Page 8 of Treasured Secrets
Jay started laughing so hard that his body was shaking from it. Then he ducked quickly as a biscuit when zooming over his head. It missed him and splattered against the wall.
"Ashiara, clean that up right now," Iris admonished, chiming in to end the playfully heated argument between Ash and Jay.
Then Iris turned her attention to Jay. "Jaymondian, you shouldn't be so cavalier about your love life. And you shouldn't tease your sister. She's waiting on the ideal guy for her. Soul mates are important, you know." Her eyebrows were raised to complement her scolding tone.
"Yeah, well, I don't know if anyone could deal with her melodramatic attitude, so she may be waiting a while." Jay couldn't resist getting the last word in as he laughed at Ash who was still picking up pieces of the biscuit off the floor. It seemed like I was smelling smoke, but there was no fire.
In a worried tone, I raised my concern to the rest of the group. "Does anyone else smell smoke?"
Everyone seemed to glance toward Ash for some odd reason. She shook her head, lightly cursing under her breath, and then suddenly I couldn't smell it anymore. Ash finally acknowledged my suspended question since no one else seemed to want to.
"The only thing I smell is a good for nothing, rotten brother." Then she stood up, still holding the particles of busted biscuit, and incredibly quickly shoved the crumbs in Jay's face, rubbing them all over him. It seemed like she moved as fast as lightning.
Everything got graveyard quiet until I spoke. "Wow, Ash. You're a lot faster than I remember. Guess a lot more has changed than I realized."
Everyone seemed to breathe out a sigh of relief. I wasn't sure what was up with that. I noticed something odd, too. Ash had a tattoo of the crescent moon inside the eye, just like all the markings around the house. It was in the center of her inner wrist. Jay's tank top revealed he too had the same tattoo. It was on his back shoulder blade.
I chuckled lightly at the peculiar find - a mocker's fantasy gem. "What's up with that?"
Jay tilted his head as he responded with a quizzical tone. "What's up with what?"
I laughed again. "Did you two really get matching tattoos?"
Ash touched her wrist in an awkward fashion. Then Jay grabbed his exposed shoulder as if he was uncertain about what to say. Everyone was somewhat reluctant to speak, it seemed. An unexplainable shift occurred, bringing a thick tension to taint the air.
I noticed Aster was pulling her shirt together a little tighter, and Gear was tugging at the bottom of his shirt as well. It was all very baffling.
Finally, a smile spread across Jay's face as he spoke with an overly teasing tone. "What can I say? Ash was always following me around. She had to do whatever I did." Ash glared at him as his teasing persisted. "Personally, I think it's kind of cute that she wants to be like her big brother. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery."
The stove that Jay was leaned against sparked and a flame erupted onto his pants. I gasped and shrieked in one breath, but I seemed to be the only one to react, other than Jay who violently slapped his leg to put out the blaze.
Ash even let out a comical remark. "Liar, liar, pants on… Well, you get the idea, big brother."
Jay scowled at her as the last bit of the fire seemed to extinguish itself. He started to walk toward her as his face turned an angry crimson. A few pops rang out, bringing the his stalk to a halt. I shrieked when glass shattered all around. Light bulbs? Light bulbs were bursting simultaneously in every room around us.
Yet again, it seemed like I was the only one who was concerned with the crazy occurrence. Iris merely rolled her eyes at the entire thing. George huffed in aggravation. No one at all even seemed the least bit surprised.
Jay's shoulders dropped slightly as he spoke with a scolded child sort of tone. "I'll get the broom."
Then Ash smirked as she replied with a more chipper and somewhat unjustifiably victorious tone. "I'll clean up the remnants of Jay's pants that are all over the floor now." I swear she seemed to enjoy the fact his pants caught on fire.
Jay walked on by, cursing as his charred pants kept dropping little pieces behind him. How did his leg not get burned?
I voiced my frustration for the complete indifference everyone was showing for the crazy things that had just occurred.
"Would someone please tell me why Jay's pants caught on fire and then every bulb down here bursts, and yet I'm the only one who even batted an eye?"
Everyone just stared around the room in the same awkward fashion as before. Everyone kept looking at each other, waiting on someone else to answer. Gear was the one who broke the uncomfortable silence by answering my question with a deceitful sort of tone, followed with a distraction, his usual fashion.
"Aria, these things happen all the time around here. You'll get used to it. The electricity in this house is old, and the stove has been needing to be replaced for a while. You should probably get going. School starts in less than thirty minutes."
My mind went blank very abruptly when I saw the high school just a few hundred yards away. My stomach grew tense with knots. I had no idea what to do or where to go. I only had one thought come to my mind - Oh, this is going to suck.
I pulled into the parking lot in my shiny, expensive BMW, and everyone gawked in the most conspicuous way. Not in a good way either.
"No, not awkward at all," I grumbled to myself.
George said he wanted me to feel like a princess. You need a lot of confidence to feel like a princess, and confidence was something I certainly lacked, especially at that moment.
