16
Emaline
I slept all night. Twelve hours straight without interruption or needing to relieve my bladder. It was 8 AM when I woke with a raspy, dry mouth and thoughts of Bri. I roll out of bed and grab my glasses, avoiding the mirror as I walk past it and wrap my robe around my cold body. Before leaving my bedroom”s confines, I check the road below for Gainor’s sedan, find it parked there, and wonder how he manages to stay up all night. I’ll make a coffee and take it to him downstairs.
There are two messages on my phone from Xavier, checking in to see that I’m okay. And I answer with a flutter in my chest and a smile.
Me: Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I hope you’re getting better xx
Xave: Austin is here to look after me. He’s hungover and makes bad coffee.
Me: lol.
Xave: R u going to the hospital this morning?
Me: Yes.
Xave: Let us know what Bri says.
Me: OK.
I linger on the thought of Austin yesterday, finding me in a quiet little hovel away from the drama. His scent is always a heady mix of smoke and something else utterly alluring, but the lack of warmth and the cruelty of his games urge me to distance myself from him. I don’t understand how he can switch from showing promise by doing something so sweet, such as bringing my grandmother flowers, to pretending it was irrelevant.
I don’t understand Austin Leroux, and that’s the crux of it all. But when he sat beside me, our thighs touching, I honestly felt he cared about me. But perhaps I long for him to care so much that I interpret small acts as kindness when there’s more likely a thoughtless motivation behind them.
He was relieved to find me in the hospital yesterday, even though I was not deliberately hiding. I wouldn’t say I like crowds and didn’t want to get in the way of people doing their jobs. But that relief I detected on his face was not fear that I was lost but fear that his brother would worry.
I ached for him to say something, anything that resembled an ounce of affection or that he has a heart and that heart beats for me as well as for his brothers. But perhaps in his eyes, I will always be a joke or someone he can’t take seriously, someone to tease and taunt for pleasure.
Whenever this narrative plays repetitively in my mind, my only solace and conclusion is that I must stop paying him any attention and resign to the fact that he is not capable of heartfelt actions and will never fall for a girl like me anyway. Once I come to this standpoint, I can pivot toward what and who matters – my family, Rosie, Xavier, and maybe Aaron, although I’m not sure about him, even though he’s made it clear that he likes to bed me.
Austin becomes a distant figment of my imagination and certainly not anyone I should pay attention to until I see him again. That’s the real problem. My attraction to someone dark and secretive, who treats me coldly, yet I cling to every tiny spark of hope like a stupid fool.
After showering and slipping on clean clothes, I brush my wet hair, noticing how lackluster it looks. I try to imagine some blond streaks or cutting it just below the chin, then immediately decide that would be a terrible idea.
My stomach gurgles irritably with an underlying ache in the lower abdominal area as I check my calendar on my phone for when my period is due. I’ve been so busy, and my body has been through a lot lately with the sex I’ve been having with two men, so I’ve been out of touch with my cycle.
It’s due tomorrow, so that explains the pain and weird sensation of hunger and nausea when I try to stave the hunger off with fatty food.
When I walk down the stairs for breakfast, the scent of toast and coffee is irresistible, yet I feel a little queasy. Once I reach the bottom step, I hear the murmurs of a deep voice that does not belong to my grandfather.
“Hey,” Aaron says as I walk into the kitchen. I find him frying bacon and eggs while Gramps sits at the small table, and Grandma stands next to him, overseeing the fry-up.
“Hi,” I reply as heat rises into my cheeks. “It’s early.”
“Yeah,” Aaron says, slightly bemused by my comment. “I offered to cook breakfast before I take you to the hospital.”
“Um…I can go on my own to see Bri. I have a perfect vehicle out there,” I argue, pointing toward the front door. Grandma shoots me a look of disdain for being so rude. “I’m sorry, did we organize this? Because I can’t remember having a conversation that you were going to take me to the hospital. But maybe the conversation happened when I was half asleep,” I’m now questioning my memory and wondering if we spoke about it last night while I was tending to Xavier’s needs. I was so tired that I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.
“No,” Aaron states, serving up two fried eggs and three strips of bacon on a plate and placing it on the table in front of Gramps. “It was an idea I had as I was driving to my local breakfast restaurant, and I thought that if I asked you if you’d like to come over, you’d say no.”
“So, you thought you’d force your way into my house?” I argue, horrified.
“No. I came to try and make peace with your family for my father’s decision-making,” he states flatly. I look down at Gramps, who’s usually very good at being on my side, but he’d instead let the Leroux enemy into the house with a grocery bag of bacon and eggs than tell him to leave.
“We’re warming to them,” Grandma says, pointing to the glass vase on the kitchen window ledge containing wild snowdrops.
“Through food?” I hiss, wondering why this bothers me, and I have to take a breath to cool my jets. This is actually what I want. I want my grandparents to embrace the Leroux boys and open their hearts. They’re good men well…Xavier is, and Aaron has potential, and Austin…well, I don’t know.
Grandma answers ‘No’ and Gramps answers ‘Yes.’
“Well, that was as clear as mud,” I say sarcastically.
“I’m coming around,” Gramps says, shooting Aaron a sharp, warning look before adding, “A little. He’s on probation for making a special effort to come to tell us about Brielle. I admire that.”
“Okay,” I breathe, still wrestling about why I’m uncomfortable with this sight. Maybe it’s because I don’t entirely trust Aaron, although it looks like he is trying hard. “I’ll pour a coffee-”
“Here,” Aaron says, holding a large cup of bought coffee. “I got this for you, and it’s still warm.”
I wrap my hands around the cup and step precariously back into the living room, pull up a chair, and take a sip. Yep, that’s excellent coffee—the best. Totally hits the spot. I won’t tell him that, though. I listened to them talking in the kitchen, finding his deep voice soothing, particularly the softening of his tone when he spoke to Grandma. This is not the first time I thought he’d make a great father and be wonderfully protective of his flock.
I rub my stomach when it gurgles again, feeling odd - hot and cold, hungry and full. There’s a speck on my glasses, so I take them off to clean the lens on my shirt while reflecting on the past two nights when everything changed. Bri was found, Xavier was stabbed, Austin came to his brother’s rescue, Aaron’s SUV was attacked, and we still don’t know much about the men who caused all this damage.
Aaron appears and sits opposite me with his cup of coffee in his massive hands. “Tell me when you’re ready to go,” he states, tapping his fingers on the cup.
“Now is good,” I tell him, just to remove myself from this uncomfortable situation of the oldest Leroux boy getting along like two peas in a pod with my grandparents.
“Let’s go,” he urges, trying to raise enthusiasm in me as I peel myself off my chair, not in the mood to socialize, especially with him.
I yell my farewells to my grandparents, and they call back that they’ll go up to see Bri in an hour so that they might catch me up there.
“Is it working?” I question Aaron as he opens Xavier’s car door for me like a gentleman.
“What?” he grunts in that deep voice that, on a good day, makes my vagina quiver. Today’s not a good day, though.
“Charming my grandparents. Is it working?” I repeat as he climbs into the driver’s seat next to me, and the entire space smells of his cologne.
“What do you reckon?” he hits back at me while starting the engine.
“Is that your intention?” another question for his question. We could answer questions with a question all day and never get an answer.
“Yep,” he answers bluntly. He has no reason to lie, I guess. Well, there”s no reason I have yet to discover.
“Why?”
“So, they trust me…us…me and my brothers,” he clarifies as he backs out of the drive.
“Why?”
“You’re starting to sound like a broken record. Why. Why. Why.”
“I noticed you haven’t answered my broken record one-word question.”
He drives to the end of the street and turns right toward me as I wait with bated breath for an education. “Look,” he starts, struggling to find the words, so he taps his fingers on the steering wheel, which is not irritating at all. “You’re gonna end up with one of us, and I’m not sure who or…maybe it’s all of us, so your family needs to know us. They need to know that we’re not monsters that want to destroy their business.”
“All I heard was that I’m gonna end up with one or maybe all of you. You can’t mean Austin. You’re only meaning Xavier…I mean,” I’m tripping over my tongue because this is such a strange concept. “All of you?”
“Austin does things his way,” Aaron outlines, although there are many ways that comment can be interpreted.
“That must be frustrating,” I reply, noticing that the tone of my voice held bitterness as envy stirs. I am envious of their relationship with the secretive ex-prisoner and wish I was a member of their club with special privileges to climb inside Austin’s head.
“No,” he answers swiftly, then chuckles. “Frustrating for our parents.”
“I can imagine,” I sigh, annoyed that I’m still thinking about him. It”s time to change the subject, as I wouldn’t want Aaron to believe that I’m obsessed with his brother, but I can’t think of anything to say even though my mind is jam-packed with the junk of the last 48 hours.
“Our parents have a plan for him,” Aaron adds, “but he’s not too fond of working for our father.”
“I thought Austin Leroux would be an ideal candidate for the job of running people out of business,” I say with a sting, and I can’t figure out where this anger is coming from.
He exhales with rising irritation with me. “Yeah, that’s not what our father does, and we do provide enormous job opportunities-”
“Underpaying people,” I cut in.
“No, the wages aren’t that low,” he argues. “You sound like a ray of sunshine this morning. Maybe I’ll stop the car and throw you out to shine your positivity somewhere else.” His fingers tap irritably on the steering wheel as I’m quickly reminded of how large he is and how he could break my neck with those hands.
I fall quiet as I gaze out the window at the lazy Sunday morning vibe. If they were smart, most people would still be wrapped up warm in bed, sleeping away their blues. “Sorry,” I whisper. “I’m just stressed.”
“So, it seems,” he says flatly. He moves into the lane that takes us directly to the hospital and falls quiet.
“Sorry,” I say again. “And thank you for taking me to the hospital.”
“I didn’t want to say in front of your grandparents, but we’re just worried that the heavies might pursue you if you’re on your own, so we’ll take it in shifts to be your personal bodyguard. Okay?” he states while weaving through the slow traffic.
“Okay,” I resign.
“No offense, but you’re being a little na?ve. We don’t know who these men are until we do, and we’ll wrap you in cotton and protect you. Okay?” he explains, clarifying who the boss is, and I don’t dislike it. Honestly, it feels nice to be encased in a Leroux shield of protection that no man would dare break unless they’re stupid. I reflect on the way Xavier punched the man in the elevator, sacrificing his safety to save me.
Hero.
“Have you heard what happened to the men in the elevator?” I press as the black mood dragging me down starts to lift, thanks to good coffee and conversation.
“In police custody, but they need to speak to your sister to verify that they were the ones that kidnapped her in the van, but since they were wearing ski masks, it might not be easy to identify them,” he clarifies.
“And Porky Pig masks,” I add. “That’s what they wore at the party.”
“Interesting.”
“What happens if she can’t identify them? Do they let them go?” I ask, unsure if I want to hear the answer.
He shrugs his broad, muscular shoulders. “I don’t know.”
But he does know, and he’s just being protective. He knows that if Bri can’t identify them as the men who kidnapped her or the men who threatened her in the first place, which forced her into hiding, then we’re certifiably screwed.