6. Fifteen thousand reasons – Aurora
6
FIFTEEN THOUSAND REASONS
AURORA
E llie runs ahead of us into the massive gourmet kitchen and darts through the space between the stove and Atticus’s legs.
I cringe. “Ellie! Come here, girl.”
She comes without hesitation, almost barreling into my legs. She might have a firecracker of a personality when I let her loose, but thank god she always listens to me.
Before I can apologize to Atticus for her getting in his way, Seven comes into the room from another part of the house. He has a coy grin on his face despite the stitched-up gash on his forehead, split lip, and swollen eye. In his loose-fitting muscle shirt, I can’t help noticing how his tattooed muscles flex when he lifts an arm to grip the doorframe in a BookTok-worthy stretch.
“What’s for breakfast?” he asks Atticus, but his eyes are completely fixed on me as he licks his lips.
My mouth goes dry.
“ Not the new cleaning girl,” Atticus quips as he flips something in a pan.
I jerk as Elijah leans down to whisper in my ear, “Don’t mind Sev. He has absolutely no manners. We’ve tried to train him. No luck.”
“I heard that, dickface.”
My cheeks go hot.
“It smells incredible,” I venture, angling for a subject change as I crouch down to rub Ellie’s belly. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to avoid looking at any of them while my face is still on fucking fire.
As Seven and Elijah settle into easy conversation, I wonder if I should be helping. Washing the dishes, maybe? Looking around, I don’t actually see anything else that needs cleaning. Everything in this mammoth house looks like it was dusted this morning. The floors are gleaming, save for the little bit of dirt that Ellie brought in on her paws. Fuck. I totally forgot to wipe them off.
“Stay,” I tell Ellie and cross the kitchen, going around the eat-in counter and the kitchen island toward the sink, but the instant I cross the imaginary line between the designated eating and cooking areas, Elijah and Seven fall silent.
“Nope,” Atticus says without turning around, lifting his spatula in warning.
I freeze.
“I was just going to?—”
“Nope.”
I look to the other guys, confused.
“He’s a mean cook,” Elijah says with a strained smile. “Literally.”
“No one touches the kitchen,” Seven adds. “Atty’s rules.”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
I step back, feeling awkward. “Ooookay.”
I’ll just fuck right off then.
I settle for hovering near the center island where Seven’s leaning.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like roadkill.”
He smirks at me, looking amused, and even though his words hit me like a sucker punch, something about how he said it, and the playful gleam in his blue eyes, pulls an unintentional laugh from my chest.
He raises one dark brow.
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry—I don’t mean to laugh, I…” I bite my lip and try to make my face cooperate with being very demure and apologetic, but it isn’t working.
If he’d stop looking at me like that, maybe I could control myself.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says when I’m ready to crawl into a hole and die. “You have permission to laugh at my misfortune. Everyone else around here does.”
The elastic band around my chest releases, and I’m able to breathe.
“Speaking of roadkill,” Elijah says. “We need to get you fixed up, too. I’ll be right back.”
He’s up and out of the room before I can ask what he means.
“He’s probably talking about that gnarly cut on your cheek,” Seven explains, tracing a line on his own face where the cut would be.
Elijah returns after a second with a big black tackle box that has a first aid cross spray-painted over the side.
“If we don’t clean that up, it could get infected and leave a pretty bad scar,” he says as he sets the box down and starts to rifle through it. He holds up some butterfly closures and an alcohol pad. “Do you mind if I…?”
“I can do it.”
“I don’t mind.”
He pats the stool in front of him, and I sit down, folding my hands awkwardly into my lap. “Thanks.”
Despite the fact that he’s given me no reason to question his motives, I flinch when Elijah reaches over to carefully inspect the cut.
He immediately stops. “I’m sorry, I didn’t?—”
“No,” I shake my head, fidgeting my fingers. “It’s fine. Sorry. Go ahead.”
He’s so gentle that I barely notice the sting of the alcohol, losing myself in the way his hair falls forward to obscure his view while he works. Until I notice his right hand.
Scars riddle the back of it, and a couple of his fingers don’t seem to have set right after whatever happened to him. He flinches as he pries apart a bandage, and something in my chest tightens.
The scars look old, but it’s obvious they still cause him pain.
He notices me looking and frowns, making me cast my gaze to the floor and keep it there.
Crap.
Thank fuck it isn’t long before he’s finished.
Gingerly, I prod the clean, bandaged cut and a sense of warmth floods me. This bitch has always applied her own Band-Aids. I don’t actually remember the last time I was taken care of like this. It’s… nice .
You are so not going to cry right now. Get your shit together.
“You’re good at that,” I tell him, hoping he doesn’t hear the thickness in my voice as I fight to swallow it down.
“Thanks.”
It’s so easy to feel comfortable next to Elijah that I need to remind myself to be wary.
I can’t be giving these guys my trust just because my dog likes them and one of them gave me a Band-Aid for my fucking boo-boo. Or because they’re all insanely good-looking.
Ted Bundy was hot, and look at what a total psycho that guy was.
Stay smart, Aurora.
Trust no one.
Haven’t you learned by now?
“Hey,” Atticus calls, and I turn to see him with a pan poised over a metal dish. “I made some extra breakfast for Eleven. Is she allowed to eat human food?”
Wait, what?
He made food for my dog?
“Yeah. But you didn’t have to do that. I have some more kibble for her somewhere.”
In the suitcase you’re still holding hostage.
He doesn’t reply, making me shift on the stool while he gives the bowl to a happily bouncing Ellie, and then picks up three full plates with ease to hand them to Elijah, Seven, and me, and I think giants maybe shouldn’t wear aprons. He looks like a domesticated Ragnar Lothbrok.
I snort and cough to cover the sound, my mouth watering as I take the offered plate.
The breakfast looks like it’s meant to be served at a five-star restaurant. Silver dollar pancakes drenched in honey, perfectly scrambled eggs, and bacon .
“Oh my god, this looks so good.” I almost drool. I take back what I thought about giants wearing aprons. “Thank you.”
Atticus just grunts as he turns away to start cleaning.
Elijah lifts a brow, and he and Seven share a look that makes me wonder if something’s off.
And I realize Atticus didn’t make a plate for himself. “What about yours?”
I really hope he didn’t just give me food he intended to eat himself.
“Already ate,” he answers without turning around, filling a sink with hot, soapy water as he slings a dish towel over his shoulder.
My stomach growls, but as I pick up a strip of perfectly cooked bacon, I realize I’m not sure I can trust eating it. What if it’s drugged?
Fuck. Being around Jesse and his asshole friends has made me so damn paranoid.
I spend three seconds hesitating before the bacon wins and I shove the whole strip in my mouth.
Oh my fucking lord.
Seven lets out a low chuckle and when I look up, I want to die. He totally just watched me flavorgasm the instant the bacon touched my tongue.
Awesome.
He suppresses a smirk as he fluidly gets up and comes over with his plate, pushing his own six strips onto my plate despite my unintelligible protests.
“I’m sick of bacon,” is all he says in reply, dropping into the seat next to me. “We’ve been eating it all week.”
Atticus grumbles something from over the sink, and the water shuts off.
“So,” he says with a note of finality in his tone. “There are a few things we need to cover.”
Abandoning the dishes to soak in the soapy water, he pulls a document out of an envelope on the kitchen island.
I chew and swallow faster so I can respond. “Oh, of course.”
I try my best to sound eager to hear him out when all I’m actually eager to do is shove this food in my face.
He slides the papers over to me, spinning them right side up.
“We’ll just need you to go over this and sign it. If you still want the job, that is.”
The words Nondisclosure Agreement stare back at me.
“Why do I need to sign this? It’s just a cleaning job, right?”
“It’s standard. Everyone who works for us needs to sign one.”
I keep reading as I jam another strip of bacon into my mouth, refusing to let the weirdness of this put me off my appetite.
Obligations and Confidentiality
The recipient shall uphold strict confidentiality and shall not disclose anything they witness or overhear while at the residence of or in the presence of the Disclosing Party.
A six-month contract…
The recipient must also notify the Disclosing Party if they intend to depart the property for any purpose with a minimum of 12 hours notice…
Um , what the actual fuck?
I open my mouth to question Atticus again, but before I can get a word out, I see it.
The number at the bottom of the last page.
The recipient will receive a remuneration of $15,000 a month for all services rendered during the contract term.
Fifteen fucking thousand.
For cleaning?
In my periphery, Atticus shifts.
“Is there a problem?” he asks gruffly.
Is there?
I did have one, but…I forget what it was.
Couldn’t have been important.
I mean, fuck, I can do anything for six months if they’re going to pay me this much, right?
By spring, I could save enough money to give Ellie and me a real fresh start. My mind conjures images of a big, fenced yard, a full refrigerator, and a car where all the windows work.
Quickly, I flip through the rest of the document, scanning over the text for keywords that could give me pause. But there doesn’t seem to be anything else that’s overly concerning. Nothing to say that my job might require me to clean in my birthday suit or a skimpy maid uniform. No mention of anything dangerous or sexual.
Other than the bits on nondisclosure and letting them know when I want to leave the property, it appears fairly standard.
“Aurora?” Atticus presses, and I drop the pages closed.
“No. No problem at all.”
I smile up at him, and when he extends a pen to me over the table, I take it, and sign my name on the dotted line.