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After we were done with work, I rolled over and lazily sucked on a chocolate cherry while watching Ryker shoot Kingston with his sniper rifle on the screen. Kingston yelled and threw a pillow at Ryker, and Archer grabbed his controller and yelled, “My turn! I’ll get the fucker!”
“Good luck, this is white trash army training,” Ryker laughed and they began to play another round.
I loved this moment. It was peaceful and filled with joy, love, and the languid sensuality of post coital bliss.
And of course, given the ridiculous drama I seemed to attract, it wasn’t meant to last.
There was a loud knock at Archer’s door a few moments later and I said, “Ignore it. If we ignore them, they might go away.”
“It’s probably catering,” Archer said. “I ordered us quite an amazing lunch.”
He jumped off the bed and strode across the room to the door, opened it, and Amara burst inside.
“Are you trying to dig up information on Thackeray?” she asked. “We have his name tagged and our tech guy just gave me a head’s up.”
“We are,” I replied. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Not a problem, but I need to know what you intend to do with the information.”
“Destroy him,” I said and sucked another chocolate covered cherry into my mouth. I watched her process my response and knit her eyebrows together. She was a beautiful woman, but always so serious. She’d need Botox before she hit her forties if she kept that up.
“Okay,” she replied. “But you can’t do anything without running it by me.”
“Who says?” I asked, defiantly. I was annoyed that she was trying to police my actions, it was like the Organization but on my side. All the control without the human trafficking.
“I do,” she snapped, and then softened. “And your father. I really do need you to settle down until he gets here. He will work it out with you, I promise you that.”
“Whatever,” I said and waved my hand at her. “We’ll keep digging up information on the bastard, but I’ll ask your permission to stick him with a knife or shoot him in the eye, okay?”
She hesitated, unsure if I was joking or not, then laughed. “Okay, thank you.”
“You want to stay for lunch?” I asked. “Archer ordered us a lot of food if you’re interested.”
“Are you guys playing Call of Duty?” she asked, her eyes sliding to the big screen TV.
“Yeah, you wanna join in?” Kingston asked.
“Fuck yeah, I wouldn’t mind kicking some ass before we eat,” she replied and walked to an overstuffed chair near the end of the bed. She sat down, rested one leg over the arm, and watched as Ryker destroyed another player.
They wound up going head to head and I lost count how many times each one of them lost or won. But Amara fit in somehow. She was funny, smart, a deadly shot, and had the best curse words around. It didn’t matter that she was so much older than us, or that she was my father’s partner, she was cool and I liked having the balance so I wasn’t overwhelmed by dude hormones over the holidays.
If only life could be like that all the time, I would have been a happy girl.
Of course life wasn’t always good, I had to go home fairly often, Mom was too overwhelmed by Reg’s disappearance to decorate for Christmas or do any shopping. I had to step up for Nat.
She would be twelve in January, and hanging out with her emphasized to me how young I’d been when Reg had started. I wasn’t even certain exactly how old I’d been, but I couldn’t have been much older than Nat was now. It sickened me that any men would find her interesting in that way, and I felt compassion for the anxious, strange girl I’d been.
I took her shopping for Mom the day after my down time with the guys, and when we were at the department store in downtown Oakville, she told me a little about her life and all the things she found interesting. She liked boys, her friends, music, and this sappy teen drama on the CW channel. Oddly enough, she didn’t mention Reg at all.
We bought our mom a beautiful diamond necklace, and Nat said, “I’ll bet Kingston gave you the money for this.”
“You’d be correct,” I told her, not wanting to explain my relationship to her. I wasn’t ready to be open about it to everyone, so I didn’t tell her it was actually Archer and Valen funding the lifestyle for all of us. And how much that upset Kingston, knowing he wasn’t the one giving me everything my heart desired.
“He’s so dreamy,” Nat said and looked up at me as the clerk was boxing up our present. “If you ever dump him, tell him to wait until I’m older, okay?”
I laughed and said, “You can wait all you want, brat, but I’m never dumping him.”
“Well, I know he’ll never dump you so I guess I’ll have to find my own King,” she pouted, but then brightened up and added, “you said something about getting me pink hair dye, were you being serious about that?”
