AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Go.
Creepy makes unhappy noises in the back of my mind.
“You’re right,” Zeb says quietly.
My eyes snap to him.
He shrugs. “You don’t know us. Or vice versa, it’s true. And… yeah, there are some logistical realities that…” He trails off as if seeing the anger on my face. “Point is, maybe we are moving fast. Finding you has been… unexpected. But we can’t rush you. Or any of this. We know that.”
I shift my weight a bit, but I can’t make myself get in the damn elevator. Truth is, I don’t really want to. I did, but only because I was panicking.
But the magnetic pull to them is real, and now…
Zeb steps back, and Huck does the same, leaving the path to the apartment door clear too.
“If you’re willing,” Zeb continues carefully. “Maybe we could start over? Go slower and get to know each other a bit?”
A quiver radiates through me, made of pain and longing and a need that I know can’t ever be truly satisfied. “You’re still leaving. I’ll still stay. It won’t change anything.”
“We’d never make you leave your home,” Huck promises earnestly.
Zeb and Phineas glance at him. He doesn’t take his pale eyes from me.
And after a moment, Phineas nods, and Zeb does too.
“Like Huck said,” Zeb agrees, turning back to me. “We can figure it out. But until then, maybe let us try to fix the rest, eh?”
He extends a hand for me to take.
I don’t move, eyeing him warily. “What are you suggesting?”
Zeb smiles. “Trust us.”
I’m not sure what I expected, but dinner was definitely not at the top of the list.
More fool me.
When we get back to the apartment, Zeb immediately kicks us out of anywhere near the kitchen or dining area. I retreat to the living room, not comfortable with returning to Phineas’s bedroom, even if the guy in question isn’t in it. Meanwhile, Phineas leaves the apartment briefly only to return a short while later with bags of groceries in his arms. He doesn’t say a word as he deposits them in the kitchen and then disappears into what I think is an office.
That leaves me in the living room, sitting on one end of the couch while Huck sits on the other, and for a long while, nothing else happens.
Then I start picking up on smells coming from the kitchen.
Gods, are they good. Michelin-star good, not that I’ve ever eaten somewhere like that to compare. But my mouth waters and my stomach starts growling almost immediately, the latter reaction reminding me it’s been hours since I’ve eaten and a whole lot has happened since then.
At just about the point when my hunger is about to break past all manners and politeness and send me into the kitchen to find out what smells so good, Zeb finally appears at the living room entry. With his cocksure grin well in place, he bows and gestures to the dining room in a flourish. “Dinner is served.”
“Shouldn’t that be lunch?” Huck points out.
Zeb straightens out of his bow. “You want food or not?”
Huck jumps up to follow me without another word.
Even as hungry as I am, I still stop at the doorway to the dining room, shocked by all he’s made in the time I’ve been sitting on the couch. There’s roast chicken surrounded by baked fruits. Potatoes and vegetables all cut decoratively and arranged like a bouquet in a bowl. Bread and salad and soup besides. Drinks glisten in glass goblets, set beside plates trimmed in gold.
Zeb pulls out a chair and gestures for me to take it, that devious grin once again hovering around his lips. The expression doesn’t change when I sit down and he pushes the chair in beneath me, nor when he takes his own seat on the other side of the table. Huck quickly drops into a chair at my side, watching me the whole time, while Phineas comes in behind us and sits down carefully next to me, his gaze trained on me like he’s just waiting to see what I’ll do.
I’ve never been as self-conscious in my life as I am around these three right now.
