60. Caspian
Caspian
B ellamy walked me into the massive old Victorian house, stopping a few steps ahead of me when I paused to look around.
“You live here?” I asked.
It was dark and lush, comfortable without being overstated, and the complete opposite of Vince’s sleek townhouse. Save for the ornate wood desk and massive fireplace in his office, Vince’s place wasn’t much more than panes of glass and bright lights.
“All of us do,” Bellamy said, gesturing toward the stairs with a quick jerk of his head. “Do you have a bag or anything?”
I frowned. “He didn’t tell me we were leaving like this. We just…”
“It’s okay. Between the five of us, we’ll find some extra clothes for you.”
I followed Bellamy up the stairs and down a hallway full of closed doors. He stopped at the end and pushed one open, walking me into a small bedroom that overlooked the campus.
“You can stay here,” he said. “The sheets are clean, the bathroom is across the hall.”
“Where do you sleep?” I asked, looking around the dark but neatly kept space.
“Wherever I want,” he said with a shrug.
“Do you have your own room?”
“No. I sleep wherever I want.”
I thought about Vince’s bed and the four of us tucked together beneath his sheets.
How before Jacob and I showed up, it used to be just him and Orion.
I didn’t know if the two of them shared a bed.
I didn’t know a lot about the dynamic between the two of them, and what I did know, I didn’t entirely understand.
I’d even seen Orion and Jacob in the bathroom together, covered in blood and bruises with stars in their eyes like Vince hung the moon, and I just…
“Where do you sleep?” Bellamy asked, interrupting my train of thought.
“In the guest room sometimes,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Sometimes with Vince.”
“Just Vince?”
My cheeks heated. “All four of us.”
“Are all four of you together?” He grinned at me and pointed at the spot beside me on the bed. I nodded, and he sat down at my left.
“Not really,” I said, unsure of how to explain .
“The five of us aren’t together,” he said as if it was a normal, mundane thing, like he was telling me they had lunch meat in the fridge for sandwiches. “Gideon only really wants Fletcher, and sometimes me, but never Daren or Luca. He watches, though. Vince has come to watch before too.”
Something that felt a lot like jealousy knotted together behind my sternum, and I absentmindedly rubbed a circle in the middle of my chest.
“He’s watched you?”
Bellamy’s cheeks were the next to darken and he shrugged at me casually. “It wasn’t a big deal. I think it was before you were involved with him. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Right.”
“I’ve known Vince for a while, on account of Gideon and Fletcher.
I know what it’s like to feel you’re a pawn, not in control of your life because you find out other people have been lying to and manipulating you.
” Bellamy cleared his throat. “Vince is a good man, and if he cares for you, then you’re lucky.
He’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. ”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because that’s what Gideon and Fletcher did for us. It’s what Vince did…with his father too.”
Jacob and Orion were both off on their own, racing down separate tracks toward the same goal. Both of them focused on getting Vince back, and I’d never felt more useless in my life. Sitting on a bed, hidden away for safekeeping.
“I was born into this life, but I don’t think it’s for me.”
“There is no such thing as this life,” Bellamy said. “It’s just life. Do you want me to make you something to eat? Fletcher might already be working on getting something together.”
“I’m not hungry,” I whispered.
“But you still have to eat.”
A soft knock on the door had us both looking up, and the man in question appeared in the doorway.
“Lunch?” Fletcher asked, glancing between the two of us with narrowed eyes.
“I’m not hungry,” I said again.
“Daren promised Jake we’d look after you, and that involves eating, so it doesn’t really matter if you’re hungry or not.” He gave me a completely un-apologetic smile. “Lunch will be ready in five.”
With that, he left me and Bellamy alone again in the guest room, and I looked over in time to see Bellamy roll his eyes at the place Fletcher had been standing.
“It’s a gift, I think,” he said quietly.
“What is?”
“ This life?” He laughed, emphasizing the word he’d already told me didn’t matter. “To be loved so differently by so many men.”
“So many,” I muttered, letting my mind wander back to Vince and Orion…and Jacob.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to get settled, but if you’re not down to eat soon, Fletcher will probably send Gideon up for you.”
“Is that bad?” I asked, arching a brow.
“They don’t call him the beast for nothing,” he said, with a smile that led me to believe Gideon North was more akin to a teddy bear than a grizzly. “But he has a way of getting what he wants.”
Bellamy pushed up from the bed and left without another word.
He closed the door behind him and I fell back onto the plush comforter, flinging an arm over my eyes to block out the light and hoping when I opened them up, I’d be back at the townhouse with Jacob on one side of me and Vince on the other…
Orion safely tucked at Jake’s right where he belonged.