AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her black hair is so shiny I can see the reflection of the kitchen light shining in it when she turns her back on us, stirring a pot on the stove.
“Starving,” I tell her. It’s the truth. “Can I help you with anything?”
“No, no,” she replies quickly, nodding toward a set of stairs just off the kitchen. “Take the bags upstairs to your rooms. Brinley, sweetheart… show Reed where to go.”
Grant steps into my line of vision, blocking the staircase. “We set you up in the guest room, big guy. Your room has its own bathroom, so please take your time and freshen up if you want. Brinley’s room is at the opposite end of the hallway. Get any funny ideas with my daughter, and I’ll happily introduce you to the pointy end of my shotgun.”
“Real subtle, Dad.” Brinley shakes her head.
And then she gestures for me to follow her up the stairs to the second level.
The hallway is wide, and there are a number of rooms, but Brinley walks to the very end of the hallway and opens the door.
“This is where you’ll be sleeping,” she says, biting her bottom lip. I notice she does this when she’s nervous. It’s fucking adorable. It makes me want to rip her bottom lip out from between her teeth with my own teeth and kiss away the sharp sting until she doesn’t know which way is up anymore.
But the small matter of that shotgun stops me.
“Thanks,” I say quickly. “I need to take a piss. In there?”
Brinley rolls her eyes and nods.
The room that will be mine for the next couple of weeks has been set up with a blue comforter and matching curtains. The dark wooden floorboards are covered with a thick rug, and there are two white towels folded neatly on the end of the bed.
Placing my bag down on the floor, I take care of business in the tiny bathroom and wash my hands in the sink. Once I’m done, I follow Brinley back down the hallway, and she shows me her bedroom, which is bigger than the one I’m staying in, but not by much.
There’s a dormer window and a bench seat that wraps around the far wall. But the thing that catches my attention the most are the posters of different rock bands and musicians that literally take up every spare inch of her walls… and ceiling. There are no gaps, no clean white lines. It’s like rock-and-roll Hall of Fame wallpaper. Brinley’s bedroom is a shrine to music and artists of all genres.
“This is insane,” I say, moving farther inside the bedroom. “And your folks haven’t taken it down.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” she tells me.
Running my finger across the wall, staring up at the ceiling as I walk, I find Pink Floyd, Midnight Oil, and Led Zeppelin posters staring back at me. “When did you do all this?”
“About ten years ago I started, I suppose. The more I did, the more I needed to do. It sort of became an addiction.”
“Lucky you’re not into tattoos, or you’d be covered in them by now.”
“Would that be a bad thing?”
“Nothing to do with me, Tink. Your body.” I shrug, nonchalantly. “Thanks for throwing me under the bus, by the way. You could have at least mentioned the fact that you’re adopted. I looked like a goddamn dickhead just standing there staring at your mother like that. Where is her family from originally? China?”
“Korea,” she says with a smile. She doesn’t even pretend to be sorry.
“So… you’re adopted?”
Brinley sits on the edge of her bed. “Yep, I’m adopted.” She reaches under it, rummaging around blindly for a moment, and then pulls out a small wooden box that’s covered in stickers. “This is my adoption box. It’s keepsakes of my life before I came to live with them.”
“That’s actually really cool.”
“I haven’t looked through it in years, to be honest. Even as a kid, I was never that interested. But I’d be happy to show it to you if we get a chance –”
“Dinner’s ready!”
That’s Grant. Subtle as a sledgehammer.
Brinley laughs, puts the box on the end of the bed and jumps to her feet. “Come on, dinner’s ready.” She stretches up onto her toes, wraps her hands around my neck and then she kisses me, just really softly, a feather-light kiss that has my balls drawing up deep inside my body.
“What was that for?”
