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Apparently the drive back to Charlington has done the exact opposite to him to what it has done to me. I’ve finally calmed down, a little, but Kellan has worked himself up. Perhaps it wasn’t the best plan to let him drive alone, perhaps we should’ve let someone tag along with him. To talk him off the ledge and all.
Jonah is on the other side of the bar, facing off his brother. They’re practically nose-to-nose and you can cut the tension with a knife.
“Going out there will only put yourself in more danger, it will not make her safer in any fucking way. I know you have this notion of the police being dirt, but they’re doing everything they can to help. They’re not the bad guys here.”
Kellan wrinkles his nose. “I suppose you think I’m the bad guy.”
“Well, if we’re being honest, I don’t think all your previous decisions have been the best you could’ve made.”
“So it’s my fault she’s kidnapped? You’re the one who got involved with Parker’s blackmailing!”
“No!” Jonah yells, “But if it hadn’t been for you and your crappy friends, I wouldn’t have known Parker and wouldn’t have been in any position to be blackmailed at all!”
It looks like they’re going to get in each other’s hair if somebody doesn’t stop them, but the boys all seem inclined to let them have it out. I’m not. I have enough on my plate right now to not deal with two arguing boys. So when they reach over the bar, grab each other’s shirts and seem to be going at it, I do the only logical thing I can think of. I climb on the bar, putting all of my five foot five tiny frame between them and physically make them back off.
“Stop it!” I screech, pushing both of them back with one hand. I feel like Moses parting the red sea. Oohrah. And it’s working. What. The. Hell. I’m not thinking about it for too long though, I’m just going to go with it.
“Drink your drinks, throw ‘em back if you have to. Get black out drunk if you must. We’re not fighting and we’re not blaming each other. Nobody is to blame, except the ones who took Meggy.”
I feel very mature giving solid advice like that. Well, maybe the getting black out drunk isn’t the best idea, but all the other stuff was pretty on point. Somehow, it manages to get the violence out of the air.
“Go grab a joint, Joe,” Gil says, earning Jonah a really surprised look from Kellan.
“It’s legal now,” Jonah snarks without looking at his brother, like that explains everything there is to explain. Kellan just huffs as he reaches in his back pocket and pulls out his pack of cigarettes, grabbing a joint that he apparently keeps in there as well.
“Thought you were against drugs?” Kellan asks, not looking at his little brother while at the same time sounding sincere and curious.
“I’m against the illegal trade that ruins lives,” Jonah answers, looking grumpy as fuck.
“Just because we’re now paying taxes over it doesn’t mean lives don’t get ruined, Joe,” Kellan says while stepping away from the breakfast bar. “Not getting arrested for it anymore doesn’t mean everything is suddenly clean. It just means the same people do a lot of bad stuff, but are making money off of it in a different way.”
Jonah stares at his brother, and while I don’t understand why, the tension between them disappears now that they’re talking about drugs. Boys are weird, I don’t get them, and these two have issues they need to resolve. Like pronto. I decide to start yapping, to defuse the bomb that is Jonah and Kellan’s relationship:
“This is becoming a habit, guys. Every time there’s a crisis, you smoke. Before you know it, we’re going to have interventions for each other. I’ll make the banners, I love being crafty, but someone else can do the speech. I’ll write the words, but someone else can read it out loud. I’m not doing this intervention alone.”
“It’s only a habit if we keep doing it,” Dean answers, acting along with my insane rambling. “Do you think we’re going to be having a lot of crisisses in the near future?”
“Well, the way we attract trouble, I wouldn’t rule it out,” I answer, wrinkling my nose.
All the boys start moving outside to the porch. I guess having a friend abducted is safer than an escaped mental patient with an obsession? In any case, it seems like we’re taking this party outside.
Before I get a chance to decide where I’m sitting, O drops down on one of the chairs and pulls me in his lap. I raise an eyebrow at him, and he nuzzles my neck. “The others all had you last time, this time you’re mine.”
Kellan lights the joint up and burns the top piece of the rolling paper off before he takes a hit and passes it to Jonah. His little brother doesn’t acknowledge him, but he accepts the blunt and tokes away on it himself, never making eye contact in the process. It’s like he’s taking his anger out on the joint.
“Now before we get into this,” Dean says, “just be aware that Morgan has absolutely zero tolerance, and she tends to lose the filter between her thoughts and her mouth when she’s high.”
Kellan snorts. “Sounds like Meggy on a regular day.”
I try to scowl at them all, but I think he might be right. The mention of Meggy makes my insides twist though, and I hope with everything I’ve got in me that she’s at least semi-safe where she is.
O takes a hit, and I automatically turn my head to breathe in what he breathes out. The goofy smile he gives me can’t be from the joint yet, and my best guess is that it has something to do with me being with him this time around.
Why did we ever fight this again? Oh, right, because he was busy being a stubborn ass while I was working my way through his friends.
He presses a kiss on my shoulder while he holds me tight. Gil disappears inside at one time and comes out with a blanket in his hand, which he then proceeds to drape over me. O doesn’t even bitch me out about it being too hot beneath it. If it wasn’t for Meggy getting kidnapped, this would be my favorite night ever.
I watch how the joint gets passed around and finally Jonah passes it back to Kellan, who’s nervously watching the screen of his phone, like he’s willing it to light up with any kind of news about his girlfriend.
Seeing them standing side by side, the same worried look on their faces, I suddenly see the resemblance between them.
They’re both really pretty.
You know, when sometimes you look at someone and you think: damn, you’re too good looking and are making the rest of mankind look kind of bad? They both have that. I wonder what it’s like to be stuck between them both. I try to shake the thought, because I’ve collected enough guys and Kellan is Meggy’s, when the boys start to laugh really hard.
“You’re doing it again, babe,” Dean says. “You’re saying everything you think.”
I hide my head in the nape of O’s neck. Crap.
