Sebastian’s head spins around harshly to see me and at first I’m not sure why, but apparently he’s waiting on me to confirm or deny that what she’s saying is true.
“Yes,” I say, “I admit it’s a sexy look on you.”
Isaac walks into the room and says, “Damn straight, Bas. If I swung that way, I’d do you.”
Zia cackles with laughter. I think her voice is starting to become hoarse from laughing and yelling and crying so much.
Sebastian loosens his grip on her face and starts to get off her waist, but Zia reaches up and grabs him by the front of his green t-shirt and pulls him down to her. “Tell me you love it,” she says with their lips not even an inch apart, but she doesn’t give him a chance to answer. She pulls him into a hungry kiss instead, his heavily muscled arms tightening as he holds his weight up from the floor by the palms of his hands.
“Are you ready?” Isaac says, ignoring them altogether.
I think Isaac’s disinterest in them using his bedroom floor as a make-out pad piques Zia’s curiosity. She breaks the kiss and rolls her head to one side to see Isaac and me standing above her.
Sebastian pushes himself off her and helps her to her feet afterwards. He runs his hand over the top of his bald head.
“Where are you two going that’s so important?” Zia says, still smiling hugely and out of breath. She reaches up and rubs his head, too, dragging the tips of her fingers down the center and then over the bridge of his nose.
Isaac grabs a black sling back from the floor of his closet and pushes a few things down inside and shoulders it.
“We’ll be spending more time with Aramei for a while,” Isaac says and never looks at me because he knows I’m not slow to catch on.
I shoulder my small bag, too.
Zia raises a finely groomed brow. “Oh? He’s found a new slave to look after Aramei now?” She grins over at me, draping an arm around Sebastian’s waist.
“Looks that way,” Isaac says. But he never makes eye contact with her; instead, he rummages through the top drawer of his nightstand.
Zia’s smile drops from her face and both of her hands drop to her sides. “What’s with you two lately?” she says. “I wasn’t going to say anything before but you’ve both been acting weird ever since…,” she looks right at me, “…well, since you started growing hair in all the wrong places.” She smirks playfully, hoping to get a reaction out of me.
She always does.
“You suck, Zia,” I say, smiling across at her.
“But you love me,” she says, striking an overly dramatic pose. She bats her eyes and pooches out her lips.
“Yeah, I do,” I say, beaming.
“Okay, all joking aside,” she says, “what’s going on with you? And with Daisy, Harry and Nathan, for that matter.”
I hear a crunch as Sebastian casually cracks his knuckles. “I’d like to know myself,” he says and his deep brown eyes fall on Isaac as if he’s the one of us who he expects will give him the answers. Maybe it’s a guy thing.
Isaac leans away from the drawer and shuts it softly, afterwards slipping a pocketknife down into his front jeans pocket.
“It’s crazy what my father expects of us,” Isaac says so convincingly that even though I know he’s making up this excuse as he goes, I’m totally believing the pace of his story. “Adria and Aramei both being bonded apparently has set off a shit-storm of expectations from my father.”
I jump in, “She’s been trying to communicate with me.”
Zia’s mouth forms the letter O. “No way! Like actual communication? Are you serious?”
I nod. “Yes,” I say, “but I’ve not been able to get anything out of her, at least, not what Trajan wants, anyway.” It’s a huge lie but necessary just the same.
Zia crosses her arms and looks off toward the wall in thoughtful amazement. She shakes her head a few times. “That’s pretty incredible,” she says finally looking back at me. “Just that she’s tried to communicate with anybody at all, really. Don’t take it the wrong way, but I’m glad it’s you and not me.”
I scoff. “How else am I to take that?”
“C’mon,” she says grinning, “I’m just sayin’.”
I just smile at her hopelessly.
I can sense Isaac getting anxious. I take a few steps toward the bedroom door to show them that we really do need to go, but I pause before stepping out into the hall.
“I do feel sorry for her,” Zia says about Aramei, seeming sort of lost in a sad memory, probably of the times she herself spent caring for her. “I would never want to live like that.”
The ensuing silence gives us the opportunity to cut this conversation short.
“Well, we need to head out,” Isaac says coming up behind me. He stands in front of Sebastian and a slim smile breaks his face. He shakes his head, laughing gently. “I can’t believe she shaved your head, man.” And then he steps out into the hall with my hand locked in his.
Isaac’s final comment set the tone for more craziness and the next thing I know, Sebastian has Zia slung over his shoulder and is carrying her off to the end of the hall towards their room. Zia kicks and screams and laughs the whole way. By the time Isaac and me make it to the top of the stairs, their bedroom door slams shut and all I can hear is Zia’s muffled laughter behind the door.
I shake my head, laughing under my breath as we descend the stairs.
Nathan comes out of the kitchen as we enter the den. He’s also carrying a bag over his shoulder and he’s changed his clothes. He stops at the den entrance wearing a tight black t-shirt that says OBEY across the front in bold red letters.
“Ready?” Nathan says with his mouth full. He swallows down whatever he was eating and takes a big gulp of water from the bottle in his other hand.
“As ever,” Isaac says nodding toward the door. “Let’s go.”
I follow them out and just as I emerge onto the front porch, a familiar smiling face is staring up at me from the bottom of the steps.
“Adria!” It’s annoying Cecilia from the skate park. I don’t know how she found out where we were, or why she’s here, but there couldn’t be a worse time for someone like her to be showing up out of nowhere.
Isaac glances over at me nervously. Nathan looks at me with a curiously raised eye.
“What are you doing here?” I say to Cecilia as I come off the bottom step to meet her.
Her smile widens, displaying all of her teeth. She’s wearing a skin-tight babydoll tee with a low-cut V-neck that scoops right down in-between her plump br**sts. She only ever dresses like this when she’s trying to gain the attention of a guy. It’s how she landed her ex-boyfriend, Marc: her huge boobs, which makes me feel even worse for her. This girl has always been in serious need of a straightforward friend to guide her off the path of being the most gossiped about girl in Hallowell. I would consider taking on the role, but with Cecilia, there’s a lot more to it. Like my sanity, for starters.
“Baby, we really need to hit the road,” Isaac whispers at me harshly from behind.
Cecilia is all but glued to Nathan. I notice that she’s slow to answer my question because she can’t seem to stop gawking at him. And Nathan, well, he suddenly appears uncomfortable, avoiding direct eye contact with her, which I find sort of hilarious.
“Sorry,” Cecilia says taking one step up, “I found out from your aunt where you were—,” she turns all of her giddy attention on Nathan and only Nathan, “—Hi, I’m Cecilia, a good friend of Adria and Isaac’s.” She reaches out her hand and Nathan reluctantly shakes it but he looks as if he’s doing something he’s going to regret.
Isaac and I exchange looks, probably thinking along the same lines though we aren’t inside each other’s heads at the moment. Since when did we become good friends of hers?
I take a deep breath and let it out sharply. “Cecilia,” I say, “I’m really sorry, but we were just heading out and we’re kind of running late.”
Cecilia’s face lights up even more. “Oh? Mind if I go? Where are you going?”
“No offense,” Isaac says, stepping up to move this along because he knows I can’t force myself to brush Cecilia off and risk hurting her feelings, “but we really need to leave and we can’t bring anyone else where we’re going.”
Cecilia’s face falls.
Isaac comes down three steps so that he’s standing level with her and he looks her right in the eyes, I know softening his own eyes because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings any more than I do. “Maybe if you come back tomorrow, we’ll be around and you can hang out.”
The front door opens behind us and Isaac and Nathan’s youngest sister, Camilla, steps outside. She’s holding one of her famous Barley Green and broccoli health smoothies, sipping on the end of a straw.
I shudder and grimace just watching the green gunk shoot up the clear straw and into her mouth.
“Hey!” Cecilia says, pointing at Camilla, “aren’t you friends with Gracie Mathers?”
Camilla lets the straw bob away from her lips and she gazes down at Cecilia with a look of survey. She begins to smile slowly as she apparently realizes that she knows Cecilia, too. She points her finger. “Yeah, that’s right,” she says, “I met you at Gracie’s party last month.”
Isaac grabs my hand and starts to tug it. Nathan is already heading to Isaac’s Jeep since we all decided to ride together.
“Cam?” Isaac says, looking up at his sister impatiently, “do you mind?” He covertly nods toward Cecilia and Camilla easily catches on.
Camilla gestures for her to follow. “Come on in,” she says.
Isaac wastes no more time and pulls me away from the porch; I wave as I pass Cecilia up, but I don’t think she notices—easily distracted, that girl.
“That chick has got a huge red flag emblazoned on her forehead,” Nathan says from the backseat as Isaac and I jump inside.
I turn around in the seat, tossing my bag in the back next to Nathan and say, “Just don’t be mean to her. She can’t help it, really.”
Nathan shakes his head and says with laughter in his voice, “What do you take me as? Xavier?”
“You know what I mean,” I say gently. “I don’t like being around her, but I feel totally bad that no one else likes to, either.”
“Okay, so it’s about four hours to Providence,” Isaac says from the driver’s seat, peering down into a paper map and ignoring our conversation.
“A map?” Nathan says. “Why don’t we take my ride? I’ve got a brand spankin’ new GPS system installed in there.”
Isaac shakes his head subtly, still looking at the map. “No thanks.” Isaac is a lot like Aunt Bev when it comes to technology.
I turn back to face the front and I begin to think about the strange turn of events, about Cecilia showing up out of nowhere like that and how it was such a convenient coincidence that she and Camilla have met before, too.