Chapter 18 #3
“I had a feeling you might have been homeless when you said everything you owned was in your backpack.”
“The fuck else would it mean?” Baron asks, shaking his head. “For such a smart guy, you don’t always connect the dots very well, Mr. FBI agent.”
“Yes, I am aware of how badly I suck.” Ves pulls me tightly against his chest, his arms banding around me. “Why wouldn’t you use my sheets, Arlo? Or eat my food?”
“If it’s not ours, we don’t touch it,” Lennox replies for me. “I may live in a nice van, but I understand transitional living. There are rules.”
“My roommates were assholes,” I groan. “If I didn’t lock my room, they’d mess with my stuff.
They actually kicked me out. My shit was dumped in the living room, and they’d all jacked off onto my sheets then pissed on them.
I’d spent a year carefully gathering things as I could afford them.
There was no way I was touching anything in that room after that. ”
I shudder in revulsion and gag. So fucking gross.
“Sorry. In my mind, I didn’t have any way to contribute to the household food items when I started working for you, so I didn’t get to eat. If there were leftovers, then I’d sneak food.”
“God, I wish I had understood that,” Ves says.
“You didn’t know,” I shrug. “It’s also why I slept on the mattress instead of on ‘your’ sheets.”
“Dude.” Lennox is glaring at Ves and I can feel my omega cringing.
“I’m so sorry, Arlo.” The words are growled out as Ves buries his face in my neck. “I wish I could crawl into your mind and experience how you think.”
“That’s dangerously close to wanting to wear him as a skin suit,” Lennox snorts. “I don’t know if that’s the kind of romance he wants.”
I can feel my face heating and the alpha’s head tilts to the side as he sees it. “Interesting.”
“Leave him alone,” Baron chuckles. “Do you like sleeping in a bed every night? Some people have a hard time getting used to it.”
“I still keep waiting for the bottom to fall out. It just doesn’t feel real. I mentioned my anxiety, and that plays a big role in things. Cali sometimes notices it and will tell me I’m doing great. I shouldn’t need a six year old’s praise.”
“I don’t think she means it like that,” Ves says. “Calista has always picked up on things. She hears conversations she shouldn’t…”
We quiet for a moment, but she’s singing to music at the top of her lungs.
“Should she be listening to that?” I whisper. It’s a song that feels a little adult for her.
“No, but I told her she could listen to whatever she wanted to. I’ll deal with the fallout later,” Ves grunts.
“My point is that Calista is always going to see things you don’t want her to see, she’s too perceptive, and she’s been through too much for such a little girl.
She’s a huge part of why this entire conversation needed to happen.
We can’t hide from her, but we need to be aware of what she’s seeing.
So, in the meantime, I want to make sure we’re taking care of you, too.
Please talk to us. I know you’ve been lonely in Los Angeles. ”
“I had nothing to do. My six year old friend goes to bed before eight, and I would catch myself coloring alone. For someone who’s been alone often, I hate it.”
“I have a feeling we’re all going to be up in each other’s business,” Lennox says. “I don’t have to be back to work until next week.”
“Anything else you need to tell us?” Ves asks.
“You know the guy who helped me? I’m pretty sure he murdered my entire family.
I found a news article about it and the only survivors were my little sisters because they weren’t home.
A part of me thinks he planned that,” I confess, starting to sweat.
They’re going to think I’m a terrible person for this…
“When I got to the end of the article, all I could think about was how glad I was that my family was dead. How fucked up is that?”
“I feel like we’re making our own version of a trauma candy salad,” Lennox mutters.
His hands move up to my calves and he works on the tight muscles there.
His lips twitch as I moan softly. “I think it’s a completely normal response to be happy when people who were awful to you die.
My mother poisoned my father because he was a mean, abusive fuck.
She wanted to protect us, and not one of us batted an eye when he dropped dead.
I’m sometimes afraid to eat her food when she’s mad at me, though. ”
I can’t help the giggles that escape and Lennox shrugs. “What can I say, sweetheart? We’re all a little fucked up. The chinks in our armour are kind of sexy, yeah?”
“That’s a pretty fucked up way to get a compliment,” Ves teases me. “Cali is dying to play with your hair Lennox. If you’re not careful, she’ll be braiding flowers into it and asking to do your nails.”
Lennox wiggles his toes in our direction and I see they’re a pretty lavender.
“I painted them in Malibu after taking a long fucking bath. I was going to self-care myself out of depression. Baron interrupted me.”
“A little kidnapping makes for a great ‘how did you know you were meant for each other’ story,” I chuckle. “Why be boring?”
“Why indeed,” Lennox growls, heat in his words.
Ves rocks my ass against his hard cock and I fucking perfume. Yep, this intervention is going swimmingly.
BARON
Ignoring the cloud of sugary lemon that fills the room, I bite back a groan and swallow hard. “Does this mean it’s my turn?”
Lennox turns toward me with a shit eating grin. “It does, and it better be good. If it doesn’t track with kidnapping, I’m going to question your feelings for me for the rest of our relationship.”
“I’ll try not to disappoint,” I deadpan as I lean forward and prop my elbows on my knees before looking out the balcony doors.
“I’m originally from Fresno. I grew up there with my brother and we were raised by our single mother—our dad died when I was four—and she had a steady rotation of alphas on tap after that.
Not for money or anything like that, Diane Kincaid just has terrible taste in men.
We were poor as fuck, living on fried bologna and cabbage soup.
” Straight out of the Depression era, but it’s true.
“Mom always had at least two jobs, she worked her ass off to make sure Dax and I were fed and clothed, that we had a roof over our heads, and it made it easy for guys to weasel their way into our lives with promises of taking care of us. She wanted so badly to give us the world, but that was how it always got rocked.”
Arlo reaches over and rests his hand on my wrist. “I saw a lot of that in the shelters. Mothers with children who were struggling to get by. I’m sure that was hard.”
I shrug as I turn and give him a soft smile.
“It was, but she did her best to make a shitty situation seem better than it was. We were broke as fuck and on government assistance, bills piled up and we had notices every week, but we were happy. My mom hid everything from us and made sure we had no idea how bad things were.”
“I have to ask,” Lennox says with a smirk. “How did such a kind and caring woman give birth to a borderline psychopath?”
I’m sure most people would be a little offended by that, but I’m not.
No, as a matter of fact, I’ve asked myself the same question on more than one occasion. Especially considering how my brother turned out.