Chapter 6
Waking up the next morning felt like I was being reborn or something.
Where before I’d spoken with Troian my soul felt lighter, now my entire body felt lighter, as if I’d been carrying all the weight and the guilt of how our relationship had afflicted me all these years and I was finally able to breathe again without it attached to me anymore.
I’d ended up calling out of work for the first time ever.
Evangeline hadn’t given me any grief about it either, instead telling me that it “was about time” I took a day for myself, encouraging me to enjoy the day.
That was uncharacteristically nice of her, but I wasn’t going to give up the gift that was my boss’ politeness, no matter how scarce it was.
Troian and I had talked more over the course of the evening, after we’d ordered Chinese takeout for dinner.
I’d learned more about his relationship with Alec, mostly, and how he’d been able to stay sober with the help of the program he’d joined back in Massachusetts.
I was already feeling overall lighter about my brother’s position in my life, hoping that it would lead to more levity within other avenues that needed to be altered.
As I took a shower that morning, I tried to revel in the fact that I didn’t have to go back into work this evening.
If my sleep schedule wasn’t royally fucked before, it sure as shit would be now.
Brushing off the fact that it would be a hard transition to get back on track, I finished showering and hopped out to finish getting ready for the day.
I walked out my bedroom, dressed in a super casual green tank top and dark green mesh shorts, when Troian perked up as I made my stance in the living room.
“I was wondering,” Troian started, rubbing his palms on his thighs in what I could only justify was an attempt to wipe the sweat from them in nerves. “If you’d want to go on a hike, like we used to do before…before everything.”
A small smile shaped my lips in an upturned display.
Before our parents had died, we’d always enjoyed going on hikes together.
It usually ended in us trying to one up each other and climb up trees we had no business interacting with, racing each other down steep slopes that ran off the proposed path.
I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been hiking.
Hell, it was probably with him the last time I’d indulged.
I agreed, nodding my head and telling him there was supposed to be a decent trail about ten minutes or so away from the apartment that I’d heard was supposed to be pretty good. Soon enough, we were catching a Lyft to a place across town, dropping us off right near the hiking trail.
The still-morning light gave us plenty of time to finish the projected two hour hike.
I assumed this would give us more time to hash out details.
I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about what I’d been up to in my personal life since Troian was back in Piper.
That being said, there wasn’t that much to update him on.
I’d had no girlfriend, no sort of romantic prospects that had lasted more than a night.
Even then I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hooked up, which was why the lap dance with Qwill had, I’d convinced myself, invigorated me so much.
Ugh, now I was thinking about Qwill again, which led to me thinking about work and I was determined not to think about work on my day off.
Setting off on our hike, Troian and I fell into a comfortable silence for the first ten minutes or so, glad that I’d had an extra pair of boots for him to slide into so we weren’t taking this hike in tennis shoes.
That was okay when we were kids, but now that we were knocking on thirty’s door in a few years, we needed every protection our feet could get.
“So,” Troian prompted, giving me a lazy smile.
I’d already noticed a shift in him, one that made it appear that he was letting go of the invisible armor he’d been flaunting since being back in town.
“What’s been new with you?” It seemed he’d also taken note that I hadn’t shared as much as he had.
“I know you said that not a whole hell of a lot had changed, but there’s got to be something. ”
Well, I gave this really weird lap dance the other night and I can’t stop thinking about it because I need to get fucking laid. That thought wouldn’t have exactly rolled off the tongue if I decided to unleash it, so I kept it where it belonged: to myself.
“Bas moving out was the biggest change.” I admitted, going with the most obvious, vague topic I could to give me time to muster up the strength to talk about literally anything else.
I didn’t think my earlier inclination to talk about work was going to hold, because it was really all I had to go on about.
“But I guess I’m starting to get noticed more at work.
” I shrugged, really wishing I could not talk about it.
“I have this routine that’s becoming fairly popular. ”
“Oh shit, really?” Troian said, sounding genuinely interested and already leagues more honed in on the topic than I was. “What’s the routine?” He asked, stepping over a tree branch that obscured the pathway.
We were walking through a path that had trees guarding both sides of the dirt road, with branches so tall and wide that they completely blocked out the sky above us.
It was peaceful and serene, making me take a breath and determine that talking about work wasn’t going to fucking kill me and I needed to get over myself.
My brother was trying to connect with me, finally sober enough to do so for the first time in half a decade.
I needed to make just as much of an effort as he was, and currently, I was failing miserably.
“It’s a cowboy themed routine,” I snickered, realizing how utterly laughable my job was when it was talked about so casually. “I have this ridiculous cowboy outfit and everything. Even the fucking underwear they have me in has fucking fringe, dude, it’s crazy.”
“Holy shit,” He guffawed as we kept winding down the path. It was about to open up into what I assumed was going to be a clearing with less tree coverage. “Incredible. I need to see this.”
“No fucking way.” I laughed back. “You definitely don’t.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think it would be weird to see your brother dancing in next to nothing while Orbs and humans alike gawk at me with half-hard boners?”
“It’d be like watching me dance, except I can’t dance at all,” Troian nodded, breaking through the tree line. “The advantages of being a twin.”
Shaking my head at him, a grin whispered on my face and I took in the natural beauty of the clearing now that the trees we’d been enveloped in were gone.
To my right was more of the path, as it turned away and went down a more sporadic field with less trees and more flat land.
To my left though was a gorgeous marsh, the dark water alternating between being covered in the grass that it was composed of and being open and inviting enough to warrant a swim.
For someone other than me, because swimming in a marsh sounded highly unsanitary and not my idea of a good time.
Being next to the water though felt calming. I strayed from the path as Troian neared the edge of the marsh, coming to join me in taking in the view.
“Wow. I had no idea something like this was tucked away back here.”
“Me either.” I stated truthfully.
We enjoyed being wrapped in a blanket of silence, my hands on my hips as I looked over the undisturbed water of the marsh.
In the distance was more vegetation and more trees, like the marsh’s water crept into the trees and became a full blown swamp if you went deep enough.
I didn’t know enough about the wetlands of Piper to know how common they were in these parts, but knowing that even a small city like Piper had this kind of nature near it was somewhat humbling, making the dark parts of my psyche feel like they could be cleansed by the simple beauty of my little slice of the world.
Suddenly, the sound of rushing water filled my ears, both of us looking down at the water in the marsh rippled from movement. Startled, I realized that it wasn’t some fish having a good laugh at our expense, but rather a pair of virces coming up from the depths of the murky water.
Troian and I shared a glance, making me wonder if we should make a run for it or if we should sheepishly introduce ourselves.
I wasn’t the biggest expert on Orbs, tending to lean more toward ignorance when it came to what they did and where they resided, but fear crept around my neck like a noose at the idea of us encroaching on their territory or something.
I didn’t think that virces were particularly violent.
Certainly the ones that had been with Qwill at the club hadn’t been, but that didn’t mean all of them were nice to humans.
Both virces were laughing as they came up out of the water, taking their time in wiping their faces and splashing each other.
Their skin was compromised of, frankly, beautiful scales of blue and green, like their skin was similar to a fish when you inspected it up close.
They appeared to be men, from what I could tell, their sculpted upper bodies glistening with their scales, the water making their skin shimmer.
Both of them also worse loose shorts around their waists.
They finally turned to notice us, their smiles wavering in the slightest when their eyes combed over the features Troian and I shared. It was only fair that they seemed to be inspecting the pair of humans before them, because I tilted my head as I stared them down. They looked hella familiar.