Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hennessy: The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
For the first time, I laid aside my stubbornness and actually cooked the food my uncle had bought me a month ago.
From scratch, I prepared Onyx an Aguadito De Pollo.
A hearty chicken soup to help him heal faster.
Grabbing some lemon from the fridge, I poured the soup into a Tupperware and grabbed a spoon and a fork for him.
On my way out the door, I grabbed two Inca Kolas from the drink fridge. I packed it all in a heated lunch box, wanting the soup to stay as warm as possible as I made my way to his room.
To my shock, my uncle stopped me.
“Where are you going?” he questioned.
I didn’t stop. “Out.”
“Hennessy, you need to stay away from him.”
Now that stopped me dead in my tracks, snapping around. “It’s none of your business.”
“Try again.”
Reluctantly, I gave in. “It’s just soup.”
“It’s not just soup, and you know it as much as I do.”
“Tío—”
“You’re playing with fire, and he already got burned for you.”
“Don’t you mean lashed for me?” I didn’t hesitate. “Which is exactly why I’m bringing him this soup.”
“You’re not just bringing it. You made it for him.”
“Yeah, and I filled it with affirmations. Would you like me to tell you what spell I used for healing?”
“Hennessy…”
“You can’t stop me from visiting a friend.”
“Onyx doesn’t have friends outside of the Brotherhood.”
It was the first time he acknowledged he knew about them.
“And what exactly is the Brotherhood? Do you know what the first two initials mean?”
He thought about it for a second, admitting, “Blood Oath, Hennessy. That’s what they mean.”
My mind snapped back to the moment the man with the dagger mixed our blood and then to Deja asking me if he said anything as he performed it.
Did he perform a blood oath on me?
I must’ve made an expression. Tío noticed and made a face, but I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.
“So B.O.B. stands for Blood Oath Brotherhood?”
He merely nodded.
“Is that who lashed him?” I searched his stare for more answers, only to come up empty.
Instead of continuing this debate, I spun around and left.
At the last second before I closed the garage door, Tío blessed, “Que Dios te bendiga y vaya contigo, mi nina.” He made the sign of the cross, expressing, “May God bless you and accompany you, my girl.”
I didn’t think anything of it. It was typical to hear when you left your house in Peru.
It was usually accompanied by the cross being symbolized on your face, followed by a kiss on your cheek.
If it were your direct family, especially your parents or grandparents, then it was more like a thousand kisses, not just one, displayed all over your face.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous on my walk over, mostly because I didn’t know how he’d react to me being there for him.
I guess it depended on his mood. My guess was he was on some sort of drugs for the pain, so maybe I’d get the guy from Friday night.
However, I was unsure which was worse, Jekyll or Hyde.
Swallowing hard, I used the back stairs to their estate like Caspian told me to, trying to go completely unnoticed. The last thing I wanted to do was answer any more questions or explain why I was there in the first place.
I watched Deja leave his room, slamming the door behind her.
“Great,” I muttered under my breath. “He must be peachy keen.”
Ignoring the anxiety exuding from my pores, I waited until she was gone to make my way to his bedroom. After I knocked, I heard Caspian’s voice, telling me to enter.
Gathering my resolve, I opened the door and came face-to-face with the man who’d taken a lashing for simply kissing me.
My heart couldn’t have felt more broken than it did at that moment.
I was used to seeing Onyx strong and determined.
There, leaning against his headboard and sitting up in his bed, he looked anything but that.
He appeared exhausted despite being knocked out for almost two days.
Finding my voice, I greeted, “Hey.”
Caspian was smiling like a Chester cat, exiting the same way I walked in.
He shut the door behind him, and I resisted the urge to lean against it. Instead, I walked twenty steps to the side of his bed, counting to not lose my nerve.
Meeting his tired eyes, I declared, “I made you some soup.”
His gaze shifted to the container in my hands. I opened it to show him. It was nice and steamy.
“What’s in it?” he questioned.
“It’s aguadito. It’s Peruvian and has chicken, potatoes, a little rice, some cilantro, and healing spices.”
“Healing spices, huh?”
I nodded, not looking at him. Sitting down beside him, I placed the drinks on his nightstand, opening his first and then mine.
“It’s Inca Kola, Peruvian too. Some people say it tastes like pink bubble gum and others say it resembles a banana flavor.”
“What do you think it tastes like?”
I could tell by his tone he was flirting with me.
Still not meeting his intense stare, I shrugged. “Good.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He went to grab it, hissing when he moved his arm in that direction.
“Here,” I said, holding it instead. “I’ll do it for you.”
Holding the straw to his mouth, he drank a sip.
“What do you think?” I asked when he was done, setting it back down on his nightstand.
“It tastes like candy.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that.” He nodded to the soup in my lap. “Are you going to feed me next?”
I shrugged again. “If you want me to.”
Again, in a flirty tone, he teased, “What did I do to deserve this?”
This time, my gaze connected with his. He looked almost amused, but at the same time endeared by me.
“It’s just food.”
“That you made from scratch for me?”
Like a true Peruvian, I simply stated, “I made enough to feed an army. I can bring you more if you like it.”
Obviously enjoying the attention, he baited, “Did you poison it?”
I smiled. “I guess you won’t know until you try it.”
He joked. “You first.”
I played along, eating a bite off the spoon. Impressed with how great it tasted.
He called me out, “Pleased with yourself?”
“We’ll see.” I scooped another bite with chicken and a piece of potato and fed it to him.
“You keeping me alive?” He grinned.
“Does that mean you like it?”
“I like that you made it.”
I bowed my head, filling another spoonful for him.
“Hennessy.”
I glanced up at him.
“I like it.”
A smiled, not trying to hide it.
For the next fifteen minutes, I fed him as if I were his own private nurse. Once he was finished, I gave him his pain meds that had a big red warning label that stressed not to handle heavy machinery or drive because it causes drowsiness.
Next, I washed the bowls and silverware in the sink at his bar in the corner of the room, then dried them with a towel I threw in his hamper when I was done.
I turned to see his expression had changed. He looked almost alarmed.
“What?” I blurted.
“Nothing, come here.”
Shaking it off, I walked past the back of his computer screen, making my way toward him.
Unable to oppose, I addressed the elephant in the room, “Did you really take a lashing from the Brotherhood because you kissed me?”
“Fucking, Caspian…” he rasped under his breath.
“Then it’s true?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Putting the containers and silverware away in the bag, I pointed out, “It does to me.”
He considered it for a moment. “The damage is done.”
“No, you’re going to scar.”
Scooting down a little on the bed, he alleged, “I’ll just add it to the others.”
“Onyx…” I could tell he was getting tired and sleepy.
“Come here.”
“I am here.”
“No,” he insisted, pulling me to him. “Come here.”
I willingly went, gently laying my head on his chest.
“Better,” he said.
Within seconds, he was passed out cold. I stayed there with him, listening to his soft breathing and the lull of his heartbeat.
Somewhere outside, the harsh sound of thunder rolled by before it started to pour.
A few of his blinds were shut, but the one from his balcony wasn’t, and I watched the rain cascade down the glass, realizing how close my bedroom was to his.
I instantly wondered if he watched me in my bedroom. He could literally see right over to mine. Somewhere along the way, I began to drift off to sleep myself.
Dreaming of being in his arms…
Except it already became reality.