Chapter 5 #2
Eyes squinted, I murmur, “Mother Mary, is that you?”
Before he can answer, the darkness—also known as my brother—eclipses him. “Bad news,” Wynnter grumbles, looking livid. He shoves himself past me, into my home, and starts muttering swears. Arms crossed, he peers around, then glares back at me. “Where is it?”
“Where is…what?” Decorum? Uncertain.
It’s not unusual for my brother to barge into my home, just as it is not unusual for me to barge into his, but usually he’s a lot less…demanding when he does it to me.
Hostly, I welcome Dominic in and out of the sun, so I’ll be able to see again. As soon as my vision clears, I find…a broken man.
Shoulders slumped, Dominic whispers, “I’m…sorry about this. Your brother is…” He sags, further. “Insistent.”
Yep. He sure is that. And he also sure is stomping around my house in his big leather motorcycle boots like an irate badger.
“Wynn,” I state, “what are you looking for?”
“The coffin!” He throws an arm in the air.
My interest piques.
Dominic cups his hand over his eyes, like a tortured leading man in an anime.
Linking my arms behind my back, I say, “My casket is scheduled to be delivered later today. Why do you need it?”
Gruff, Wynn flings his hand at Dominic. “His bed caught on fire.”
Come…again?
My head tilts. I glance at Dominic. He’s big. Tall. Elegant. And seemingly capable. What in the world is he doing catching beds on fire? I murmur, “I know you’re hot, but…surely catching your own bed on fire via pure physical attractiveness goes outside the laws of physics.”
Flames erupt in Dominic’s face, turning his skin beet red, and I stare, promptly corrected. I would actually not put it past that skin of his where it concerns setting something alight.
Before I get the chance to begin taking mental notes on how scarlet his ears have become, Wynnter grabs me by the shoulders, teeth gritted. “August, stop torturing the poor guy. He’s been through enough.”
I’ll say. This guy is Murphy’s Law in physical form.
“Can we, or can we not, borrow your coffin?” he grunts.
“Casket,” I correct.
“Whatever. Can we borrow it once it gets here? He’s too tall to fit on my couches, and I feel bad putting him on the floor, but even if I had the time to mattress shop today, it’d take a few days to ship once I pick it out.” Wynnter’s eye twitches as his muttering devolves into incoherent grumbles.
“A few days to ship,” I echo, gaze drifting toward Dominic, who’s firmly looking anywhere but at me and holding the back of his hand to his blazing cheek. “Yeah, Dominic can stay here for a few days.”
I watch Dominic’s heart stop as his gaze slashes to me. Eyes wide, he balks, mouth hanging open.
“What?” Wynnter growls.
“When do you think you’ll be able to go mattress shopping?” I ask, studying the broken, crimson-faced man. It’s so very male lead of him to be broken, isn’t it? This will be excellent research for my upcoming vampire novel.
The tricky part might be weaving the angst that a vampire novel generally implies into the pure comedy before me, but I believe in my ability to rework the genre expectations.
“August—” Wynnter’s lip curls in a sneer, tugging on his short beard and all the freckles dappled around it. “—you’re not going to take in a guy you don’t know for who knows how long.”
I fix my attention on my brother. “Oh, so he’s both a murderer and an arsonist? Why are you still willing to put him up, then?”
Wynnter flinches. “No. He’s a perfectly lovely individual, and it wasn’t his fault the bed caught on fire.
The outlet beside it was faulty, which…” His grip tightens as his head drops.
“…is another thing I need to deal with.” He cusses.
“Right now, I’m dealing with it by not dealing with it.
I just have the power off in that room. But I’m going to need to talk to Lynn about getting the whole house checked over since I don’t have space in my schedule to do it myself right now and—” His muttering grows truly uninspired, so I block him out.
My brother just called this man a perfectly lovely individual. I don’t think Wynnter has ever graced someone with a compliment of that magnitude. I find my curiosity insatiable. “Dominic.”
“Are you listening to me?” Wynnter snaps; I ignore him, because I am not listening to him, actually.
I am enjoying the way Dominic’s shoulders squared at the sound of his name being called.
Cautious, the pretty blond boy looks at me. Something terribly enticing ripples through his eyes before his eyelids lower. “Yes?”
“Would you be comfortable staying here for a few days until things with Wynn’s house get sorted?”
“August,” Wynnter hisses.
“I…” Dominic hesitates.
“Your options kind of suck. You either sleep here, in a casket in a room that probably doesn’t have faulty wiring, or you curl up on Wynn’s itty bitty couches. And maybe explode overnight due to faulty wiring.”
“Or,” my brother attempts to enlighten me, “you let me borrow your casket when it arrives so he has something closer to a bed at my place. Which I can confirm will not explode overnight. Because I’ll be turning the power off at night until Lynn can get Micheal to stop by.”
I plant my hand to my heart, appalled. “So poor Dominic will be forced to sleep in the dark in the summer without any air conditioning?”
“Generally, people do sleep in the dark, August, and it shouldn’t get that hot overnight.”
“You’re being awfully determined.” I draw curled fingers in front of my mouth. “Don’t tell me. Is this yaoi?”
Wynnter’s eyes narrow. “I do not know what you just said.”
That’s probably for the best. Yaoi is outside the genres I write, anyway.
Humming, I press on, “Why are you so against letting a perfectly lovely individual stay with me for a few days?”
“Because.”
“Because it’s indecent?” I frame my cheeks in my palms. “Because I might fall in love! The forced proximity, it compels me!” I drop the theatrics.
“As if. I’ve never harbored romantic feelings for someone in my life.
And if he’s perfectly lovely, there’s no issue about safety. Spill. What’s the problem?”
Wynnter’s eyes roll, and he releases my shoulders to fold his arms firmly across his broad chest. “I’m unwilling to let you torment the poor guy.”
My eyes skitter off my brother and find themselves wholly taken by my ceiling. “I won’t torment him.”
“August.”
“I’m a perfectly regular and easy-to-live-with person. One might say I am also a lovely individual, even.”
“August.” Wynnter’s dry look suggests he would not be the one to say such a thing, but surely someone would. December, perhaps.
“I have a stellar idea,” I present, lovely-y. “Don’t you think we should let poor, sad Dominic decide for himself what he’d like to do?” Pretending to be my most civil, I turn and smile sweetly at the lone prince, lashes fluttering. “What say you, poor, sad Dominic?”
Tortured—even though, notably, I haven’t done anything—Dominic says, “I couldn’t impose on you like that.”
“I make pancakes for breakfast sometimes,” I inform him. “Not pathetic instant oatmeal and cereal like some other people. Warm, fluffy pancakes. With lots of real maple syrup, butter, chocolate chips, and whip cream.”
Dominic’s lips part.
“I could even be convinced to place a strawberry on top. For health.”
His brows knit. “Why would you want to put up with a stranger who is clearly having a string of the worst luck of his life?”
Why?
Silly man.
“Because—” I study him. “—I find it fascinating.”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “It?”
“Your story.” Bringing my hand back to my heart, I bow to the royalty before me. “It would be an honor to watch more of it unfold up close. I believe it has the potential to be…very educational.”
When I peer up at him through my lashes, I discover that he’s starstruck.
The regal grace and beauty surrounding him pauses time for fractions of moments. Finally, warmth enters his eyes, and a certain peace overcomes him. With practiced fluidity, he returns my bow. “If you’re sure, I’d be grateful to find myself in the kindness of your charity.”
“I’m quite sure.”
When we both straighten, I ponder the shift in his outward demeanor—from distressed to calm with an underlying confidence that I would have assumed out of character just minutes ago.
How…peculiar.
Who knows what I’ll find when I dive deeper in.