AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It was ...”
“Don’t tell me,” Gabriel said. He shook his head, frowning with pursed lips. He stood up, snapped his fingers at me. “Get up.”
“What?” I asked, but stood at his command.
Gabriel snagged my hand, and guided me around the coffee table before nudging me toward Nathan’s bathroom. “I’ve got to wash Adam out of your hair before you become infected. Let’s go.”
“Infected?”
“The fucker. He did it on purpose. Did he know I cut your hair?”
“Victor told him. He said you claimed my hair.”
“Damn right, I claim it. No one touches that hair.” He swatted me on my back, close to my butt and pointed at the bathroom. “Go.”
His words made me worry what he would have said about Victor washing my hair, but somehow I felt it wasn’t the same thing. I stumbled toward the bathroom. He left the door open, and went straight for the sink. Luke and Nathan followed. Luke sat on the counter while Gabriel tested the water temperature with his fingers.
Nathan leaned against the door frame, his arms folded over his broad chest. “How do you know it was Adam?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? He gives the same shit style to every girl that walks in the door. He tries to go for something different, but it always ends up in that mess. He doesn’t know shit about girls’ hair.” Gabriel shook droplets off of his fingers and looked at me. “Get in there, Trouble.”
I blushed, not expecting to have an audience while he washed. I moved in quietly. “Sorry,” I said, bending down to let the water rush over the top of my head.
Gabriel guided me carefully until I was in a good place where he could cup the water and wet my hair. “Did you get the massage first?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes.”
“Then it isn’t your fault,” he said. “I’d let him shave my head after one of those massages. That’s how he gets you.”
“Oh god, I love those massages,” Luke said. “We have to go next time.”
“Yeah. That bastard Vic didn’t call us. He took her ...” Gabriel’s fingers released my head for a second, but I sensed him hovering. “Wait, was Silas with you?”
“No. He left the night before.”
I sensed something going on over my head, but when I turned, all I could see was Luke’s thigh.
“That jerkface, little ...” Gabriel said. “You mean Victor and you went alone?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He said he felt bad after the car crash. He also said since it was my birthday soon—”
“Oh my fucking god,” Gabriel said. His fingers returned with a vengeance, now mixing in shampoo. “Nathan, did you hear that?”
“Yeah, so what? He took her out on a date.”
“To the fucking spa. Alone.”
“What’s wrong?” Luke said, the start of a laugh in his voice. “Jealous she got to go or jealous Victor was with her?”
“Don’t give me that,” Gabriel said. “What about the ... the ... god damn, I can’t even say it.”
“Say what?” My voice echoed slightly off the basin.
“Nothing,” they all said at the same time.
I twisted my lips at the sink. “Are we not allowed to go by ourselves to places? Is that an Academy rule?”
Gabriel tugged at a lock of my hair as he started rinsing. “Stop asking questions.”
“Victor wandered off alone. He dropped me off with Dr. Green. Does that count? Is he not supposed to go off by himself?”
“I said stop, Trouble.”
I released a sound that was something like a frustrated groan. “How am I supposed to know these rules if you don’t tell me?”
I got a cold dab of conditioner on my neck. “I don’t even care,” Gabriel said, though it sounded like he wasn’t responding to me. “If Victor gets to take you out on a date by himself, we get to, too.”
“You can’t,” Nathan said.
“Why not?” Gabriel asked.
“He obviously ... I mean he didn’t break a rule. So there had to be another reason.”
Gabriel grumbled. “Sang, did you ask Victor out on a date?”
What shocked me the most wasn’t just that he’d asked the question, but that he seemed so casual about it. Was he angry with Victor about taking me on a date or just how he’d asked me? Did it matter? And from what it was sounding like, this new Academy rule had something to do with dating. Did the Academy command their personal lives that much? I stared at the reflection of the overhead light in the sink basin. “I asked him to go to the football game with me the other week. He couldn’t go.”
“Anything else?”
“I was telling him for my birthday I wanted to do stuff with you all that you like to do. I think that was part of why we went to the spa. He was showing me what he liked to do.”
“Oy,” Gabriel rinsed out the last of the conditioner and shut off the water. “Get up here. What’s this about what you want for your birthday?”
I rubbed at my cheeks as Gabriel wrapped a towel around my hair. I started telling them what I’d asked Victor for my birthday. “So I don’t want anything, I just want to be with you all.”
Luke’s face brightened. Nathan smiled. Gabriel smirked at me, his crystal eyes catching the light and almost sparking. “Fucking shit,” he said. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know what I wanted. Whenever anyone asked me, my mind blanked out.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Sit down, will you?” I sat on the toilet seat and he started combing out my hair with his fingers and then dug through the drawers for a brush. “So what does this mean. I get to take you out?”
“I—”
“Gabe,” Nathan said. “You can’t lead her.”
“She’s already asked Victor and she’s asking us to take her where we want.”
“That’s
not the same.”
“Either he broke the rules, or he didn’t and we can take her out. What do you want from me? Do you want to go out with her or not?”
Nathan’s lips twitched like he wanted to answer but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
“Because personally,” Gabriel said, “I’m kind of tired of only seeing her at school. Her parents aren’t here. She’s been on lockdown since birth. It’s about time she got out and saw things. Ain’t that right, Trouble?”
I didn’t know what to think. They didn’t seem upset that Victor and I went out on a date, only that they wanted to go and weren’t sure because of some rule I wasn’t allowed to know about. There was apparently a dating protocol. Was this normal? I remembered Karen at school telling me you could date without committing. Maybe this was what she meant. It wasn’t like they were asking me to be an exclusive girlfriend. They were agreeing together with what they wanted to do. I swallowed back my questions and worried thoughts.
“It’s not exactly the best time,” Nathan said.
“If it’s about this new masked bomber, just show me to him. I’ll kick his ass myself if it means I can take her out.”
“We’re on lockdown tonight,” Nathan said. He moved over to sit on the edge of the bathtub. He put his elbows on his knees as he watched Gabriel brushing my hair. “We’re on orders to go back to school tomorrow.”
“It’s her birthday tomorrow!”
“She has to go. Hendricks is looking for her.”
“Oh my god.” Gabriel pressed his fingers to my cheeks, forcing me into making a fish face. He raised my head so I was looking up. The light caught in the green crystal studs in his ears, and glinted on the three black rings. “Pretend to be sick, okay? Do you know how to do that?”
I slurred through my squished lips. “I say we go with the old plan where we move my birthday to November.”
The boys started laughing. Gabriel beamed. “Stop being so fucking cute or I’m going to take you out tonight. In fact, we should do your birthday tonight, I guess.”
