AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He moved into my space, into me, and wrapped his hand around the side of my neck. His serious, haunted eyes bored into me. "I'm glad you feel like it's home here, because itisyour home, for as long as you want it to be, and I hope that's a long damn time. I know Quint wants you to live with him, but you don't need to do that, you don't need to go anywhere. Living with him would drive you both crazy. But part of this being your home is you not being worried or afraid I'm going to get upset if you leave your stuff lying around. Please, clog up the bathroom with girly shit, I would freaking love it. Leave your shoes laying around on the floor in the mud room and your laptop sitting on the couch when you're done with it instead of running both upstairs to put away in your room like you're a freaking guest here, and not a person actually living here. You're driving me crazy with your obsessive tidiness and need to have everything put away where it belongs. Get settled and start acting like you actually belong here and aren't just visiting, because this is your home and I want you to be comfortable here. You can walk around here in your underwear and I wouldn't give a shit."
The twins burst out laughing and I wasn't surprised at hearing it. They would love it if I started walking around in my underwear, heck, they'd probably move in and never leave.
It was never going to happen, though.
I rolled my eyes at Dash as I went back to drinking my coffee and he let me go without another word.
What he'd said had bothered me because I thought I had been acting like I thought this was my home, because I truly felt like it was. Yeah, I still called it Dash's cottage and notourcottage, and probably never would because it really was his. I could live here, and feel at home, and still refer to it as his home instead of mine, that didn't bother me one bit. The problem was that I was a neat and tidy person who put things back where they belonged the moment I was done using them, and I had always been this way. Because I'd had to be, or Vivian would get upset and rage at me. I didn't know how to be any other way, it was ingrained into my very being. Doing something like skipping making my bed for the day even made me uncomfortable. I thought if any of them would understand this about me it would be Dash, but apparently, he didn't get it. Or, maybe he did and that was why he was making a point to bring it up and point it out to me, because he wanted me to feel like I didn't need to worry about those things.
Between worrying over what Dash had said to me, and feeling like I wasn't giving him enough out of our relationship, and wondering if I should put some of my clothes in his bedroom in order to make him feel more secure, and speculating as to where Rain had run off to and if he planned on coming back, my head was a total mess, and I'd completely forgotten about Damien coming over to get me later that night. Which was probably for the best, because I really did not need one more thing to stress over.
I spent the afternoon cleaning with Dash and the twins. It flew by, and before I knew it, Dash was telling me to go upstairs and get ready for my date.
My date with freaking Damien.
I was terrified.
Chapter Sixteen
I swiped across my eyelashes with the mascara wand I held in my hand. With each swipe of the wand, my lashes went from a dirty blonde to black, making my green eyes stand out on my face and pop.
Like most girls, I liked makeup, but I usually didn't wear much of it. I usually never wore coverup, because I'd been blessed with a decent complexion and didn't need to hide anything. No acne or weird blemishes on my face to hide. Now I had a wicked scar on my cheek, but I didn't bother trying to hide that. I wasn't embarrassed or ashamed of it, so I didn't try to cover it up. One of the guys had bought me a bunch of coverup and left it out on the bathroom counter and I was guessing it was Damien. I swept it aside and left it in a drawer. I would stick to what worked for me and call it good, I wasn't going to change just because I had a new scar and wore it on my face. If someone said something to me about it, I would tell them to look someplace else if it bothered them so much. I swiped across my eyelash one last time before stuffing the wand back into the tube and turning it until it was shut all the way, so it wouldn't dry out and be of no use to me anymore.
I put my forearms into the counter and leaned closer to the mirror, closer to my reflection in the mirror. My eyeliner was straight and on point. My mascara looked good. My lips were shiny with gloss.
I puckered my lips, and blew a kiss at myself in the mirror before straightening up and going for the toilet paper. I pulled off a few sheets and wiped off my lip gloss.
This was stupid. Why I even bothered to put on makeup, I did not know. Because it was Damien, I guessed.
I had more important things to do than go out with Damien. Or, I thought I did. Everyone else thought differently.
Rain hadn’t been back yet. The guys didn’t think this was a big deal, and told me I needed to have patience. I thought they were wrong. I thought I needed to sit home and worry needlessly over it, and await his return like a freaking fool.
Alright, so maybe they had been right, and I didn’t need to be here. Maybe I was just nervous about being alone with Damien for the first time, and projecting it onto everything else around me. That didn’t change the fact that Rain had disappeared on me and been gone all freaking day now.
“Knock it off, Ariel,” I whispered fiercely to my reflection in the mirror. “You’re going to forget about Rain for the night. You’re going to forget about Tyson and Annabell and all the other things that are threatening to destroy your happiness. Just for one little night, you’re going to let everything go, live in the now and have a good night with Damien.”
Right. Easier said than done.
But, I’d be damned sure I would give it my best effort. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t fail miserably, but it never hurt to try. It might be easier if I knew what we were doing. I think that was part of my stress and worry, and had a whole lot to do with why I wanted to make excuses and stay home tonight. Rain would either come back or he wouldn’t. Dash had been right when he told me I couldn’t force relationships with people and not to even bother trying. He also told me that he thought Rain was the lucky one for getting to see me, and that we wouldn’t know whether I was lucky or not until later on after he’d been around for awhile and we got to see the real Rain Kimber. That was, if he even came back at all. It had been harsh, but sweet, and no one else had had the balls to say something like that to me. I understood where Dash was coming from and I tried to take his words to heart.
Needless to say, I had failed at this endeavor and now I was sitting alone in the bathroom, staring at my own stupid reflection and worrying about things I didn’t have control over.
A knock on the door sounded and I jumped as I let out a small squeak. I covered my mouth with my hands and started at my too large eyes in the mirror.
I looked ridiculous, and was thankful I had at least put away the mascara already or I might have put my eye out with the dang wand.
A giggle escaped me, and I tightened my hands over my mouth to try and keep the sound in.
“Ariel,” Dash called through the door. “Damien is here for you. I made him wait downstairs, but I don’t think he will stay down there for long. He said something about wanting to get you dressed, and I didn’t think you’d want him digging through your closet, so I made him wait downstairs.”
That made me stop laughing and want to freak out again.
“Ariel,” Dash called out my name again.
I removed my hands from my mouth, swept my makeup off the counter and watched it fall and land in the drawer that had been emptied out for me to put stuff in. It hadn’t even been emptied out by me. Dash was the best kind of roommate for a girl to have.
Not only did he clear out room for me because he wanted me to feel like I was at home in his home, but he knew me well enough to know that there was no freaking way I wanted to be stuck with Damien while he dug around through my closet. Dash was smart like that, and he knew that clothes and material objects weren't my thing.
