Chapter 20
We are only a day away from heading back to America. There are things bubbling away that don’t seem right.
The big one is that I didn’t notice Will and Sabrina, and I ALWAYS see that shit from a mile away.
I still don’t notice even the tiniest frisson between them.
I just can’t see it. I have seen some suggestive drawings, and a look of deep love from William for Sabrina; evidence going against my gut feeling.
I should have seen more. I see way more tension between William and Kane, but apparently I am completely wrong; Kane’s not having an orgasm in William’s sketchbook, she is.
Something is weird today, and everyone is pretending it isn’t.
Firstly, Austen loves me, and I love him.
I can hide my feelings, but Austen? Not so much.
He’s started staring at me, a little. I’ve barely looked at him the last two days, turning my attention strategically to the girls.
Amelia in particular. When I even turn my head her way Austen fixates on us.
When Amelia goes to bathe, Austen sits beside me on the sofa.
I am talking to his girlfriend, the one he’s supposed to fucking marry or whatever, Sabrina, and he does that yawn-stretch thing where you casually put your arm over someone’s shoulders.
Sabrina stops talking mid-sentence. Kane is there too, with his coffee mug to his face, and he just freezes, watching.
I look at Austen, and lean into it. He adjusts immediately to make it less intimate, so his arm is only stretched out along the sofa, as I figured he would.
I just laugh and return to my conversation with Sabrina, and she manages to brush it off like it didn’t happen either.
I offer him berries from the bowl, and then offer them to Sabrina too.
To the others, I must seem confused by his attention. Sabrina is not threatened, and Will is the only one who hasn’t noticed jack shit.
Will’s in his own world. That’s the real weirdness. The guy is back to giving me the creeps. He won’t speak to any of us all morning. His sudden change in personality is overshadowing whatever melodrama is happening around him.
Austen is off balance too. I think they’ve both stopped eating.
Will only ate a little meat yesterday, and now it’s just water and kick-boxing.
We have not been over-indulging, but maybe they’re just ultra healthy.
I don’t know. I don’t understand what fuels this whole dynamic.
I want to figure these people out before the holiday ends, and I want to win Austen. For real.
Isobelle pulls Austen outside when she thinks nobody is paying attention. I go stand by the closest window to listen in on them.
“Can you talk to him?” she asks Austen.
“I have been talking to him,” Austen tells Isobelle.
“Where is he?”
“By the lake.”
“Are you arguing?”
“No, he’s not freaking out; just having a break so that he doesn’t start freaking out.”
“Can we all talk to him, together?”
“I guess, if we can get some privacy. Maybe we can wait till after we fly back. It’s not like we can look into it right now.”
They come back in, and I go out with the binoculars and search the shoreline, just in case they are talking about someone else. Just in case it’s something even weirder than my imagination. There’s nobody here but us.
Austen takes Amelia and Hayden down the river to skip stones after lunch. He wants me to come but I’m too busy observing his brother. After a while watching, go to Will and wave my hand in front of his face while he’s organizing shelves. He doesn’t notice.
I touch Will’s arm and he stops.
“You okay hun?”
Isobelle, Sabrina and Kane stare at us, concerned.
“I’m fine, sugarplum.”
I rub his back. “Yeah? You want to have a swim?”
His pupils are all black and wild-eyed. William looks at me with those far away eyes and shakes his head. He leans into me and I wrap my arms around him and pat his back.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers.
I recoil from him. I look to the others, momentarily frozen in fear. Kane taps Isobelle and she grabs a book from the shelf and takes Will away to “lie down”. I look at Sabrina confused, and she fixes her eyes on her cup of tea.
When Austen comes back he already seems to know what happened. Like he’s worried for me. Will snaps out of it by lunchtime, and is perfectly fine.
“I’m bored,” Will says, acting normal, “let’s shoot guns.”
Kane sets up targets along the lake. We use them for practice.
I don’t know if I should show my gun skills or not, so I hang back.
Hayden and Kane have military training, and they are very good with the weapons, but Austen and William are better than anything I’ve ever seen, and I’m in the motherfucking mafia.
What the fuck? I don’t hide how impressed I am.
Austen suggests they show off their sniper skills.
“No,” William shakes his head, and looks at me. “Let’s not. Let’s play paintball in the forest. Dragons against the innocents.”
“You can’t be on the same team as William,” Isobelle tells William. “It’s not fair. He should be on their team.”
“Austen,” I correct her. “You’re talking to William.”
Her eyes bug at him, and he stifles a smile.
“Sorry, honey-bee,” she tells William, almost mockingly, giving him a sneering smile.
“Don’t even recognize your own boyfriend...” he shakes his head.
“Whatever,” she huffs. “Me, you, Sabrina, plus Kane, versus Amelia, Austen, Hayden, and Mischa.”
Will laughs. “Still not balanced.”
We get into camouflage and load up the paint rifles and designate the flat forest area on the near side of the lake as the paintball field. The other team heads off to the far end.
“Woodsball basics,” Austen says when we get into a huddle.
“Don’t stay in one spot for too long. Paintballs tend to drop, so aim high.
Never go after Will, that’s my job. He’s already coming for you, probably ditched the others already and is halfway here by now.
Be quiet and hidden, and if you get past him, call out his position and coordinate together.
I’ll go this way, because I want to head him off.
You two follow Hayden and go through the dense area around the back, set up an ambush. ”
Hayden and Austen lock eyes and my sixth sense wakes up. Hayden nods obediently, and Austen heads down to the wide uncovered area by the shoreline, like that doesn’t make him an open target. Hayden leads me and Amelia through the thick underbrush and we start spreading out.
The moment my babysitter loses sight of me, I bolt.
I hear Hayden call for me but I’m gone. I rush deep into the other team’s territory and nobody is there to take me out.
I see some old tracks and head to higher ground.
I can’t find them, until I hear one of the girls screaming.
I go down the slope until it meets a sheer drop. I still can’t see them but I hear them.
“Kitten stop!” I hear Will yell. “I’m sorry!”
I think there’s a cave below, because she pops out of the granite wall. She turns and aims her paintball-gun at William. She’s crying.
“Fuck off,” Sabrina says, and fires a round at him.
I hear William go, “Oof!”
I don’t know what happened, but this is so fucking funny; I am so happy to be here while this unfolds.
Sabrina puts her mask back on and sprints off. Isobelle runs after her, but then turns back to Will.
“Nice one, asshole,” Isobelle spits. “You made it sound like she was the scum of the earth, and naturally evil, just for being born.”
“It wasn’t supposed to sound like that.”
“Well it did,” she says, and fires at him as well.
I hear Will take the hits. Kane comes out of the cave now too, looking pissed too. Seems like their huddle went bad.
“I didn’t mean...” Will starts.
“Oh honey,” Kane shakes his head, and fires at him, “you totally meant it.”
He leaves, and Will staggers into view covered in paint, looking small after his whole team has turned on him. He slumps on to a rock. Austen follows behind.
Fraternizing with the enemy? What a traitor.
“You want to shoot me too?” Will asks Austen.
“I do, but I need to save the ammo for the game.” Austen sits with Will and puts his arm around him. “I hated to hear you say it like that, but even though it all sounds ridiculous, I agree with you.”
“Glad someone does,” William shakes his head.
“I’m sorry,” Austen says. “I should have said something, but the girls had arrived, and I was distracted. Do you think it could be possible?”
Will thinks about it. “Mischa seems like a good guy. Not malicious or anything. I think he’s coming from a genuine place.”
“Well,” Austen shrugs, “we have terrible luck, and James is a total bastard. I really hope it’s not the case, but we don’t know what we don’t know. We should proceed with caution until we do know.”
James, their father. Oh shit, I think Austen told Will my theory that Sabrina is their sister. They must be so fucking nervous. Austen is about to get out of a lifetime of misery for the cost of one DNA test. He’s lucky I said something.
“I’ll be discreet,” Will says. “No matter what the outcome, this stays between us.”
“Thanks.”
“But if it’s true, I’m really going to kill James.”
“It’s not true,” Austen huffs. “It’s just a theory.”
“I do think he’s very sweet,” Will says.
“Who?”
“Mischa,” Will nods. “He’s a sweetheart... quite good looking too. Ridiculously handsome.”
He’s not wrong.
Austen is at a loss for words. “You find him attractive?”
“Yes,” Will says gazing at the trees, and it’s clear that he’s just thinking out loud. “I mean, no. He just is attractive. Objectively speaking. From an unbiased perspective, he’s very sexy. And very endearing. Surely you don’t have to be gay to be attracted to him?”
Um what?
Austen takes his arm off Will and turns to look at him. “Okay...”
Will is getting uncomfortable. “I’m not attracted to guys, but if I was attracted to guys, he might be the kind of guy...”
Stop being weird, William.