given me must have worked. Not that I’d ever let on that I used girl’s skin cream.
I flexed my arms in front of the mirror, checking out my muscles. Then I gave my bicep a little kiss for getting me so far on the football field, not to mention with the ladies.
“Wake up.”
My head jerked up, and I squinted to see through the steam. Who the hell had come in the bathroom while I was showering? It couldn’t have been Gwen, could it? That wasn’t her voice. Or was it? I couldn’t even say for sure what the voice had sounded like or which direction it had come from, though I’d heard the words clearly.
“Who said that?” I asked, swiping at the steam around me. It billowed and swirled, but I couldn’t make out a shape. I karate chopped the steam, searching for someone—was it her mom? I’d barely gotten a glimpse of her before I carried her daughter off. Maybe she was pissed about it.
Sometimes I remembered weird shit that hadn’t really happened, like I was sure I remembered walking around some pond in Boston, feeding ducks with Mom when I was little. But that couldn’t have happened because Mom hated birds and said the smell of them made her sick. But hallucinating something in the present was more real than hallucinating a memory, and a lot freakier.
The weirdest part was, I couldn’t find anyone in all that steam and fog. After I’d freaked myself out, I threw on a towel and got out of there with a quickness. Not that I was afraid of steam monsters or anything, but I was sure I’d heard a voice. I’d never had a hallucination before, not even the time that asshole Joaquin had given me a brownie at a party and then laughed at me because I didn’t know “special” meant “drugged.”
Besides, wasn’t a hallucination when you saw trippy shit that wasn’t there? I didn’t know if you could hallucinate a sound. Maybe that was called something different, like a hearlucination.
I hurried down the hall, threw on a T-shirt and some sweats, and rubbed the towel over my hair one more time. In my mirror, I looked totally normal, and no creepy fog monster lurked behind me. Tossing my towel on the end of my bed, I headed for Gwen’s room. After all the excitement downstairs, I expected someone to have come up to check on her, but I couldn’t hear a peep behind her door.
A funny thing happened in my gut before I tapped on the door, but I figured it was just because I’d skipped dinner. When I pushed open the door, Gwen was lying on the bed, propped up on pillows, with a book open across her knees. Her wet hair was twisted up into a giant knot thing on top of her head, and she was wearing different clothes. She looked up and offered me a shy smile.
“Hey,” I said. “You ready to go sit on the deck?”
“It’s kinda cold,” Gwen said in a small voice, hugging herself and rubbing her arms to warm up.
“I’ll grab you a jacket,” I said. Then I fixed her with my best puppy-dog eyes. “Come on. Please?”
Another smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “Maybe for a minute,” she said, swinging her legs off the bed.
“Really?” I asked, surprised for some reason. But I didn’t want to look too eager, so I tried to hide it by shrugging and saying, “Cool.”
She stuffed her feet into a pair of ratty Converse sneaks and shuffled over to me, not seeming to notice that she’d turned the smooth operator Zeke into a total dork. I was just glad I’d gotten to her before my brothers told her too many of my less stellar moments. Xander was especially fond of doing that around girls.
“How big is this place?” Gwen asked as we stepped into my bedroom. “Do you each have your own room?”
“The twins used to share,” I said. “But that was by choice.” I snagged a Wellfleet Oysters hoodie from the back of a chair and handed it to her, covertly kicking a pair of boxers under my bed while she was distracted. I didn’t want her thinking I was a total slob. The girl was fine, but unlike the girls who usually caught my eye, she wasn’t all dolled up. Not that I didn’t dig the natural look, too, but it was cool to know a girl had put in some effort for me, especially if I’d gotten myself all spiffed out for her.
Gwen pulled on my hoodie, reaching up to dig her topknot out of the neck of the shirt before pulling her head through. She looked even better in my sweatshirt. With a jolt, I caught myself checking out her Levi-clad legs. I had to remember she was there because our dad was interested in her mom, not because she was keen on the Keen. For a minute, I’d totally forgotten. But hey, it wasn’t my fault Dad had the hots for her mom.
“Let’s hit the deck,” I said, shrugging off the weird pull she had on me. I wanted to get out of my room before she noticed the seashell nightlight plugged into an outlet in the corner. Obviously, I hid that shit away in the bottom of my closet when I invited girls over.
As we headed downstairs, I gave myself a pep talk. It was only natural for me to check out a fine female, especially a new girl in town. Wellfleet wasn’t exactly a happening place in the off-season. Summer was when the beach babes showed up—high school girls w
ith their parents, nannies watching the kids of vacationing doctors, Ivy League college girls bonding with their parents on their time off school. This time of year, I was deep into a dry spell, since I’d already dated all the girls at school I was interested in.
Gwen shoved her hands into the pocket of my hoodie as I led her out onto the back deck. We could hear the little waves in the bay slapping the shore below. Gwen huddled deeper into my hoodie, which swallowed her up in the cutest way. I brushed off the urge to put my arm around her. After throwing some logs into the outdoor fireplace, I crouched and lit it, calming myself with the familiar task.
When the fire was lit, smoke started churning out in my face, and I jumped back, halfway expecting a weird smoke monster to speak to me. Before that could happen, I opened up the flue so the smoke would go up the chimney. I stood back and smiled at my handiwork.
“Pull up a deck chair,” I said. “I’ll go grab some snacks.”
I ducked inside and headed straight for the dining room, where Rosa was cleaning up. “Save me any lobster?” I asked, grabbing a handful of glasses and following her to the kitchen.
“For you? No way,” she said. “You’ll wolf it down in two bites without enjoying it. There’s a microwave dinner in the freezer for you.”
“Aww, you’re killing me,” I said, giving her my puppy dog eyes as I opened the freezer.
“I’m kidding, you lug head,” she said, pulling a foil-wrapped plate from the fridge. With a grin, I tossed the frozen dinner back, ruffled her hair, and grabbed the plate. I was famished.
“How is she?” Rosa asked, giving me a guarded look.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, peeling the foil off my plate. “Dad tasked me with making her feel at home, so I’m going to try.”
“She’s not too upset about what happened at dinner?”
“No idea,” I said. “How come you’re not asking if I’m upset?”
“You’re fine,” Rosa said, rolling her eyes.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I slid the plate in the microwave and turned it on before reassuring myself. “Dad said it was just the heater, so it was just the heater.”
“Exactly,” Rosa said, turning away.
While my food heated, I saw a shadow slip down the stairs and toward the deck. Damn. I’d missed my chance to have Gwen to myself.
Oh, well. I didn’t mind sharing, as long as it was with one of my brothers.
Chapter Eight
Gwen
When the French door slid open, I gave a guilty start, though I hadn’t been doing anything but arranging two chairs close to the fire like Zeke had asked me to. It would take me a while not to feel like an imposter in these lavish surroundings.
When I looked up, it wasn’t Zeke coming out, though.
“What’s up?” Peyton asked, bouncing across the deck, her ponytail swinging.
I shrugged, studying the floor. I hated this feeling, the one I’d been worried about when I heard Neil had a family. They were all typical teenagers, and I…well, I wasn’t. The minute I opened my mouth, they’d all know what a weird, awkward, socially inept person I was.
“I figured we could hang out,” Peyton said. “We can get in the hot tub if you want.”
“No,” I said quickly, imagining their horror if they saw my childhood scars.
“Okay, then,” Peyton said. “What do you want to do?”
“Stop feeling like I’m squatting here illegally and you’re going to kick us out of your mansion at any minute?”
Peyton stared at me. I swallowed and turned away, cursing myself for voicing my thoughts. There were a couple ways I could have answered her question, but apparently, the honest answer wasn’t the right one. Asking if she was a cheerleader bitch like the ones in all the books I read probably wouldn’t have gotten us off on the right foot, either.
I was avoiding the question of why meeting her had caused a minor earthquake. That would lead to questions about my sanity, which might lead to questions about Mom’s sanity, and we tried not to raise those questions with outsiders. Outsiders being anyone besides me and Mom.
How was I supposed to know what to say to a bubblegum-haired cheerleader?
“Soooo, anyway,” Peyton said after a long, awkward pause. She had a slight Boston accent like her brothers.
“Yeah,” I said. “So anyway.”
She gave me another odd look. “Our dad told us you were coming, like, a week ago,” she said. “Kind of a shock. How long have you known?”
I felt like I’d been slapped. Mom had known for that long?
“Uh…a day?”
“Oh, wow,” she said, her eyes widening. “That’s nuts.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Um…okay,” she said. “But your mom just told you that you were moving halfway across the country to meet some guy she met online. Yesterday. How crazy is that?”
“She’s not crazy,” I said quickly, pulling my hands into the sleeves of Zeke’s hoodie. “We’re not nuts. We’re totally normal.”
Peyton laughed and pulled over a piece of deck furniture that looked like a couch but was made of some kind of twisted wooden sticks, topped with sand-colored cushions with little blue seahorses on them. “Normal is boring,” she said. “And I can already tell you’re not boring.”
“Sure I am,” I said. “Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.”
Peyton laughed again and plopped down on the couch thing. Even the way she sat down was cute and bouncy. “How do you like the place?” she asked, gesturing around.
“It’s…amazing,” I said, then winced at the bald awe in my voice. I should have played it cool, acted unimpressed.
“It’s nice of your mom to give up your house and just move all the way out here,” she said. “I can’t imagine doing that. I’d be so mad if Dad had wanted to move to St. Louis. No offense, I’m sure it’s cool, but all my friends are here, you know?”
“Totally,” I said, though of course I didn’t know anything about friends or missing people. When I thought about Mom leaving me, I thought I’d die. So maybe missing people was like that.
“What about you?” Peyton asked. “Are you going to miss your friends a lot?”
I thought about telling her my best friend was Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the show I’d watched in its entirety at a library in Little Rock while my mom went to work every day. Or maybe I should pick Scarlet O’Hara from Gone With the Wind, because I could talk to her anywhere. That kinda interfered with the whole sanity thing, though, and I’d already gotten enough funny looks tonight, so I just nodded.
“Tell me about your best friend,” Peyton said, leaning back and watching me expectantly. Apparently this was some kind of game.
“I…didn’t really have a lot of friends,” I admitted.
Just then, Zeke stepped onto the deck with a plate in one hand and a soda in the other. He took a seat on the far end of the couch from Peyton and started eating.
“Don’t worry. You’ll have tons of friends here,” Peyton said. “We’ll make sure of it, won’t we, Zeke? And we’re going to be best friends. We’ll be like sisters.”
“You’re not like a sister to me,” Zeke said, giving me a smile that made me feel like we had our own little secret.
“Don’t be mean,” Peyton said, swiping his soda.
“I’m not being mean,” Zeke said. “I already have one pain-in-the-ass sister. I don’t need two.”
Peyton just laughed.
I watched her take a drink, envying the easy way they had with each other. I didn’t even have that kind of relationship with my own mother. During her good times, we were close, but there was always that barrier between us, that thing we didn’t talk about. I knew the good times wouldn’t last, that we’d be back on the run again too soon. Before now, I’d never fully realized what I was missing.
Sitting on the deck, watching Peyton try to steal a bite from Zeke’s plate as he held it away, both of them laughing and taunting each other, I couldn�
�t help but ache. A knot formed in my throat as I thought of the words she’d dropped so casually.
We’ll be like sisters.
I’d never thought about having a sister. I’d never known it was an option. Suddenly, my entire life felt narrower than a one-lane bridge. I’d been to so many places, but I’d never done the simplest things. If we stayed with the Keens, a whole life would be open in front of us instead of just a road. I would interact with other humans instead of just reading about them in books and watching them on TV. Any one of those people, those interactions, could change the course of my life.
Gripping the seat beneath me, I tried to steady myself. It was all too much, the endless possibilities racing by. And though these kids were both kind of what I’d expected—she was perky and petite, he was hot and confident—it wasn’t as clear cut as I’d imagined. She wasn’t a bitchy mean girl, and I hadn’t figured him out within minutes of knowing him.
Turned out, my books hadn’t taught me everything. These people were real and unpredictable. I couldn’t memorize my lines and know what they’d say next. And there were three more of them in the house, probably not doing what I pictured—painting, doing homework at a computer, and lounging around in a leather jacket, respectively.
If I went to school, it would be full of people who didn’t say the lines I gave them in my head, who didn’t react the way I predicted when I saw them and matched their type to the characters in the paperbacks under the seat of Mom’s car.
Suddenly, my social isolation seemed like a bigger deal than it ever had before. I had no idea how to relate to normal people. If Mom really wanted to stay here and didn’t whisk us away in the morning, if we moved in with these strangers, I might as well be visiting another planet. I knew as much about aliens from reading as I did about teenagers.
Chapter Nine
Gwen
When I went up to bed later, I was tired but strangely elated, as if I were floating on a cloud. I was still scared shitless, don’t get me wrong. Figuring out real people was a whole lot more complicated than figuring out whodunit in a murder mystery. But I thought I was really going to like my new pseudo-family.
Emerge: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Page 5