Chapter 7
?
Is this considered co-writing?
August
“Hmmmmm…” December—perfectly princess—lies sprawled on a store display mattress that cushions her every inch, pulling her deep into the soft plush.
“I’m glad Lynn was able to get Micheal over so quickly to assess the situation with your electricity,” I tell my brother, while he glares down at my bestie.
Grunting, he glances at me, then he resigns. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Really rough what happened to your mattress, though.” I saw the charred remains out in front of his house this afternoon, when I walked over with December to meet up for this shopping event.
Not pretty at all. It practically looks like someone dumped gasoline on it, then threw a match.
“A relief your bed frame didn’t get too caught in the flames. Or Dominic, for that matter.”
December rolls over, and her skirt tugs up, ever so slightly.
My brother’s jaw hardens, and he drags his attention across the store—to Dominic, who is lying face-down on a different mattress. “Yeah. I guess.”
He guesses he wouldn’t want the lovely individual he was helping out to go up in flames? Well. How benevolent of him.
“How’re things going with…” He gestures, vaguely. “…all that?”
I hum.
If I ignore the fact that Ali still hasn’t replied to me, everything is fine.
After my pretty pink casket arrived, Dominic slept in it, and he only seemed mildly disoriented this morning when I asked if it was comfortable over the chocolate chip pancakes I made.
To suggest that things have been positively dull seems mean, but things have been…
positively dull. “Nothing interesting has happened yet.”
“Oh. My condolences.”
December sighs again, and rolls again, and this time my brother’s heart leaves his body. He marches a step forward, grabs the hem of her skirt, and yanks it down over her rump. “Dece, have some self-awareness. There are men here.”
Perfectly calm, December juts her lip and peers up at Wynnter with her giant eyes. “Men where? The clerk is a woman, and Dominic is too busy having a crisis to leer at me.”
I glance toward Dominic. He’s not moved a muscle. Tilting my head, I do conclude that it appears he’s having a crisis over there. Maybe his guilt from eating a penguin army and returning to devour the innocent families and children last night has finally caught up with him.
I wonder if he’s still breathing.
“I—” Wynnter grits. “—am a man.”
December sits up in an exaggeration of shock. She scans my mountain of a brother from head to toe, then from one broad shoulder to the other, then faux terror ripples through her eyes. “You mean…”
Eye twitching, Wynnter says, “It shouldn’t be that alarmin—”
“A man touched my wee rump?” She slaps her hands to her backside.
Wynnter flinches.
“I’m unfit for marriage now.” Graceful as a tiny evil monster, December rises, and Wynnter stumbles back a step, desperate to evade her. “You’ll have to take responsibility, Wynn-Wynn.”
His Adam’s apple bobs, and I open the notes app on my phone. Man in distress. Violently flirty lead. There are elements I can surely use here. I wonder if my vampire boy’s girlie should be as bold as December…
Would that result in smut, though?
I don’t know that I want my vampire lead to be particularly shy. Maybe my female lead could lose her hubris and flee when she’s flirted with in return?
If Wynnter were capable of forgetting that December is like another little sister to him when she gets like this, he’d find out pretty fast that she’s all talk and tease.
Am I going to tell him that, though?
No. Absolutely not.
It’s fun to watch him squirm in a puddle of discomfort and disgust.
Rough, he mutters, “Do you like the bed or not?”
“Yes, our wedding bed is lovely.” Her hand reaches for his; he evades religiously. She says, “You should try it with me. Make sure it’s big enough for the both of us.”
Red scalds Wynnter’s freckles as he jerks back. “It’s for the guest room. You know it’s for the guest room. Stop being inappropriate. And, for the love of sanity, be more alert when you’re in revealing clothes.”
December, my best friend in the whole world, flutters her stunning dark lashes cluelessly. Then she gasps as it all dawns on her. “You don’t like my clothes. You want me to take them off for you!” And then?
Then she drops her skirt to the ground.
Wynnter cusses and loses seven years of his life before he realizes that dear sweet December…is wearing shorts. “Why…you…little…” he seethes.
She yelps and runs, prompting my brother to chase her around the mattress store, yelling curses and put your swearing clothes back on this swearing second.
Thank goodness we’re the only ones in here, otherwise we’d really be disrupting folks.
Meandering, I make my way over to the pretty boy having a pretty crisis and poke him in his pretty shoulder.
He stirs, still alive.
Eyes dark and lidded, Dominic draws his arms up from his sides, pillows them beneath his chin, and peers at me, looking exactly like a cut-away full art depiction in an otome game. “Mm?” he murmurs.
“You’re being awfully quiet over here. Don’t tell me. My casket isn’t actually comfortable, and you’re trying to get some real sleep while you can?”
His attention skims beyond me, toward Wynnter and December’s roughhousing. “With…all that going on?”
“I do not know how advanced your sleeping skill is. I, personally, put every point I earn into mine.” Turning, I sit on the mattress beside him. It’s practically a rock. “Yikes. You prefer hard mattresses. Maybe the casket is comfortable.”
“Hard mattresses are easier to escape in the morning when it’s time for work.”
That’s a concerning answer. “You’re a workaholic then?”
“Yeah.”
Between last night and today, something in Dominic’s mood seems to have shifted. Ever since he got up, he’s been less refined, less regal. Earlier, I was willing to blame the change on his unusual sleeping arrangements, but I wonder if there’s something else at play here.
So I ask, “Everything okay?”
“Just…regretting my life choices.”
Oof. Buddy.
I glance over my shoulder at him and find his eyes fixed on my back. Slowly, one hand unravels from beneath his head, then he catches a strand of my hair around one finger.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He neither regains lucidity nor stops. “Your brother seems very in love with that friend of yours.”
I choke on the maybe don’t touch me I was about to say as that comment crashes into my skull. “What?”
His gaze skates up to my eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Um. No? “Wynnter only hangs out with tall, tattooed women. Like the other bikers who head down to Florida for Biketober and all that. He’s shown me pictures.
” Although…now that I’m thinking about it…
I cannot confirm whether those women were romantic flings or just friends.
Has Wynnter ever had a girlfriend? I’ve not been particularly invested in my brother’s love life, so I have no idea.
He’s far more brusque than I am, so Granee’s attempts to matchmake him hit a brick wall every time she tries, and I’m fairly sure, at this point, she’s all but given up.
Regardless, though, none of that matters. I say, “December’s like a little sister to him.”
“That—” Dominic nods ever so slightly toward my bestie and brother. “—is not how you treat a little sister.”
Following Dominic’s gaze, I find that Wynnter’s caught December by the wrist, and he has that wrist pinned to a wall between two test beds. He’s definitely lecturing her…but…
Yeah, no. I see it. There’s no way in a million years my brother would get me into that position. He’d sooner grab me by the scruff and throw me than pin me to a wall.
“Huh,” I say.
My brother is in love with my best friend.
My brother is exactly my best friend’s type.
She’s never told me outright that she likes him, though.
Wouldn’t that be something she’d tell me if it were the case?
Unless, of course, she’s also convinced that he only thinks of her like a little sister… Then, she wouldn’t bother entertaining the idea at all. December is far less inclined toward taking chances than I am.
If she isn’t sure of an outcome, she doesn’t like to act.
Telling someone her feelings—even if that someone is me—would make them real, but making them real wouldn’t mean happily ever after is any more possible.
But. Wait a second.
Why am I even entertaining the offhanded comment of someone who has barely known any of us for a week? This is the first time Dominic’s seen December and Wynnter together. There’s no way he can peg attraction that easily, and there’s no way I can conclude he’s right from a singular kabedon, either.
Wynnter wouldn’t pin me to a wall because I’m the little sister who scares him. The dynamic of sibling affection is different between him and December than it is between us. And that’s just how it is.
Shaking my head, I free my hair from Dominic’s toying fingers and face him to get back to the point. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He stares, forlorn, at his empty hand—suddenly devoid of my hair. “I already told you.”
“Regretting your life choices?”
“Yes, that.”
“And also deciding that my brother likes my best friend.”
“A lovely trope, isn’t it?”
It is, actually, one I avoid. On account of my having a brother. And that making it weird to think about brothers and romance in any form. I say, “No, it sucks.”
“Right.” Dominic sits up. “You prefer enemies to lovers.”
An odd strain takes hold of the air, and it pricks my senses. “I…do. Yes.”
“Tell me.” Dominic tilts his head. “How exactly does someone go about becoming your enemy, August?”
My brows rise, and I stare at a man who I’ve only known exists for about a week and have barely gotten the chance to get to know for less than a day.
I blink. I stare some more. I take stock of where he is and where I am on this bed in this mattress store.
I recall the way his hand was in my hair, the way he looked at his fingers when I pulled free of them. Then I ask, “Are you flirting with me?”