22. Stella
22
Stella
A knock on my door has me hopping out of my desk chair and darting to the door in excitement. Jules and Sia are waiting for me in the hall, bouncing with anticipation. “Girls night!” Sia calls, pushing past me into the room.
I need this.
After kissing Ryan and Clay, witnessing Lucille get arrested, and dealing with Yuri, I am wound tight. Some time with friends is exactly what I need to get my mind off the shit show that is my life.
Jules follows Sia, giggling, and hands me a napkin. I open it to find several cookies from the dining hall. “I wish we had vending machines so we could have chips or something,” she says with a sigh, “but at least I snagged us something sweet!”
The three of us pile into the bed in our pajamas, our knees pressed against one another. An uncomfortable silence permeates the room.
“Uh, so what do we do now?” I ask, awkwardly pulling at the oversized band tee I’m wearing.
Sia brushes some of her light hair out of her eyes and shakes her head. “I still can’t believe you’ve never had a girl’s night! We can do whatever we want, Stella. We can paint our nails, gossip about males, cause general mayhem…”
“Is mayhem a standard part of girl’s night?” Jules says, pursing her lips. “I’m not sure I have ever participated in mayhem.”
“That’s because you cause enough mayhem with your song,” Sia teases.
Jules’ smile falls, and I grab her hand. Her hands are delicate and soft, as if she’s never done any hard work before, and she squeezes mine. “It’s not your fault, Jules,” I tell her. “You can’t help your song.”
“I know. But if that’s mayhem, I would prefer not to cause it,” she says to Sia.
“That means we’re gossiping about males!” Sia says, throwing herself backward on the bed. “Stella, tell me you have something good to share about those males of yours.”
“Oh, Clay and Ryan aren’t mine…”
“They obviously are because you knew exactly who I was talking about!”
I bite my lip. She’s got me there. But what does it say about me that it wasn’t only Ryan and Clay that popped into my mind? While the Cyclops and Reaper are certainly at the forefront, in the back of my mind, there seems to be a little voice whispering about someone who is off limits and another who is so frustrating that I don’t even know his name.
I shush Sia and slide off the bed, peeking into the bathroom. Ryan’s door is open, his lights off, and it appears that he’s not home right now. I close the door that leads into his bedroom and my bathroom door before jumping back on the bed. Sia raises an eyebrow at me, and I shrug. “I don’t want him to come home and hear!”
“That means you have something juicy!” Jules squeals. “Spill spill!”
The blush that runs up my chest is so fierce it’s warm to the touch, and I struggle to make eye contact with my friends. “Okay, I will start by saying I’m not proud of what I’m going to tell you.”
“Oh, this is gonna be so juicy.“ Sia flips onto her stomach, rests her hands on her chin, and crosses her ankles. “Tell me more.”
“Okay, so it starts with Clay. He met me in the woods..”
“Scandalous!” Jules interrupts.
“Not like that,” I say through laughs. “He had a problem he needed my help with, and he started to get a little … spirally?”
Jules scrunches her nose. “Like a unicorn horn?”
“Hah, no, I mean his bad thoughts were on a loop, and he was on his way to a head-on collision with a mental health crisis.” I brush my hair back with my hand, biting my lip. “I feel like I’m telling Clay’s business. And that’s not my place.”
“We all get that way,” Sia says, kicking her feet behind her. “I don’t think it’s anything he needs to be embarrassed about. We all go to friends for support when we’re having a tough day.”
“And he was having a really hard day,” I say, nodding emphatically. “It was getting to him, and I screwed up and said something on accident that really hurt his feelings.”
The memory of the absolute heartbreak on Clay’s face will stay with me for a long time. I honestly didn’t mean to hurt him the way that I did, and watching his shoulders slump and his eyes dull made my chest ache. I think that’s the main reason why I did what I did next.
Yes, Clay is a friend, but I can see him being more. I could want more. I do want more.
Regardless, I crushed a part of him that day in the woods, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to reform it anytime soon. I worry it’s always going to be in the back of his head that my first thought in hearing he reaped a child was to assume the worst.
I scrub my hand across my face. “Anyways, he was on a negative feedback loop, and I couldn’t get him to listen to me, so I grabbed him and kissed him.”
Clay was frozen under my hands at first, but then his body gave way to mine, and he pulled us together tightly. I could feel the way my hips notched into his. It was like we fit together perfectly. Like he was always supposed to be pressed against me.
Jules and Sia squeal like young females, massive smiles on their faces. “I knew it!” Jules called. “He’s such a sweetie, and he looks at you like the sun rises and sets with you.”
“He looks at everyone like that,” I insist. But inside, I can’t help but wonder if that’s true. Maybe he wants more from me.
“I don’t understand why you’re not proud of that?” Sia asks thoughtfully. “It sounds like a lovely first kiss.”
“Okay, the part I’m not proud of is that I was talking to Ryan, and he could tell my mind was elsewhere. When he asked what I was thinking about, I told him cryptic things about potentially having feelings for someone and not knowing how to handle it. Talking about Clay.”
“Oh, I think I see where this is going.” Sia sounds a little too excited for the potential of this story.
“Ryan thought I was talking about him and kissed me.”
I can almost still feel his lips ghosting across mine. The gentle way his giant hands cradled my waist, how far down he had to bend to capture my mouth with his own. All of it added to the experience. Ryan’s mouth was soft, questioning. That was not the kiss of a cocky male. My fingers ghost over my bottom lip, the memory of the electricity that sparked between us lingering.
“It was such a tender kiss, and I felt putty in his hands.”
Jules coos, her hands on her heart. “I love this so much.”
“Then he pulls away and says we needed to go to class, and we haven’t talked about it since,” I sigh. “But that’s not all on him. I haven’t started the conversation either because what do I even say? ‘Hey, I kissed you, and oh, also, I kissed Clay, and I totally want you both’?”
“That’s exactly what you say.” Sia sits up straight on the bed, her face twisted in confusion. “Why can’t you say that?”
“I could never choose between them. I don’t want to lead either of them on. They’re my friends first, and I don’t want to mess that up.”
She chuckles and crosses her arms, peering at me with curiosity. “What do you know about covens, Stella?”
“They’re groups of vampires, sometimes called a family or a nest. It’s a community.” There is no telling why she’s asking me since she’s the expert, but I don’t mind answering. All of this is readily available online.
“They’re families, alright,” she says with a grin. “Covens center around a primary. For my coven, it’s Tree.”
“What does being the primary entail?” Jules asks curiously. She leans on my shoulder, propping her blonde head up against me. It’s funny that being this close to her a few weeks ago would’ve had me drooling, but now her natural song doesn’t affect me at all.
“That they’re the primary in the relationship. No one can bring anyone into the coven without the primary’s approval. It’s a compatibility thing because covens are a romantic bonding.” Sia looks at my blank expression and takes pity on me. “I am romantically involved with all of the members of my coven, and they are with each other as well.”
It takes me a minute to catch up to what Sia is saying. She’s in a relationship with all three males in her coven, and they’re also entwined with each other?
That’s surprising.
But is it really?
Thinking back at some of my interactions with them, the intimacy between the four becomes a bit more obvious. As well as -
“Wait. The first day I met Tree, he sat down to talk to me but didn’t let the rest of you approach. Was that a primary thing?”
Sia’s eyes sparkle, and she laughs. “Yeah, it was. But it wasn’t for a romance thing. It was about … well.” She trails off, eyes darting to Jules.
“Yeah, about that fight he got into that day,” I say with a knowing look. I like Jules, but this is not a secret to spread around, so for now, that will stay between Sia and me. “Okay, let me get this straight,” I redirect the conversation. “You’re saying I should ask Ryan and Clay to join a coven with me?”
Sia cackles, throwing her head back. I grumble under my breath, grab one of the cookies Jules bought, and bite down on it in frustrated embarrassment.
“Covens are a vampire thing, but if you wanted to call it that, you could. Really, you just need to talk to the guys. They could surprise you. Explain that you’re into both of them and don’t want to choose. Maybe they would choose each other and need you to help them bridge that gap.”
My imagination goes wild with ideas of me, Clay, and Ryan together. The thought of it heats me in ways I cannot explain. One on each side of me, bodies pressed against mine, hands going everywhere and stroking everything. Ryan’s massive hands gripping the back of Clay’s head for a passionate kiss…
“Woah, okay, yeah, maybe I should have that conversation,” I say, fanning my face.
Jules snorts a laugh at me. “What were you thinking about there, Stella?”
“Uh, choice. And bridges. You know, I never realized this, but I think I really resonate with bridges.”