Home (Finding My Home Book 1)

by Nikita Parmenter

  “Hey there. How can I help you?” she asks kindly and I step forward.

  “Hi, I’ve been getting creepy notes for the past week, there was even one written on a mirror on a private motocross bike trail that my friends own. We’d done several laps of the course before it was put up and then when two of my friends went back to get it, it was gone again. We were talking about coming to you with it and I think whoever put it up must’ve heard us and it spooked them because I didn’t get anything else for a couple of days but I was at a party last night and he tried to grab me” I explain quickly wanting to get this over with. I take off my hoody and show her the monstrous bruise in the shape of the Stalkers fingers wrapping around the top part of my arm.

  The guys who had been silent up until now growl and I realise it might have been a good idea to show them how bad it was before we got here. They don’t say a word though, letting me deal with officer although I can feel the tension radiating off them.

  “I fought him off until Cash found me and scared him off” I say pointing over my shoulder at the brooding male who is currently muttering in Italian under his breath.

  I haven’t heard him use Italian since I’ve been back and I’m not going to lie, with his deep voice it’s sexy as fuck.

  Focus Ever.

  “I had my back to him the entire time so I didn’t get a good look at him and the only time he spoke was to say Ever Rose” I say disgusted, “and his voice was somehow distorted.” I add.

  “Oh, you poor girl, unfortunately there’s not much we can do especially since you can’t identify him” she pauses, “do you have any idea who it could be?”

  “Nope none, I only moved here on Tuesday” I tell her.

  “OK, well we’ll get an incident report written up at least and I’ll need to take a picture of your arm for the report if that’s ok with you?”

  I nod my agreement.

  “I’d rather you don’t go out by yourself for the time being either, until this guy either stops or we can catch him. Do you think you can manage that?” she asks smirking at the two overprotective guys stood behind me.

  I chuckle, “I think that will be ok, there’s four more guys just like those two” I grin as they grumble behind me.

  “Good, follow me and we will get the report sorted” she says stepping out from behind the counter and leading me towards the row of desks further in the room. “You boys can stay there we won’t be a minute” she says waving to the seating area behind them and they reluctantly sit down.

  The officer chuckles under her breath at their reluctance.

  I sit down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk to her, and she asks me to describe in detail about the notes, where I found them, what sort of time of day that sort of thing. Then she gets me to describe the attack at the party.

  “Ok that parts done now, did you keep the previous notes he sent you?” she asks.

  I nod and reach into my back pocket, grabbing the small pile of notes and handing them over. She glances over them briefly before putting them to one side with the report.

  Once that’s done, she takes me to a private room at the back of the precinct where she takes a few pictures from different angles, showing the bruise on my arm. It all takes around thirty minutes and I’m thoroughly done with the whole process when she finally says I can go and walks me back out to the guys.

  “You alright, Dragonfly?” Cash asks gently as we walk out the doors and get back in the car.

  “Yeah but that took longer than I thought it would and I basically just had to repeat what I already told her but in more detail. It was tedious” I grumble.

  “Do you still want to go and grab a coat before we meet the guys at the diner?” Trick asks.

  “Yes please, if that’s alright?” I ask glancing between them both, “Riot’s jumper isn’t exactly suitable for December weather. I’m freezing my tits off” I chuckle, as Trick turns around and looks at my chest and Cash’s eyes flick to my boobs in the rear-view mirror. “Not literally” I roll my eyes as they chuckle.

  Five minutes later Cash pulls up outside a small local store that seems to sell clothing of all sorts of styles and varieties. I pat my bra cup as I get out of the car just to reassure myself that my card is still there and receive an odd look from a middle-aged woman as she rushes by. Like she doesn’t keep stuff in her bra?

  It’s probably not a big deal if I lose it, I can just cancel it and get a new one but just the thought of losing something that has access to that much money is terrifying to me.

  “The diner is just around the corner so we can leave the car here and walk after you’ve got your coat.” Cash tells me as he leads me into the quaint store.

  Trick following behind us.

  As soon as I step foot through the doors, I can’t wait to explore, there’s such an eclectic mix of styles and colours ranging from the usual jeans and tees to the stuff you typically see goths wear, a bit of boho and even some pantsuits with everything in between included too. There’s a quiet chaos to the store that is somehow soothing instead of headache inducing. I hope like hell that we can come here tomorrow for shopping.

  “Is this where Rylie wants to go shopping tomorrow?” I ask curiously, my fingers running over a flowery silk kimono in appreciation.

  “I doubt it, I imagine she wants to take you to the mall in the next town over. We don’t have one here and there’s a lot more choice than the stores here offer. I don’t think we even have a dress store. So, you will have a better choice for your dresses at the mall” Trick grins, his eyes flicking over to me.

  “Oh ok” I say unable to hide my disappointment.

  “There’s no reason why you can’t grab something now if you like it, Dragonfly” Trick chuckles, “no one’s going to mind.”

  “You sure?” I ask, hopefully.

  “Oh yeah, Jensen just text me, they’ve gotten into a massive battle on one of the new Xbox game we got.” Cash chuckles.

  I grin excitedly and go straight to the back of the store where the coats are, determined to get the sensible purchase out of the way first before I get just a couple of fun bits too. After searching through the wide variety of coats, I find a gorgeous dark red, knee length, padded jacket lined in soft black fur like material. Instead of just a zipper down the front it has lots of black buckles and the pockets on either side have a small line of dark black studs, the hood is massive and lined in the same soft black fake fur as the rest of it, I love it and it fits my sense of style well.

  Who knew you could feel pretty whilst wearing a giant coat?

  “I like that, Ever, it suits you” Cash compliments, walking past where I’m looking in the mirror to look at some of the other racks.

  I grin happily before taking it back off and hanging it over my arm. Exploring the rest of the store, I gravitate over to some faux leather trousers, similar to the ones that I wore for the party yesterday. I really loved them. So, I grab a pair and also manage to find a couple of gorgeously soft long-sleeved tops, with sleeves that aren’t too tight so won’t press too much on my bruise.

  On complete impulse, I wander back to the silky short kimono, it’s not like my usual style but who the fuck said that I had to pick a style and stick to it?

  It’s fairly short, with a belted waist, the silk is light blue a with colourful vines and flowers weaving all over it and the sleeves are bell shaped and will slip over my hands easily. I love it.

  I place the few pieces of clothing I’ve found by the checkout, as the guys wait for me to pay, I notice that they both have a bag each. I’m ridiculously nervous as I hand my card over to pay, logically I know that it’s not going to be declined but there is no way that I can tell my annoying illogical side that. After successfully paying, I release a relieved breath which has the store clerk eyeing me curiously. I smile gratefully at her and hope she doesn’t think I’ve stolen the card or something because it would be just my luck if I got arrested using my own damn card. I join the guys by the do
or.

  “Come on, I’m starving” I not so subtly hint.

  “Alright, il mio cuore, let’s put our bags in the car first I don’t want to lug them to the diner, are you going to put your new coat on?” Cash asks.

  “It’s ridiculous to be this excited about a coat” I roll my eyes at myself as I pull it out and put it on before I put the bags in the car with Trick and Cash’s and we walk towards the diner and the guys.

  Trick and Cash bring me to a quaint little diner called Mary Sue’s. The interior is decorated in the classic fifties style with red booths, black and white checkerboard flooring and lots of chrome. I have a feeling that it’s not a design choice though, just that the diner has been around for that long and the owners have looked after it. I vaguely remember my parents bringing me here when I was younger, but I don’t think we came in that often. I follow the guys to a table in the corner.

  “Ever!” Jensen yells as he squeezes me in a tight hug and then pulls me down to sit next to him.

  Riot scoots in on my other side as soon as my ass hits the seat and something inside me settles at being surrounded by my guys again, a weight being lifted that I hadn’t realised I carried.

  “Hey, Jensen” I chuckle.

  “You have got to try the bacon double cheeseburger Ever, it is literally the best one I have ever had” Rafe signs grinning widely.

  “Sounds good to me” I agree.

  It’s my go to order anyway, although everyone always says that their local diner’s burger is the best ever. Either way it’s going to be a thousand times better than the local diner back home, that shit was nasty.

  “I’ll be with you guys in a moment” a harried looking waitress in her early twenty’s calls out as she hurries past with a tray full of food. She’s already passed us by the time any of us even attempt to reply.

  “How did it go at the police station?” Luc asks.

  “Tedious, but there’s an incident report now and they were really lovely so that made the whole process easier” I say. “Then I got to go shopping at this amazing place just down the street from here” I grin happily as I take my arms out of coat, trying not to smack Riot and Jensen as I do.

  I really should’ve taken it off before I sat down but Jensen sort of put a wrench in that plan when he tugged me to sit next to him.

  “Does that mean I get my hoody back, Dragonfly?” Riot teases from besides me.

  “Nope” I grin popping the ‘p’. “I’m keeping it, it’s now mine” I grin, and he stares at me slightly shocked before smirking and going back to studying the menu.

  “Hey there guys, how can help you?” the same waitress from before asks from by our table.

  We all give her our orders and I take the opportunity to order a large chocolate milkshake as well, It's been a while since I’ve had one and they are my absolute favourite.

  Whilst we wait for the food to arrive the guys all start talking about the trip to the cabin. As they talk, they are incredibly careful not to mention where we are actually going and also make sure they don’t even give the slightest hint that someone else will be joining us. I sit in between Jensen and Riot happily listening to them all reminiscing about the past years that they’ve gone up to the cabin. When they start to bring up stories about Atlas, I take it as a safe opportunity to learn more about him.

  “What’s Atlas like?” I ask when there’s a lull in the conversation. “All you guys have really said about him, is that he’s a scary motherfucker” I chuckle, as the waitress snickers beside me placing our food on the table with a grin.

  “Well that’s because he is Dragonfly, he turned up out of the blue freshman year. We still don’t know a lot about his past, it was easy to tell that he didn’t have a great one and similarly to how you have handled our issues we just figured he would tell us when he was ready. He kept to himself for the first week or so and then one of the guys from Tomlinson turned up absolutely high off his face and stupidly aggressive. Long story short, but Atlas saved Luc’s ass and did it with ease. If you think Jensen can fight well, you should see Atlas it was amazing and terrifying to watch. He stuck with us from then on and became as close to us as brothers.” Cash tells me grinning fondly.

  I like the sound of Atlas already. Especially since he saved one of my boys without hesitation.

  “He had a custom-built motorbike that he built himself and she is absolutely stunning. I swear Ever, you should’ve seen her” Jensen says dreamily.

  The guys continue to list random bits of information about Atlas for me, helping me get to know the kind of person he is.

  “He absolutely loves music and is crazy good at the guitar” Trick adds his voice awed “He would listen to a song once and be able to play it, but he didn’t advertise his talent at all. We were the only ones who knew, I’m pretty sure he could play other instruments too, but he never let on. He was always talking about getting some complex music compositions and trying to play them but he never did. His money situation was similar to yours before you came here and we didn’t know enough about the sorts of music he wanted to try, to buy it for him for his birthdays or Christmas’s and when we did well there was always something else he’d want more.” he continues.

  “He can drink anyone under the table” Rafe chuckles, signing.

  “Sometimes he’d get this lost look on his face and then shut down completely. It would last for a few days before he eventually went back to normal. I never worked out why” Riot says regretfully.

  “He sounds pretty fucking awesome; no wonder you guys miss him” I say truthfully.

  I want to get to know him and I haven’t even met him yet, but I know he means a lot to my guys so that’s enough for me. The guys all get faraway looks on their faces whilst we finish lunch. When we’re done, Jensen leans back rubbing his stomach.

  “So, what are we doing for the rest of the day?” he asks glancing around at the rest of us, “I’ve got to be back at mine for dinner” He adds.

  “Yeah me too” Rafe signs.

  “My aunt wants me back for dinner as well” Riot grumbles.

  “Mom and dad want me home too, Sunday family thing” Cash shrugs.

  “Dad wants me home as well” Luc says. “It’s like they’ve all planned it” he chuckles.

  “They probably did” Trick says blandly. “You know what our parents are like.”

  “Well as boring as it is, I actually have homework I’ve got to do” I shrug at their groans. “Sorry boys” I grin.

  “She’s right guys. I’ve got a tonne of homework to do too” Cash agrees with me.

  “Alright why don’t we go back to my house, raid the snacks and do some homework and then we can watch a film before everyone has to go home,” Trick suggests and we all agree although a couple of the guys do so reluctantly.

  “I’m just going to the bathroom before we go” I tell them.

  I’m pretty sure they’d protest if I told them I wanted to pay for lunch. When I get to the counter, I quickly pay for lunch and leave our waitress a decent tip. I love the fact that I can treat my friends now. I quickly use the restroom, then make my way back towards the guys who are waiting by the door. Cash throws his arm around my shoulder as I reach them.

  “So, Ever I just went to pay for lunch and was told it was already paid for, you didn’t need to do that il mio cuore” he says softly.

  “I know but it’s nice to be able to treat my friends for a change” I grin.

  The guys all voice their thanks as we walk towards the car. I automatically get into the truck this time, and Trick goes with Cash again in his mustang. The drive home is short. To be honest, this town is so small that most journeys are short.

  Whilst the guys set up the living room with snacks and drinks and their school stuff which it turns out they all left here anyway, I go into the utility room and transfer my clothes from the washer and into the dryer. When I walk back into the front room Cash hands me my shopping bag from his car and I run it upstairs gathering th
e books I need for my homework off of my bed as I do so. It would’ve been nice for the teachers to cut me a bit of slack since I’m new but nope, they ended giving me more to catch up.

  Brilliant.

  We spend the rest of the afternoon, doing homework, eating junk food and messing about. Rob and Jenny come home around six to find us sprawled all over the living room with next to no homework actually being done, although I got a large chunk of mine finished so at least I’m not too far behind now. I’m not sure Jensen got any of his done since he kept distracting me with his antics. At one point he was pretending that his homework was actually killing him in all sorts of creative ways and then he started a conversation between two Cheetos that had me cracking up.

  “Looks like you guys have had a productive afternoon?” Jenny asks, amused, as she glances around at all of us.

  Rob chuckles as he walks past, to put some grocery bags into the kitchen.

  “Well we got something done at least” Riot grins stretching and flashing a band of taught stomach, yum.

  “Fair enough, I know for a fact that all your parents want you home in time for dinner though and you are all pushing it a bit close now” she says raising her eyebrow.

  The guys all groan as they get up and start to gather their things. My light-hearted mood from spending time with all my guys, instantly sours and I feel a bit ridiculous for it. I’ve just gotten so used to having them all around, all the time and after spending so many years without them, the thought of missing any time with them now sucks.