Chapter 17 Willow #2
“It’s your place now,” Malice says as he passes by with another full bag. “His shit can go in the fucking dumpster.”
I smile softly, grateful to them for this. I don’t want reminders of Troy here. Not when I have enough of those in my head already. At least this isn’t a place Troy ever held me captive, so there are no horrible memories like that.
“We’re trashing the bed,” Ransom says when the guys are done taking stuff down to the dumpster behind the building, not trusting the trash chute. “You should get the big bedroom, angel. Since it’s your place now.”
“Where are you guys going to sleep?” I ask, glancing at them.
“There are enough other rooms for us. And you shouldn’t have to sleep in a bed that fucker ever touched.”
I chew on my lip, not sure how to pose what I want to say. But luckily, Vic speaks up before I have to figure it out.
“I already said I don’t want to have to sleep apart from Willow,” he says, shaking his head. “We’ve played the game of picking and choosing who gets to sleep with her on a given night long enough.”
“What are you suggesting then?” Ransom asks.
“One big bed,” Malice answers, speaking for his brother. “Big enough for all of us.” He glances at me. “If that’s okay with you.”
I nod, a broad smile blooming on my face. “Yeah. I love that. I like the idea of having you all close. Can you guys handle having to sleep in the bed together?”
Vic shrugs, his blue eyes meeting mine. “Malice snores, and Ransom is a clinger, but it won’t be the worst thing in the world.”
“I don’t fucking snore,” Malice shoots back.
“Yes, you do,” Ransom and Vic say in unison.
“And sometimes you even talk in your sleep,” Ransom adds. “Usually, it’s threats.”
“I’m gonna threaten you in a minute,” Malice mutters under his breath. “We have shit to do.”
Ransom’s still laughing as we head out of the penthouse and back down to the car.
Now that we’re going to live here, the place needs to be stocked with stuff.
The guys lost most of their shit between their warehouse burning down and fleeing to Mexico, and pretty much all of my stuff is gone too. So it’s a good excuse to go shopping.
With a pang, I remember going shopping with Olivia, back when I thought she was going to be something good in my life. I remember her encouraging me to get the finer things, talking me out of cheap sheets and bad furniture.
But I push that away. This is different.
For one, the guys make it a lot more fun. They bicker between themselves as we walk around store after store, picking things out. Vic buys all new kitchen stuff, delighted with the idea of arranging things to his liking and starting fresh in a kitchen he can make his own.
We get a new bed and frame, a massive California King that will have to be delivered. Picking out sheets for it is another journey, with Vic lecturing us about how thread counts don’t really mean anything.
“Feel that,” he says, holding out a package of sheets to me. I rub my fingers over the ones on top and make a face at how rough they are.
“I hate those,” I tell him.
“Those are supposedly high thread count, Egyptian cotton sheets. They cost more than a cheap mattress.”
“Okay, but what about these?” Ransom asks, holding up some satin sheets in a bright red color.
Vic just gives him a look and Ransom laughs, putting the sheets back.
In the end, we settle on some that are a nice crisp gray color, and soft enough that I want to wrap myself up in them. We get new pillows, new comforters, new everything.
We pick out end tables, and once it’s clear that we’re using Troy’s money to pay for all of this, Ransom throws in a new gaming system too.
“May as well use that big-ass TV for something,” he says with a shrug.
It’s a long afternoon of shopping, and we head back to the penthouse in high spirits.
The prospect of getting it all up to the top floor is a little daunting, but even that can’t quite snuff out the spark of excitement I feel at having all this new stuff.
It’s stuff I picked out myself, stuff Troy has never touched before. That means a lot right now.
We take turns heading up to the apartment with loads of our new purchases, Malice doing most of the heavy lifting, with Vic supervising and Ransom bringing up the rear.
I grab a few of the lighter bags of stuff, and then turn around to see someone familiar heading toward me on the sidewalk. The guys are upstairs, and for a second, my breath catches.
Joshua.
I haven’t even really thought of him since that date we didn’t go on, and it feels like so long ago now.
“Willow?” he asks, smiling uncertainly. “Hey, I thought that was you.”
“Oh, hi,” I reply, feeling awkward and unsure how to navigate this conversation.
Unlike Troy, Joshua always seemed like a perfectly nice guy.
He was nice enough in our few interactions, just…
not my type. I never felt anything while I was around him, and when he asked me on a date, I mostly agreed just because I was still trying to pretend there was nothing between me and the Voronin brothers.
I still wanted to fit into my grandmother’s world, and I thought dating a nice, ordinary guy would be the way to do that.
Then Malice put an end to any thought of me going out with him, and it never really got resolved. I never actually told Joshua that I didn’t want to go out with him, but I guess me getting engaged to Troy sent the message.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You know, after everything.”
For a split second, I think he knows about how Troy kidnapped me and held me captive, and my heart rate kicks up a notch.
“W-what do you mean?” I ask him.
“Your wedding,” he explains. “Pretty much everyone heard about your big wedding to Troy being interrupted and you being snatched right from the altar.”
“Oh.” I breathe a little easier. That probably was big news among the circles people like Joshua travel in. “Yeah, that was… something.”
He nods. “But I guess you two got married anyway, right? And now Troy’s dead?”
“Yeah, there was a fire at his place up in the woods,” I say, which is the truth. “It was a tragedy.” Which is a massive, massive lie.
“I’m sorry for your loss. I can’t even imagine what…”
Joshua’s voice trails off, his gaze flicking over my shoulder.
I can feel the Voronin brothers approaching before I even see them, the three of them moving as a unit to crowd in behind me. They’re radiating protective vibes, sizing Joshua up and making it clear that his presence is not wanted.
Joshua’s eyes dart from me to the three of them, and when Malice drops an arm around my shoulders, his eyes widen. Something flashes through them, and I can’t tell if it’s fear or suspicion or what, but he definitely seems even more unnerved.
I get it, in a way. He was just about to offer me condolences on my dead husband, and now three tattooed, dangerous looking men are surrounding me possessively, clearly staking their claim on me. I’m not exactly painting the picture of a grieving widow.
But I don’t want to.
It’s one thing to not admit to being involved in his death, but it would be another thing entirely to have to pretend to grieve his loss. I’ve had to lie at various points in my life, and I can do it when the need arises, but I’m not that good of an actor.
“Anyway…” Joshua clears his throat, backing away. “I uh, need to get going. I’ll see you around, Willow.”
He takes one last look at the guys and then makes his way down the street again, walking faster than he was before.
Malice’s eyes follow him until he disappears around the corner, and then the three of them help me with the last of the stuff.
“I don’t know who the fuck he thinks he is,” Malice grumbles.
“It was fine,” I tell him. “We were just talking.”
“Yeah sure. Talking. I remember that fucker.”
I roll my eyes, going up onto my tiptoes to press a light, placating kiss to his lips. “He’s not cut from the same cloth as Troy, at least. When I told him I couldn’t go out with him that night, he didn’t even do anything. He just accepted it.”
“I meant what I said that night. And I’ll still do it if I have to.”
“Oh, that’s the guy you almost went out with.” Ransom glances down the street to where Joshua disappeared as he put the pieces together. “I didn’t know you went for that type, angel.”
His tone is joking, but there’s a flare of possessive fire in his eyes.
“I don’t,” I tell him, stepping closer and resting a hand on his chest. “You know what my type is?”
“What?”
“You.” I glance from him to Vic and Malice. “All of you.”
“Good answer, Solnyshka.” Malice’s hand comes to rest on my hip, giving a little squeeze as all three men surround me for a moment.
Although Malice and Vic have more similar facial features than Ransom, all three of them look so alike in this moment, wearing nearly identical expressions of possessive heat.
I bite my lip, my heart thumping against my ribs as I let myself relish it for a moment. I can’t help but be affected by how deeply they’ve claimed me. It’s intense, but I like it. I like how much they want me.
We break apart after a moment, although I notice that the guys make a point to never leave me outside on my own for even a second after that.
It doesn’t take long to finish unpacking all of our new purchases, and once the bed gets delivered a little while later, we start putting everything together.
Malice and Ransom tackle the task of assembling the bedframe as the huge mattress leans against the wall next to a comfy easy chair we’ve put in the corner.
I start putting groceries away in the kitchen, pleased that Vic seems to trust me with this task, even if he’ll probably rearrange it all later anyway.
My phone buzzes in my pocket a few minutes later, and I pull it out, smiling when I see who the text is from.
Speak of the devil.
Vic’s name flashes at the top of the screen. He’s somewhere in the apartment, probably setting up his computer in the room he’s chosen for his stuff when he’s not sleeping with the rest of us.
Even now that we’ve gotten better at communicating with each other in words, I still like the text conversations we have. It’s a reminder that this was the first way we totally let our walls down with each other, somehow managing to bridge the gap that existed between us before.
VIC: Save me a cabinet?
ME: I saved you two. Just for your stuff.
VIC: Perfect. I knew I could depend on you, butterfly.
VIC: And you can always have what’s mine.
VIC: But just you. Not my brothers.
I laugh at that, but I feel special too.
ME: I’m almost done in here.
VIC: Good. I’m ready to go over stuff with you.
That last text makes me swallow hard. There will be a board meeting for the Copeland Corporation soon, and I’ll have to go to it. I can’t claim my place if I don’t. It’s going to be something completely out of my depth, and Vic promised to help me prepare for it beforehand.
Before I can head down the hall to poke my head into his computer room, Vic comes out with his laptop and settles in the living room on the couch.
I go to join him, sitting next to him.
As if he can sense my nervousness, he puts a hand on my knee and meets my eyes. “You can do this,” he tells me. “I’ve got everything you need.”
“I know. I’m just a little anxious. But let’s get started.”
“Okay.”
He gives my knee a small, reassuring squeeze. Then he pulls up a chart on his laptop and begins to speak, laying it all out for me.