9. Home Sweet Home with Piss in My Boots
Home Sweet Home with Piss in My Boots
SNOW
For a moment, we just watch each other. My body is still riled by what happened with him, or I guess Four? Man, I need a chart or a spreadsheet to help me keep track.
There is an open, curious, or even analytical air about the way this personality regards me.
"I’m Snow," I say, feeling the introduction necessary though he likely knows exactly who I am.
"I know," he says matter-of-factly.
Right.
"And you are?" I prompt after he doesn’t offer anything else.
"Six."
Ah. "Why didn’t One come back?" Since that’s who I’m assuming is giving an ass-whooping to Four right now.
"Because Seven is talking to Four." He says it as if it makes perfect sense. It doesn’t.
"And One didn’t come back because..."
Six gives me a flat stare like it’s obvious and I’m an idiot for not understanding. "He’s our lead."
"Oookay." Steam thins around us. Goosebumps sweep up my arms, and my skin draws tight. Whatever heat Four left in the harbor is going fast.
We swim back to shore, the frigid temps replacing the pocket of lovely warm water. My teeth chatter as I reach the shore and wrap my arms around my body.
Six stands next to me, and though I know it’s not possible, he seems a couple inches taller than the rest.
"Why did you do that?"
"Do what?" I ask, teeth still chattering in my skull as I slog up through wet sand back to the sidewalk.
"Jump in the water. It’s cold."
I glance at Six. One thing hasn’t changed. He’s just as attractive as the rest, and there is something very blunt and unassuming about him.
"It is cold, but it was fun. Sometimes I like to surprise myself."
He frowns.
"Yeah," I breathe, "maybe not appealing to someone who gets surprised by the other personalities in his head, constantly."
Six still looks like he doesn’t understand and thinks I’m crazy. But then he puts his arm around me.
"Body warmth is the easiest available warmth for both of us," he explains in a completely unassuming way, though my body immediately sings at the contact.
Should it feel weird? I just met Six.
Maybe, but it doesn’t.
Like Four, it feels like I know him. Or maybe I just want to know him. All of him. I’m desperate for any little new piece of magic, information, or personality I can get from The Seven.
And he clearly is familiar enough with me to wrap his arm around me. "I’ll walk you home."
"So why did Four have to go?" I ask, wondering if Six will be as difficult to get answers out of as reluctant One?
"Seven pulled him," Six says without hesitation. "He’s currently...admonishing Four for his behavior with you."
"Admonishing?" Six seems so blunt, yet he struggled to find that particular word.
Six's brows pull together. He goes still, focus dropping to a point past my shoulder. "It seems the most appropriate word. Seven doesn’t like you. He thinks we all need to stay away from you, and he can exert..." he stops, as if searching for the right word again, "pressure on the rest of us."
"What kind of pressure?" I ask.
"The kind that hurts." Six’s gaze glosses over, and I wonder if he’s witnessing or feeling something from the others. "He can hurt you too, if he decides to. He’s certainly considered it. You better hope he never decides to do it."
Ooookay. Don’t piss off Seven. Got it.
Though I’m not exactly sure how to avoid doing that, seeing as I’m guessing that would mean I have to stay away from The Seven entirely. And I don’t think I can do that.
"Soooo he’s mentally laying into Four right now?"
Six’s gaze flicks up as he considers my wording. "That is not inaccurate."
Double negative? My brain struggles to realize he’s confirming my guess in a roundabout way.
Oof. That doesn’t feel good.
I don’t love the idea of Four getting in trouble or mentally slapped around because of me, but I’m also not sorry.
That had been...hot. I was instantly drawn to Four’s heat, both emotionally and magic-wise.
We could get into a lot of trouble together.
The fun random kind as well as the hot, sweaty, between the sheets kind.
A shiver rolls through me at what almost happened.
Six pulls me tighter to his side. "We need to get you warmed up soon. If you die of hypothermia, the others will be very upset."
"But not Seven," I confirm.
"Seven thinks we need to stay away from you."
He's answering with Seven again.
Seven's opinion. Not his.
His body heat absolutely helps, and I can’t help but notice the perfect way I notch into his side, like I’m made to fit right here under his arm. "And what do you think?" I ask, looking up at him.
His gait slows almost imperceptibly.
"I think you are a wild card. A complication. Unexpected." Again, he rattles it off with such logical bluntness. He could be describing paint colors.
"You didn’t say whether you feel that’s good or bad," I add quietly, before leaning in harder, tilting my head to bat my eyes with dramatic flirtation as we continue the walk toward my apartment.
"Welcome to mi casa," I say in a hushed tone, sweeping an arm in invitation.
Six never said whether he thought I was a good or bad wild card in his life, but he walked me home so I couldn’t be too bad.
"We have to be quiet," I add, "because I share mi casa with my bestie who is sound asleep." I glance at Ariel’s closed door, feeling that usual prick of envy that she can just...fall asleep.
Selfish ho.
Why couldn’t she share the ZZZs with me, or at least stay up all night to entertain me?
Six doesn’t seem to hear me. Instead, he’s studying every aspect of my place as if it was some fascinating museum.
To be fair, our apartment is a lot to take in.
In the dead of night, the living room is less like a normal living room and more like a maximalist magpie fell in love with a cocktail lounge.
Fairy lights glow over the leopard print, pink glass, gold mirrors, trailing plants, and Ariel’s ever-growing collection of little treasures, half of which appeared overnight and absolutely none of which came with receipts.
I’ve been meaning to have a little chat with her about the bad habit she thinks she’s hiding so well.
But who am I to out my friend for being a klepto when my primary hobby is throwing daggers and picking fights in the middle of the night?
Six’s green eyes move from the disco ball hanging in the corner to the brass pineapple on the windowsill. From the ceramic swan wearing a rhinestone choker on the bookshelf to the single red cowboy boot being used as a vase for a bunch of fake hydrangeas.
When he seems to finish analyzing our living room and the small attached kitchen, for better or worse I don’t know, his gaze settles on me again.
"You should take a hot bath and get some sleep."
Admittedly, I am missing the heat of his body, and I’m still wet and chilly. "I don’t really sleep much. Do you want to..." I’m not sure how this version of The Seven will take my pitch. "Take a shower here and hang out with me for a while?"
Six blinks.
"Because you must be cold too, and two hot showers are faster than one hot bath.
Your clothes are wet, so we should dry them.
I have an extra pair of oversized boxers that will probably fit you while your clothes dry.
And I know you tend to stay up all night too.
" I rush to say, trying to appeal to his very logical side, "so we could just stay up together.
" I finish with a lopsided smile, feeling completely uncertain.
I almost wish Four was back because there is no mistaking that guy’s intentions. And even though One tries to play things with a firm hand, I can read him like a book. A children’s book, with big, colorful, simple pictures.
Two and Six are...more aloof, harder to pin down.
"Okay," he says. "That makes sense."
It takes everything in me not to raise a fist in victory.
He’s going to stay.
That insatiable fire has kicked up in my belly with its usual gnawing hunger, except this time, it’s hungry for him. Everything in me is desperate to stay in his presence, and knowing he just agreed makes me want to crow.
But I don’t, because that would wake Ariel and she’d roll out here and beat me with that red cowboy boot she nicked from that consignment store where the clerk was rude to us.
I’m in and out of the shower in record time, grabbing that pair of boxer shorts that are too big for me.
I couldn’t pass them up when Ariel and I went to the pop-up sale at Chapter Three, Isabelle’s romance bookstore, even though there was only a size large left.
They have a bunch of tiny swords and books on them.
I normally roll down the hem to get them to fit.
Six takes them and disappears into our tiny bathroom.
Waiting in my bedroom, I’m full of manic energy, bouncing around. No longer cold, I change into spandex shorts and an oversized tee featuring a pin-up girl winking as she holds up a sharp knife beneath the words, Tell Me To Smile One More Time.
It’s not that I haven’t had a guy spend the night before, but this feels different.
My excitement takes a dive as the disgusting scent of concentrated ammonia hits my nose. Or in other words, cat piss.
"Ugh, no the hell you did not, you little bastard..." I grumble as I walk over to my favorite pair of combat boots I’d foolishly left out instead of putting them in the closet behind a firmly closed door even evil cat paws can’t figure out how to open.
Dipping a finger inside my boot, a quick sniff tells me Lucifer, that fucking evil stray cat of all that is unholy in this world, has indeed defiled my beloved boots.
"I am going to make you dog kibble, you little jerk," I grumble even as I open the drawer and pull out a bottle.
I rip out the laces and drown the offense in enzyme cleaner.
"I hung my clothes on the shower rod," Six says from behind me.
I quickly stash the bottle of cleaner and kick the boots into the corner, then turn around.
Six stands just inside my bedroom wearing those dark blue boxers and nothing else.