Until Fools Find Gold (Providence Gold 1)

“For the love of fucking Funfetti,” I wailed, doing my best to move my face away from his evil palm.

“I think you’re bleeding,” he muttered, trying to move me into whatever little light was coming through the window.

“No, that’s just my brain crying,” I whispered, choosing that moment to go back to sleep.7 Noah“I’m going to kill you,” Levi hissed into the phone. “One night. One fucking night,” he snarled.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I explained for the millionth time.

I’d had to call him at an ungodly hour to give him the news that Luna was having four stitches in her head thanks to the body slam and table head butt incident. Since then, he’d called me at regular intervals to repeat pretty much the same words to me. I say pretty much because sometimes he’d add how he was going to kill me, and other times he’d actually count how many hours it had been since he’d left to when I’d called him with the news.

“And what were you doing in her bed?”

This question had the other occupants of the room raising their eyebrows at me with amused looks on their faces, whilst Luna blushed and looked up at the ceiling– or the white dressing on her head. I couldn’t decide which it actually was that she was staring at so hard.

I’d stopped answering my brother’s calls, as had Luna, after the eighth call. Now, he was calling on other family members phones. They obviously found this amusing, so they answered each and every time and put him on speakerphone so everyone could enjoy it.

“I already told you that,” I snapped. “There was a storm, the lights went out, I went to check on her,” I left out the parts that followed.

A heavy sigh came from Luna. “I thought I was being eaten by an anaconda at the same time as us all being under attack. Your brother saved me from it, and now I look like Harry Potter except not in the middle of my forehead.” She suddenly stopped and a huge smile graced her gorgeous face as she looked at me. “Oh shit! Maybe I was being attacked by a basilisk? I really am Harry Potter!”

“By who?” Tate asked, sounding as confused as the rest of us were.

“You know, a basilisk,” she repeated like it was obvious what that was.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Levi muttered from the cell on the table.

“What’s that?” Tate asked, looking at Ariana who was nodding her head like this could be the real reason like Luna said.

“The big snake in Harry Potter,” she explained. “It was dark magic, which stands to reason. All the lights went off,” she held up a finger. “There was a wicked storm no one expected,” she held up a second finger. “There was a snake…”

I interrupted just as she held up her third finger. “That wasn’t a snake, that was me.”

“Gross!”

“You think fucking highly of yourself!”

“Not in front of your mother!”

“I will kill you!”

Were all the responses to this from my family. Movement from Luna caught my attention and when I looked at her it was to see her shoulders shaking as she laughed silently.

“I’m just saying, all of those can be explained by rational reasons.”

“I still think she could be right,” Ariana shrugged, tapping the screen of her phone. “Look, here’s the information on basilisks on Potterpedia,” she turned the phone toward us, but not one of us focused on it.

“Potter…” Tate choked out, “Pedia?”

“Jesus Christ,” Levi snapped down the phone, obviously unable to see what she was holding up, and also obviously totally over the road that this conversation had started to go down. “You’re not Harry Potter,” he continued, making both Luna and Ariana gasp. “And Noah, you sure as shit aren’t the size of a snake,” he said to me, making my eye twitch. I made a mental note to kick his ass when I saw him. “What happened was - you snuck into her bed like a dirty little pervert and she ended up hurt.”

Archer’s chuckles and Ariana’s “gross,” didn’t go unnoticed. I guess he was saying I really was an anaconda– something which I’d have been prouder of if it hadn’t come from a family member’s mouth.

“You guys need to find Jesus,” Levi directed this at the two who had vocally responded to the last bit of what he’d said.

“Levi,” Luna called. “Will you just frigging leave it alone? It was an accident.”

There was silence in the room as we waited for him to calm down.

“Okay,” he eventually replied, making us all sigh with relief.

Just as Archer reached out to end the call on his cell, Levi had the last word. “And you’re not Harry Potter!” And hung up.

The outraged gasp that came out of her might have been funny if we didn’t all have to lunge at the same time to stop her from either getting the phone or running out the door. Both would have had disastrous consequences. Even as kids, their verbal fights had been brutal. So brutal in fact that if they’d been physical fights, a long stay in hospital would have followed it. Words cut deep! If she’d gotten to one of our vehicles to drive to him, which was another possibility… actually, no, that didn’t bear thinking about. Her driving skills were the stuff of nightmares!