AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That felt more like Gabriel. Now that I wasn’t so nervous, I inhaled the air around me, taking in my surroundings. It smelled of dust and old carpet and a layer of cigarette smoke. Unlike Silas’s house where it was faint, the smoke smell here was thicker, as if someone regularly smoked and all over the place. There was also the blend of other scents, chemical and acrid and heady with rose and other fragrances as if someone had used air fresheners to try to mask the smoke.
When I finished the cereal, Gabriel took the bowl from me, heading toward the kitchen. “What do you want to do?” he asked as he put the dishes into the sink and rinsed them.
It felt rushed to talk about joining the Academy right after arriving. I needed to wait for an opening somewhere. “What do you like to do?”
Gabriel came back into the living room. He shoved the coffee table over until it was almost in the kitchen. When the table was out of the way, he collapsed onto the floor, sprawled out on his back. He looked up at me from the floor, grinning and his crystal blue eyes playful. “We could play that Truth or Dare.”
I had to smile at this and the memory of the last time we’d played it together. I rolled my eyes, holding my smirk. “Why not call it what it really is? Dare-Sang-to-brush-her-teeth-and-bite-people.”
“Fine. Let’s play that,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. “For starters, I dare you to get rid of that damn clip.”
I laughed, reaching up to release the clip. I knew if I didn’t, he’d either steal it or find another way to get rid of it. There was no way to escape him in his own house. “Why didn’t you just say you wanted it?”
When I had the clip in my hand, he sat up more to snatch it from me and shoved it into his pocket. “Well if we’re going to skip the pretense, who the hell dressed you this morning? Those jeans don’t go with that top. Didn’t I teach you anything?”
“We kind of left in a hurry this morning. And yesterday when Silas said to go, I just grabbed what was nearby and shoved it all into my bag.” I pointed to the book bag I used for both school and overnight trips.
Gabriel grunted, getting up on his knees and crossing to the couch where my book bag was. He opened it, pursuing the contents, yanking out the clothes I’d worn yesterday. “Shit. Okay, whoever comes to get you, I’ll go back with you and sort some of your stuff. You’re mixing the wrong things.” A pair of panties fell out onto the floor. I blushed. Gabriel scooped them up. It was a black pair with a pink heart on the butt. He grinned, wriggling his eyebrows. “I like these.”
I hid my face behind my hands. “Gabriel,” I said in an embarrassed whine.
“Trouble.”
“Meanie.”
“And what the hell did you wear last night to sleep in?”
“Silas gave me a shirt to wear.”
“Oh.” He stuffed everything into the bag. “What you really need is a real overnight bag. You know, something with plenty of spare clothes and duplicates of everything so you can just grab it and go.”
“Do I need one? Am I going to have to get up and go like this a lot?”
Gabriel laughed, digging out my hairbrush and dropping the bag on the couch again. He crawled over to sit cross-legged near me. “Shit, you’re here now, aren’t you? I know this wasn’t planned.”
He was right. I’ve been on the move since I’d met them. It would be helpful to carry my keys and everything in a bag. Maybe a purse? It felt like an overnight bag would be better, something I could carry clothes and a few toiletries in.
Gabriel snapped his fingers, twirling them in front of his body and waving the hairbrush. That was my cue. I scooted until I was on my butt on the floor in front of him. He grabbed me by the hips until I was close in front of his folded legs and he started brushing out my hair, combing out the tips and moving up through it. “I don’t like this brush. You need a new one.”
“You can’t keep buying me new things,” I said, trying to keep my head still as his fingers smoothed through my hair after every brush stroke. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t like it.” He finished combing out the tangles and tossed the brush away toward the kitchen. It slid against the tile and collided with the wastebasket near the fridge.
I leaned sideways to look at him over my shoulder. “Hey, you could have broken it.”
“I was throwing it away.”
“Gabriel...”
“Pipe the fuck down. I’ll get you another one. I’ll get you two.” He leaned his back against the couch. “What do you want from me, Trouble? I say I’m going to get you something, I’ll get it. I’m not talking out my ass.”
I sighed. It really wasn’t a matter of believing he’d get another one. I still wasn’t used to them spending money on me, and Gabriel often got the others to buy new things for me. Still, protesting was pointless. Gabriel always talked them into it. “Okay, fine.”
He grinned, and pushed a lock of my hair around my ear. It fell back across my face. “Let’s play some video games. I’ll show you how you can beat Kota.” He picked himself up, and knee-walked across the room to the entertainment center and scanned the shelves for a couple of Xbox controllers.
I sat back against the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. I still couldn’t think of a way to bring up the Academy, though. It was on the tip of my tongue to start. But each time I opened my mouth to do so, my heart jumped into overdrive and I couldn’t do it.
When he turned back, he stopped, tilting his head at me. “What?”
I blinked at him. “Hm?”
“Why are you sitting like that?”
My eyes widened. What was he talking about? “It’s comfortable?”
“Is it? The only time I see you sit like that is when you’re nervous. Stop being nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” I protested, but switched to sitting cross-legged. “Better?”
“Almost,” he sai
d, scooting over to sit next to me. “I should make you sit on the other side of the room so you don’t cheat.”
“It’s too hard to cheat at video games. I still lose.”
“Because they end up sitting on you and tossing the controller away.”
I grinned, remembering when Kota did that. I held my hand out, and Gabriel gave me a controller.
We started out with one of the fighting games. At first we fought against each other like we’d done before, but later he figured out how to get us on the same team. That made things a lot easier as he’d explain which buttons did what attacks. He wouldn’t tell me before when we were fighting against each other.
I stole glances of him while he was playing. He had an angular jawline. His collar bones were attractive. He had wide shoulders, and a narrow waist. I’d overheard someone at school once call a rock star ‘grunge handsome’. I thought that described Gabriel pretty well.
When we got tired of the fighting game, we switched to car racing. The first few games he beat me easily because I couldn’t figure out how he was getting so many speed bonuses.
“Want to bet on the next game?” he asked as he dropped the controller into his lap. The sun was beating in through the window, so the room was getting warm. He stripped off the button up shirt he was wearing, tossing it onto the couch behind us.
“No.” Was he crazy? I never won their bets.
“Come on,” he said. “You’re getting better.” He leaned into me, tilting his head. He locked his crystal eyes on mine, making them big. His lip pouted. “Please?”
I sensed there was something he wanted. “What’s the bet?”
He flashed a grin. “Find out after the race.”
I made a face at him. “No fair.”
“Yeah, fair,” he said and he started the next game.
Inside the race, I tried my best just to win fairly, but Gabriel was keen on crashing his car into mine and making side-swipes in front of me to get my car spinning out of control. Then he started nudging my elbow.
“Meanie,” I whined as his pushing caused my car to crash into a tree.
