Page 14 of Desolation
Ash smiles softly at her and she returns it, a pale blush staining her cheeks as she looks down at her cup of coffee and takes a swig.
Ahh, there’s the conclusive evidence. Ash definitely had the talk with her. I knew it!
“Lana decided that we’re going to the lake today,” Hale says. “Pack some towels. We’ll head out whenever you’re done with breakfast.” He stands to head upstairs, keeping his hips firmly pointed away from Lana.
I roll my eyes.Because that’s not suspicious at all.
“We’ll go change and get the supplies together,” Luke says on behalf of both of the twins. With a speed I didn’t know they possessed, they slide out of their chairs and follow Hale upstairs.
Them, gathering supplies? The conspiracy theorists were right. The end is near.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum are normally the sloths of the group and we typically wait for them to finish getting ready. Lana always jokes that they’re the real girls of the group with their beauty routines.
Knowing full well what Lana’s doing now, I turn to look at the little minx after the cowards clear the room. She looks at me with those beautiful blue eyes, specked with hazel. “I hope your conversation with Ash went well last night. Please know that we all care about you and will respect whatever you’d like to do from here.”
She stares at me, shocked that I called her out.
I continue, “Oh, and your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell the others that you know. Have your fun.”
Her mouth drops open and the blush on her cheeks deepens. I walk away, making my way upstairs as the sound of Ash’s deep chuckle rings behind me.
This is going to be an entertaining day.
Hale
The twins’ thumping footsteps quickly follow me up the stairs.Fucking hell, they’d put an elephant stampede to shame.I open the door to my shared room and usher them in, closing the door behind us.
We need to figure this situation out.Now.
Speaking low enough so that my voice won’t carry through the door, I launch into the thoughts knocking around in my head, pacing around the room. “Do you think he told her? Did he back out? Fuck, of course it would be like him to get nervous and back out. I knew I should have been the one to go to her room last night.”
The twins share a worried look before facing me with identical expressions of concern on their faces.
Luke takes a small step backwards as Leo speaks in a tone you’d used on a skittish animal, eerily calm. “Listen, Hale. You’re always the calm one among us so I’m going to need you to stop with your girly meltdown. My brother and I need to reclaim our spots as the drama queens. Do you think you can do that for me?”
Get it together, Hale. He’s right. It’s just Lana, not a tornado threatening to engulf your town.
When we first became a group as kids, I immediately and naturally fell into the leadership position. My first foster placement was a military home and they were extremely strict about controlling emotions and making sure we always acted impeccably, even at a young age. Apparently, I didn’t live up to their perfect expectations, so they sent me back to the group home but not before my innately calm and collected personality was ingrained. Being sent back was the best thing that happened to me, though. Now, I’m still the leader of our little family, even with the world falling apart around us, so I have to make the right choices. I never make rash decisions and, so far, it’s worked in our favor.
About a year ago, we all admitted our feelings for Lana to each other in private. It was around the time of our last birthday when it became terribly clear that not only were other guys approaching her for dates, but we were also becoming scarily territorial over her as those assholes showed up. The idea that those fucking frat guys thought they deserved her after screwing around with half the town? Fucking made our blood boil. Our small state college was full of sleaze balls.
We’re not saints by any means—well, except for Zedd, who hasn’t even talked to a girl romantically—but we’re much better than those idiots. Since then, we haven’t looked twice at another girl.
However, just admitting it wasn’t enough. It seemed taboo to have feelings for the girl we’d grown up with and was technically our foster sister. We needed time to accept our feelings towards her and time to mature before we were worthy of her.
Even now, we’re not worthy of her, but it’s time to show her we want to put in the work to make this happen.
Zedd was the one who clued us in back then. Unlike the rest of us, who were busy seducing other women right in front of the girl of our dreams, Zedd’s entire focus had been on Lana. He sat us down and forced us to start paying attention to the looks she gave us, to the way her face fell when Leo hugged a girl or Luke flirted with one or I paid a little too much attention to a classmate. When one of us went on a date, the ones left behind noticed how she trudged around the house, pretending to be upbeat but nowhere near her normal energy levels. Her smile would fall as soon as she thought we weren’t looking.
Hearing how upset we made her was enough to make our hearts drop but seeing it? Torture.
Without needing further prompting, we grabbed our heads and tugged them out of our asses. Those other women had been flings. We’d never connected with them. We were done hurting her to pursue something temporary. No more. It might have taken us some time to figure it all out, but now… Now we’re ready for the rollercoaster of emotion our girl will undoubtedly take us on.
My Little One.
Everything has changed in the past year for us, since it became astonishingly clear that our feelings were reciprocated by her, even if she still doesn’t want to admit it.
Last night, after the bonfire and our conversation, we decided to lay the decision of how our future will play out at her feet. She deserves our honesty about our feelings towards her. We’ve taken the leap off the cliff… now we just need to see if she’ll jump with us. Whatever happens, this will be a big change for the group, but we made out decision and fate is in motion.
