4. Erin
Chapter four
Erin
I woke up to snoring. Loud, obnoxious snoring. I rolled over, pulling the blankets with me to cover my head and try to drown the thunderous noise out. The snores grew louder. Giving up, I threw the covers off and found Seth’s open mouth about three inches from my face. Then it hit me, the foulest morning breath. Rotten eggs had nothing on him. I gagged as I fumbled my way out of bed, chucking a pillow at his head in the process.
Seth groaned. “What the hell, man?” He sat up, glaring at me. His hair tousled in what should’ve been a rats nest but for some reason it unfairly looked wildly untamed and sexy like he just walked out of a magazine.
“Your breath smells like ass, Seth.” I pinched my nose for exaggeration.
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well yours ain’t much better, short stuff.”
“Short stuff? Dude, I’m barely shorter than you. Anyone would be short compared to your six foot four inch ass.” I jabbed back.
Five foot seven isn’t short, you jerk.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, small fry.” He tossed the rest of the blankets off and onto the floor into a heap. Seth swung his legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and stretched. His back muscles flexed, causing my cheeks to flush. Again.
When did Seth get so…muscle-y?
And…hot.
Ew, Erin. Stop.
“I’ll, uh, go make some food.” I practically ran to the kitchen. Maybe all of these weird reactions to Seth are from the whole Nephilim thing. Hormones via puberty 2.0. Even when I had that small crush on him a few years back, I’d never been remotely that bad. I felt like some love-sick teenager.
I fumbled around Seth’s kitchen in search of eggs, toast, or honestly anything to whip up some much needed food. I was about to give up when a pack of bagels shoved in the back of the pantry caught my eye.
Yes! Victory!
Setting the toaster to the least toasty level for mine and damn near burn status for Seth’s, I popped the bagels in and waited.
Right about the time they popped out, Seth made his way to the kitchen and plopped down at the island. “So, what’s for breakfast?”
“We’re doing bagels, considering your pantry and fridge are both bare as hell,” I replied as I slid his crisped breakfast across the island. “Once we’re done, you and I are trucking up to the store. Then we’ll hit my apartment once this place is restocked.”
“Sounds like a plan, boss,” he mumbled around bites of bagel, crumbs clinging to his thick stubble.
We finished our food in a comfortable silence, neither of us are morning people, so sliding past the awkward chit-chat worked perfectly for me.
Seth cleared the plates while I whipped up a couple of coffees to take with us. Between the temporary move-in-with-my-best-friend situation and shopping, we were both going to need it. Extra espresso in each, no questions asked.
Grabbing our liquid energy for the day, we headed out; Seth locked the door behind us. The great thing about his place? It’s a huge lot right off a small paved road with only a handful of neighbors. Downside, the local grocery store is a two mile walk, which is unfortunately too short of a distance for Seth to justify a quick drive. Running is one thing, but walking two miles one way with bags of food. No thanks, I’d rather be stuck in Jensin’s class for a whole ass evening.
Ugh.
I mentally groveled about the trek ahead of us when Seth took off in a sprint. My eyebrows shot up. “What are you doing?” I yelled after him.
He glanced over his shoulder, laughing. “Racing obviously.” The jerk stopped and stuck his tongue out at me, clearly challenging me, so I sprinted after him.
You ass.
I caught up to him quickly. Just because he had a head start, I refused to lose to him. I ran past Seth, stuck my tongue out, and blew raspberries at him.
Ha! Suck it!
We ran, laughing. I glanced back at Seth to shit talk him but before I could get a word out, I tripped and tumbled head over ass. Landing flat on my back, the wind damn near knocked out of me.
Seth rushed up, checking to make sure I was okay. “Holy shit, Snow, you good?” Concern plastered across his face.
“Yeah, yeap. Peachy.” I grunted, a blunt ache spread across my back. Seth must’ve decided I was fine because he busted out a full bellied laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“Oh my god, that was freaking great. It was like it was right out of a movie. Damn, Erin, you really know how to fall.” He clutched his stomach as the laughter continued to spill out of his mouth. He looked absolutely ridiculous and I started cracking up too.
We sobered up and I got back on my feet. We apparently ran further than I thought because right around the corner was the store. As we walked through the entrance, I ran through everything we needed, pointing down the different aisles. I gave Seth a list of food to grab and made my way towards the produce.
I was sorting through a pile of apples, picking the least bruised, when I heard someone walk up behind me, startling me, and annoyingly caused me to drop the only non-bruised apple I could find. I turned around with the best RBF face I could manage, to find Derik smirking at me. And holding the damn apple like that vampire in the Twilight movies. Talk about cringy. They’re great books but in real life, kinda cheesy. Especially when it’s a guy you can barely stand.
“Fancy seeing you here, Snow.” His smirk morphed into…a smolder?
“Buying food, obviously. What do you want, Rider?” He looked confused at the movie reference. “Rider, as in Flynn Rider? Tangled ?” I arched my eyebrow at him and it seemed to click.
“The main guy?” His confusion turned into a big ass grin. “So, if I’m Flynn, that must mean I’m supposed to save the damsel in distress. How may I be of service, Ma’lady?”—he winked at me and bowed. I rolled my eyes—“Or maybe…a kiss?” I smacked his arm. He threw his hand across his forehead feigning offense.
“You’re so dramatic, you know that? And you didn’t answer my question.” I shifted my weight to one side and crossed my arms over my chest.
Derik straightened, the corner of his mouth twitched. “Same as you. Just saw you and Seth walking in and thought I’d say hello.” He gave me a look that said you two came in together , with an emphasis on the together part.
“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m crashing at Seth’s for a bit. He’s helping me…” I remembered Seth saying Derik was in on the whole Angel-human half-bred thing too. “With some things.” My eyes met his, a bite of annoyance resurfaced.
He must’ve understood what I was really saying because he followed up with. “So, Seth gave you the rundown, then? Pretty cool, huh?” I nodded, a sigh fell from my lips.
There would’ve been no reason for Derik to have told me himself.
I don’t know why I continued our conversation because I usually couldn’t stand Derik. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It’s a lot to take in out of nowhere. They don’t exactly teach you this stuff in school.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“True.”
We stood awkwardly for a few seconds and stared at one another, unsure of what to say. Derik turned to walk away and saw Seth stride towards us. “Hey, man, how’s it goin’?”
“Just chatting with Snow, she said you two were on a mission.” Derik laughed lightly.
“It’s not my fault his place has no food,” I snapped.
Seth shrugged in agreement. “What can I say, I’ve been busy. Got a lot on my hands lately.” He glanced at me briefly before he turned to Derik.
“No kidding. Have you heard anything about what went down at Riverside?” Unease dotted Derik’s chocolate eyes as he waited for Seth’s response. The article I’d skimmed about the disappearances popped in my mind.
The hair on my neck pricked up at the thought of it.
Seth let out an exasperated sigh. “Nothing new. I’ve got a few of the crew looking into it. I meant to check it out but haven’t made my way out there yet.”
I pressed my lips together, the guilt licked at me. He skipped his trip out there because of me.
Why did he need to go in the first place? Why would what happened at Riverside have anything to do with Seth?
Derik pondered that for a minute. “How about we head that way tonight? See if we can find some more intel,” he looked at me, a mischievous grin played at the edges of his mouth. “You up for it?”
I furrowed my brows. “Up for what? Wouldn’t Riverside be roped off and considered an off-limits crime scene with all of the people missing?”
He smirked at me. “Oh, Rin, Riverside was so much more than just a fire with missing bodies. This has Demons written all over it.” A fire burned in Derik’s piercing slate-blue eyes. His hatred for these things bled out into the air around us.
Seth’s face darkened. “I don’t think Erin should go. Not yet. She’s just now going through the transition. She’s not ready.”
Excuse me?
I threw my hands on my hips, the grocery basket swung around my left arm. “The hell do you mean ‘not ready’? I’m not just going to sit around and wait for this whole Angel-human hybrid bullshit to happen to me. If this is what I’m going to be looking forward to, then I damn well have every right to check this place out too.” I glared Seth down.
“But you can’t protect yourself yet. You just started changing into a Nephilim and you don’t have any powers yet. It’s not safe, Erin.”
“Well too damn bad, Seth, because I’m coming.” I growled and crossed my arms over my chest.
If your ass is going, so am I.
Derik decided to chime in. “Dude, she has a point. If she’s a part of this mess now, she has a right to see for herself.”
Well, what do you know? Ten points to Derik. Maybe he wasn’t so annoying after all.
“Two against one, Seth. I’m going. We’ll grab my stuff from my place then go,” I cooed, the small flame of irritation extinguished.
“Fine, whatever. But you stay close to me. And don’t do anything stupid,” Seth grumbled.
Victory!
I did a mental fist pump.
I grinned. “Now let’s get this grocery shopping done.”
Three hours later, we had food back in stock at Seth’s place and my necessities packed up in his car from my apartment. Makeup, clothes, mattress, and textbooks. Okay, my mattress was strapped down on top of his car but same difference.
I locked up my apartment and we headed to Seth’s car, Derik in tow. “That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would.” I breathed out. I thought we would’ve spent half the day getting my belongings loaded into Seth’s car. Benefits of being surrounded by Nephilims apparently.
“Yeah no kidding. You sure that’s all you need, Erin? It ain’t a lot,” Derik said, turning around in his seat to look at me.
“Honestly, I don’t need much. And considering Seth wouldn’t let me take my car, I didn’t see the need to overfill this thing with my stuff. I’m not planning on being there long so I just grabbed the necessities. If I get bored or need anything I’ll just raid Seth’s stuff.” I grinned up at Seth in the rearview mirror.
Seth smirked as he rolled his eyes. “You raid my stuff half the time anyway.” This was true. I couldn’t count the amount of times I’d gone through his bookshelves for a new read or rummaged through his closet in his spare room to snag clean sweats after a gruesome workout. Not to mention the hell I’ve put his workout equipment through.
I watched out the window as we pulled up to Seth’s place. The previous twenty-four hours were on repeat in my head.
None of this feels real.
Seth parked and we made our way inside; I carried a couple boxes of my belongings while the guys tag teamed my mattress with my bag of clothes and the rest of my boxes piled on top. I dropped the boxes on his front step and reached for the doorknob. Before I could twist the handle, the door swung open and practically scared the shit out of me.
“Hey girl!” squealed Libby. She threw her arms around me. Hugging me.
“Uh, hi? What are you doing here?” I stammered as I looked over my shoulder at Seth and Derik. Why the hell did Libby, someone I barely know, squeal at me? I appreciate the enthusiasm, but a warning would’ve been much appreciated.
“Derik texted me earlier to meet you guys here. Said we’re paying Riverside a visit tonight.” She grinned ear to ear and stepped aside to let us through to Seth’s living room as I picked my boxes back up.
“Thought you’d want in, ya know, in case there’s any action. Plus, Pretty Boy here doesn’t think Erin can handle it. Figured if all of us went, he’d ease up,” Derik had a glint in his eye as he stared directly at Seth. “Some extra protection for his girl. ” My eyes damn near bugged out of my head. I high tailed it to the kitchen, nearly dropping the boxes I was carrying.
His girl? The hell does Derik mean by that? Seth would be about as interested in me as a raccoon that found itself in a trash can doused in peppermint oil.
Seth smacked Derik on the back of his head. “Erin just started the whole process, dumbass. She doesn’t know how to protect herself yet. We don’t even know what she’ll be able to do.” I faced away from the three of them but I could feel Seth’s eyes as they bore into my back.
“I’ll watch her, Seth! She’ll be okay with me,” Libby said a bit too cheerily.
I whipped around and glared at them. “I don’t need a damn babysitter. I’m not some child.” I threw my fists on my hips as I glared them down. Derik sported a shit eating grin. Seth rolled his eyes and Libby pouted. Okay, that one I felt bad about. “Not meaning to be a bitch, Libby. I’m sorry.”
Libby perked back up. “It’s okay! I know Seth here can be overprotective. You should’ve seen how he was when I transitioned. The guy wouldn’t leave me alone.” She giggled and I felt a stab in my chest, like someone shoved a damn knife right through.
He said they weren’t dating…but did they before? Did Seth have a thing for her? Does he still?
I shook my head to clear my runaway mind. Even if that were the case, it shouldn’t bother me.
It’s Seth, you’re just friends, always have been.