Chapter 17 Presley
Presley
Icould hear Gio and Kingston talking to one another.
Their voices were quiet, and they were being gentle with the cadence they used. It was starting to get late, and I knew they hadn’t eaten or done anything other than sit here with me all day while I clung to Adrian’s dead body.
I realized what I was doing was crazy, and perhaps I should consider how I was making everyone around me feel, but I didn’t want to.
If they wanted to leave, they could. I wasn’t forcing them to stay.
I just didn’t want anyone to touch Adrian’s body.
Not yet. Scotty would probably just dump him in some furnace or bury him without caring at all, and I didn’t want to do that to him.
I needed to protect his body and ensure he had the proper respect given to him.
At first, I was worried, I’d be the only person who would fight for that, but after having the twins by my side for the entirety of the day, that wasn’t true.
Deep down, they were still my best friends.
“What are you guys arguing about?” I finally sat up and wiped at my eyes.
Kingston lowered his chin to his chest, almost like he was afraid to speak directly to me. Gio responded. “We’re trying to figure out where to take you. Do you want to go back to your famil—”
“No,” I interjected immediately. I refused to go back to my family wing. Not while Scotty was there and had access to me.
“We don’t think you should be alone in Carter’s,” Kingston added softly.
I hated how careful he was being with me, as if I would just shatter into a thousand pieces if he handled me wrong. He’d never been like that with me. My whole life he’d delivered harsh truths; he’d been the patch of shade for me in all of Gio’s sun. I never realized how badly I needed that.
“I’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t,” Gio argued.
Truthfully, I didn’t want to be anywhere in the manor.
My mother would come and check on me, or my dad…
they were already worried about me after what they learned, what I did to my grand—a tight ball of emotions suddenly swelled in my throat, making fresh tears want to fall.
It was possible that some of my grief for Adrian was also for a man that I was never given the chance to know, but was forced to murder.
Solitude sounded good, along with distance from everyone. My eighteenth birthday flashed in my mind, how up in the loft I had found that solitude, and how I was completely alone until I had called Adrian. He filled the space left void by the twins.
“I want to stay in the barn. I don’t want to be here, and I want Adrian’s body brought there, put on ice. He needs a proper burial.”
Gio brushed a few strands of hair off my face. “Done. Will you let Kingston carry you there?”
I saw his eyes move swiftly over my head, but I didn’t catch his twin’s reaction. I felt it, though. Kingston moved away from me and made some sound of disagreement.
“I’ll handle the body if you get her there, Gio.”
Rejection sharp as a needle, pierced some unhealed wound in my heart, directly connected to him.
While Gio seemed desperate to get into my good graces, his brother wanted nothing to do with me.
Which was fine, he didn’t need to want me.
My roots were made of unrequited love and pining for a life that would never be. His derision was nothing new for me.
“I don’t need either of you to take me there. I can walk. I think the fresh air would be good for me.” I slowly moved to get up by placing my palms under me against the cool cement, but Kingston lurched forward to stop me.
“Can you just let Gio take you, please?”
My eyes snapped up, seeing his already searching mine. The familiar amber hue felt like a gut punch, making me immediately drop my gaze.
“Why do you care, Kingston?” I shoved his hands away and got to my feet. I was shaky from not eating anything all day. I swayed enough that I had to catch my balance on a pillar.
I heard Gio curse, and then I was being swept up into his arms and tucked against his chest. “Come on, Elvis. I have a surprise for you.”
Without glancing back at the twin who had no love left for me, or the man who’d died because he had too much, I was carried away. Past the front entrance and around the side of the manor, toward the only place that ever truly brought me peace.
Gio walked long enough that I’d closed my eyes and breathed in the crisp winter air.
I knew exactly where he stepped by the way his body shifted in elevation or dipped from the messy terrain.
However, when I expected him to veer off toward the barn, he changed direction toward the house.
That had my eyes flying open, and my head lifting.
The last time I had seen the farmhouse, it was still rotted out, full of disarray and moldy pieces I needed to gut.
The house before me wasn’t what I had left behind at all.
“Gio,” I inhaled as he stopped in front of the renovated home. Fresh, white paint covered brand new siding, while dark green shutters enclosed new glass windows. I could see gauzy white curtains covering them from the inside, which had my mouth lifting into a feeble smile.
My heart twisted in my chest with elation and hope.
Gio set me down, and even on shaky legs, I found a fresh strength hold me up as I stepped over a manicured patch of grass leading to a freshly built porch. I climbed wide steps while holding tightly to the railing. Gio was behind me but gave me enough space that I didn’t feel smothered.
A green door that matched the shutters had a black knob and a wreath hanging that looked like it was full of white baby’s breath.
It was such a delicate touch and one that tugged at a gently folded away memory of playing knights and dragons.
I was the queen, and Kingston agreed to be the knight who protected the realm.
He had decided his job would be to bring the queen a crown of baby’s breath every morning, so she knew he was still alive and hadn’t been eaten by a dragon.
I tried the door, and it opened easily as if it were just here waiting for me.
The floors were a light oak color, covered in warm rugs.
New archways had been designed in places that I couldn’t even recognize as rooms before.
The walls were a soft eggshell color, but there were a few accent walls with green wallpaper that had little highland cows printed all over them.
Reaching out, I traced a finger over the wall and spun around as curiosity tugged out a memory I had of a time when Kingston had shared a piece of himself with me.
I dream of marigolds too…ones that sit on a kitchen table, plucked from the garden I grew. Wallpaper that has little prints of Highland cows and a pantry full of organic Cheetos. Sunlight soaking into plants in a home that smells like coconut and oranges.
The dining table was circular with five chairs around it, and there on the table was a vase full of marigolds.
My breath hitched as I walked into the farmhouse-style kitchen.
An older designed fridge was set up between two long counters made of butcher block.
A deep, porcelain sink lay under a large window that revealed the barn out front and the fields beyond.
I moved to the pantry and tugged the door open.
A variety of food was inside, but I zeroed in on my favorite snack: organic Cheetos.
“Did you do all this, Gio?” I already knew the answer, but I was curious as to why Kingston continued to push his brother toward me and shy away from me himself.
Gio rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. “Bits and pieces. Come on, I wanna show you upstairs where the bedrooms are.”
I went with him, still feeling a strange high come over me.
My dreamhouse had been completed…the farmhouse I had always wanted and dreamed of one day living in.
The small touches throughout were better than anything I could have ever hoped for.
There was so much consideration into what suited me that it made me emotional for entirely different reasons.
We crested the stairs, seeing a large book nook take up the back wall.
Shelves were built in, along with floor-to-ceiling windows and a long table stretched along the opposite wall acting as an office space.
Beyond that, on one side of the room was a doorway that led to a large room, with warm oak floors continued, softened with thick rugs.
A large king-sized bed, covered in pink and white bedding, was across the room near the cushioned window seat.
The attached bathroom suite had an arched doorway leading to cream tile, a clawfoot tub, and an enclosed shower.
I wandered around the space, gliding my finger along surfaces and feeling sunlight touch little places as if it were all made of magic.
I padded back toward the book nook where I could see the other bedroom doors and another slim set of stairs.
Holding the rail, I took the steps up to another loft.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” Gio said, holding his hand out as if to help me reach the last step.
Glass stretched everywhere, which made the room warm as the sun soaked through.
“This would make a good greenhouse,” I mused, while sliding open the door that led outside. There was a balcony that had lounge chairs, a gas fireplace, and a telescope set up.
“No, not a greenhouse, Elvis. Stargazing,” Gio said as though I should have known that.
It finally clicked for me that the house had been set up for me, but framed around things a certain twin would enjoy. I saw nothing set up for plants. No greenhouse of any kind, not even a single potted plant in the house anywhere, which meant only one twin intended to stay here with me.
That rejection reared its ugly head once more with a stinging bite. Outrage and a frenzy of sorts seemed to sweep through me at the realization that Kingston was merely toying with me, and now he had every intention of just letting me go.