36. Esperr #2
Zyran’s hand stays wrapped in mine as he pulls me down an open area—can’t even call it a hallway with how big it is—and then the kitchen opens up ahead of us.
Floor-to-ceiling windows line the kitchen, bright and large with an island in the middle with stools along one side and the dining room visible all the way to the right, a table that could seat ten without crowding.
There’s a man at the stove with a dish towel over his shoulder and a woman beside him with her arms crossed and her head tilted, saying something I can’t hear yet, but the energy of it is clear—she’s telling him he’s doing something wrong.
He ignores her, but I can see the small smile threatening to tug at his lips.
My eyes move to the island, and that's when I see another man sitting on the far stool with a mug of black coffee in both hands. He’s wearing a button-down that’s open at the collar with tattoos that poke through, and his face—it’s Zyran, the same jaw, same eyes, same everything, except it’s different.
Softer, or maybe it’s just the way he holds himself.
That must be Cyran, and he’s already looking at me.
Just then the woman at the stove turns around and smiles at me.
“Oh thank God,” she breaths, crossing the kitchen toward me with her arms already moving and waving at the kitchen. “I’ve been waiting for someone new to talk to; Raiden has been ignoring me for forty-five minutes.”
“I haven’t been ignoring you,” the man at the stove says without turning around. “I’ve been cooking.”
The girl rolls her eyes, but there’s no heat in them, not when she’s smiling. “Same thing.”
She stops in front of me and throws her hands on her hips. “Sybil.”
“Uh, Esperr.”
The man at the stove finally turns. This is obviously Raiden, and for some reason nothing Zyran said about him prepared me for actually standing in the same kitchen as him.
He’s big in a way that takes up the room differently than Zyran does—where Zyran is still and deliberate, Raiden looks like he’s one wrong word away from snapping something in half.
His face sits in a natural expression that most people would read as actively angry; the kind of face that probably clears a path in a crowd without him doing anything at all.
And Zyran blames himself for what happened to this man.
This is the brother he watched get dragged out of nowhere while he was bleeding on the floor. This is who he’s been worrying about for however long it’s been, the weight of it sitting in him like something that never fully healed.
Raiden looks at me, and then Zyran, who’s still holding my hand, keeps me pressed up against him. And then he looks back at me, and something in that permanently pissed off expression shifts by maybe half a degree. Not a smile, barely even relaxed.
“Raiden,” he mutters.
I blink and open my mouth to say something when Sybil steps back, elbowing him hard in the ribs, enough that he grunts and snaps his head down at her. “Don’t let that face scare you; he’s actually a sweetheart.”
“I’m not,” he growls, going back to the stove.
“He absolutely is,” Sybil whispers to me.
I press my lips together.
“Oh, can I get you something to drink? We have water, juice, sweet tea; I think Raiden made a fresh batch this morning. It’s honestly the best thing he does?—”
“That's the best thing?” Raiden questions, peering at her over his shoulder, raising a brow.
“—coffee, we have lemonade, beer and wine, I think; there’s some sparking water in the fridge?—”
“Water is fine,” I say, mostly because I’m afraid she’ll keep going.
“Still or sparkling?”
“Still is great.”
She disappears into the fridge, and Zyran squeezes my hand, pulling me toward the island. He pulls out the stool next to the corner and then the seat next to it. I sit down, letting Zyran sit in the corner next to his brother.
Cyran turns his mug in his hand and looks at his brother with that expression that Zyran has that I can’t read.
“So you’re just going to walk in here and not say anything to me?”
Something passes between them, like they’re talking without using actual words, and then suddenly Zyran is standing up again.
“Living room,” he says quietly, bending down to kiss the top of my head.
Cyran stares at us for a moment and then uncurls himself from the stool before they disappear through the open hallway without another word.
I sit there, awkwardly, watching them go.
Sybil slides into the space beside me like she was waiting for exactly this moment, setting the glass of water in front of me and leaning her elbows on the island.
“So,” she starts, resting her chin on her hand. “Tell me everything.”
I look at her, blinking and blanking. “Everything?”
“Yeah, how’d you meet, what’s he like with you, does he smile? Cause Raiden owes me twenty dollars if he does—” she rambles all in one breath, completely serious. I stare at her for a second and then another before I can’t help it but laugh.
“He smiles,” I confirm.
She slaps the counter. “AHA. I knew it!” She straightens up and waves toward the hallway where they had gone. “Raiden said I was wrong, that Zyran doesn’t smile for anyone, and I said give it time and the right person… and well, here you are.”
“Happy to be of service,” I mumble, reaching for my water.
She grins and picks up her own drink before settling more comfortably against the island. “How long have you known him?”
I tilt my head, trying to decide if I should tell her that he stalked me for a few years and that I secretly liked it or not. “Not long,” I say instead. “A few weeks or so.”
“And the storm?”
“Together.”
She raises her eyebrows, gaze snapping to Raiden before returning to me. “Five days stuck together.”
“Yes, in my apartment.”
She looks at me with an expression that I can’t get a good read on, and it’s dawning on me that I have no idea who she is. I know some about his brothers, but he didn’t mention Sybil. And I have no idea who she is.
“That’s impressive. He doesn’t let people in, like ever. Raiden worries about him… not that he’d ever say it in those words because Raiden expresses concern by glaring at things, but he worries. I mean we all do.”
“Sybil,” Raiden says her name like a warning.
But she just shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “I’m just helping.”
“You were gossiping.”
“I was doing both.”
Raiden goes back to the stove, and she just gives me that look that reminds me of her calling him sweetheart.
I bite my lip and look down at my water, and that’s when I hear them.
Not words exactly, just the tone of Zyran and his brother from the living room—it’s low and clipped. I look up, and Sybil is very carefully examining the contents of her glass, and Raiden has turned the heat down on the stove, which tells me he can hear it too and is pretending like he can’t.
I peer down the hallway when it suddenly stops and I hear footsteps approaching, but it's only one set.
A beat passes, and then Zyran comes back into the kitchen, alone. He doesn’t stop until he’s standing next to me, hand against my back.
“You okay?” I ask, keeping my voice low enough that no one but him can hear me.
He grunts.
Reaching over, I wrap my fingers around his wrist and pull him closer until he’s pressed against me. He looks down at me, and something in his face settles, like my touch is enough to pull him back.
“How long until dinner?” he asks, though he doesn’t break eye contact with me.
Raiden doesn’t turn around as he answers, “twenty minutes.”
Zyran nods and pulls me out of the stool. “Come on, let me give you the tour.”