Page 25 of The MC's Little Brother

Mattias came into the room, and I ducked my head automatically. I still felt like shit about earlier. I didn’t mean to swing at him. I thought he was Jorge. I lost count of the amount of times I was woken out of a dead sleep tohim smacking me around. I took to sleeping in the closet just to stay out of his sight. If he didn’t see me, he might keep on walking to his room.

“Where did he get the headphones?” he asked with a frown.

“They’re mine. He’s just borrowing them to take a break,” Mel replied easily.

He grunted and when I peeked up at him, his expression was masked again. “I’ll get him his own tomorrow. Can I talk to you?”

I blinked rapidly, watching them go. I didn't understand him. One minute, he was glaring at the world around him, the next he was buying me things and making me food. Like he wanted me to be okay. It was confusing. I couldn’t tell if he hated me being here or if he was just really bad at expressing himself.

The little boy crept closer and froze when I glanced at him, lifting his hand in a wave. “Can you hear me?”

Yes, but I didn’t want to admit that. I pulled out one of the ear buds so he knew I was listening. “I can now.”

He smirked, thrusting his thumb over his shoulder. “Wanna play cards? Uncle Vegas cheats, but the rest of ‘em play fair.”

I shook my head. “I’m good here.”

I felt a little bad for telling him no when he was just being nice, but being here kind of freaked me out. There were so many of them. What happened when they found out what I was hiding? I might have been able to get away from Jorge, but I wasn’t sure I could outrun all of them.

Melissa

I followed Wraith out of the kitchen but stayed in Xander’s line of sight. I was aware he was listening, using the headphones as a wall to keep people away, but I didn't see that as a bad thing. At least he wasn’t running or hiding. And most preteens didn’t want to hang out with adults anyway.

“What’s up?”

“Did you mean it?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

I tipped my head and frowned. “Did I mean what?”

“The offer to stay with us,” he grumbled.

My eyebrows shot up. “Yeah. I meant it. Did you change your mind?”

His gaze flicked over my shoulder to the kitchen, and his expression darkened a little. “I don’t want a repeat of earlier. He’s more comfortable with you.”

My heart ached a little at the reminder. Xander felt awful about his reaction and looked close to tears when Wraith stormed off. Wraith didn’t look like he was handling it any better. He was trying to pretend it hadn’t affected him, but I saw the look on his face when it happened. He felt like shit, too.

“Sure. I’ll pack a bag tonight.”

His brow furrowed a little, and he shook his head. “Tomorrow. I need to order a mattress for the spare room.”

That sounded like a pain in the ass, and expensive for a short stay. “Or… we can borrow Butch’s truck and move the bed from my guest room into yours. It’ll spare you the expense.”

It wasn’t as nice as my mattress, but that monster was heavy and I wasn’t moving it unless I absolutely had to.

He considered it before nodding. “I’ll talk to Butch. Is he… okay?”

If it were anyone else, I would’ve melted. But I couldn’t act like that with Wraith. I forced myself to smile and nod instead.

“He’s okay. Just taking a break. I think meeting the whole crew at once is a little much.”

He sighed, scrubbing his hand through his hair. “Yeah, I figured that out when he hid behind me. I thought it’d help. They’re better with people than me.”

Putting my hand on his arm, I raised my eyebrows. “You were trying to help. No one is going to hold that against you. Not even Xander. We’ll stay for dinner and then we’ve got an excellent excuse to duck out early so we can grab my stuff. We’ll figure out a better way to introduce him to the crew later. Maybe a couple at a time instead of all at once.”

At least he wasn’t fighting me this time. After scaring the shit out of Xander, he seemed to realize he needed a hand. There was nothing wrong with that, and I was glad he cared enough to put his pride aside. Maybe after a few days, I could figure out a way to get him to realize spending time with his brother was just as important as introducing him to the crew. But Ididn’t want to push too hard right now, so I let it go, wandering back to the kitchen just as Xander shook his head at Malcolm.

“I’m good here,” he murmured. His expression was apologetic, but I missed the conversation, so I wasn’t sure what he was turning down.

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