Maelstrom (Inferno 5)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dalton

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“Are you out of your mind?” I hiss at Kalen as soon as Luna walks out of the dining room. I don’t know if he’s playing a game right now, but I know nothing short of a catastrophe is about to happen.

“Nope,” he says as he picks up his fork and slices through a piece of his steak like butter. “Putting it off is only going to make her more suspicious. Besides, maybe if Hailey has another pussy around, she’ll open up and finally start talking again.”

I scowl at his choice of words.

Luna has been nothing but nice to us in the almost twenty-four hours that we’ve gotten to know her and all he sees her as is another pussy.

“What’s got you so messed up today?” I ask him after a moment of silence. Kalen’s temper tantrums tend to be legendary when confronted head on, so it’s always safest to approach from an odd angle. That way there’s less of a chance of him seeing it as a confrontation and more out of concern.

He chews his meat thoughtfully, his eyes on me, and I can tell there’s something he wants to say but maybe isn’t sure how.

And if I knew what it was, then I’d be able to coax it out of him.

“The Homecoming Bitch—she didn’t want help with Biology. She...” His voice trails off and I notice his shoulders slump a little.

“It’s okay, Kalen. Tell me what she wanted,” I say softly.

“She wanted to know why you’re always looking at her and she caught me in a bad mood so I made something up,” he manages to rush out between bites.

“Oh?”

I don’t want to press him as firmly as I can, but it would be nice to know what he said to her.

“I, uh... said you wanted to, uh... you know,” he finally confesses uneasily.

I chuckle.

“Well, it’s not a complete lie,” I reply with a shrug. “But I don’t really worry about what she thinks of me enough to break my back trying to figure out how I could, you know?”

And while it sounds like a lie, it’s not.

Yes, Missy Danvers has got to be one of the most beautiful girls that I’ve ever seen in my life, but I don’t like the way her and her friends always whisper about me and my brother.

I don’t like the way they watch us out of the corners of their eyes, and I don’t like the way they think they can have their jock friends push Kalen around just because he’s more reserved than I am.

“So, you’re not mad?” he asks me in a hopeful tone.

I shake my head as a grin spreads across my lips. “Nah. There are more important things in the world to worry about other than what the Homecoming brigade thinks of me or what you said.”

He looks damn near faint with relief and my grin widens a little more when his eyes light up slightly.

Maybe I can’t always be the best brother in the world, but that isn’t what he needs.

He just needs someone who cares about him.

And that much, I can do.

___

Kalen and I finished our dinner about an hour ago. We’ve cleaned up the dining room, washed the dishes, put them away, and have taken turns peering into the hallway during commercial breaks on the television.

“I wonder what the hell is going on up there,” I murmur as I cross my arms over my chest and lean into the hall.