Page 25 of Meant for Them
I’m mortified that I ended up somewhere I shouldn’t have been, and I pull my knees up and stretch the shirt over them to make myself smaller. “I wasn’t in a good head space. I didn’t intentionally trespass. I really am sorry.”
Wiley kneels before me, encouraging me to stop hiding my face. “We aren’t angry, sweetheart. Just surprised.”
“Can we…go back to the cursed thing? That seems interesting…”
He smirks, running a hand through his hair. He eyes the food in front of me, silently informing me he won’t talk if I don’t eat. Bossy.
“We have another brother. He kind of fucked us over a while back. Long story short, he took over the family company, and we got trapped here. We get enough of the profits to sustain ourselves, humbly, but we’re physically unable to go past the local town. Visitors aren’t supposed to be able to enter our property line. There are a handful of people that had been on our land prior to us being cursed, and they seem to be able to enter no problem, but other than that, as far as we know, there’s literally only one other way somebody could breach that line and make it here, but that seems impossible.”
I pause with another piece of cheese on my lips. I’m so attractive right now. I hastily chew and swallow, then sip on the glass of water that seems to have magically appeared in front of me.“And that caveat is what, exactly? Because I’m pretty sure I just walked through the woods and ended up maimed on your property— not that I’m trying to blame you for that…” Fuck. It would seem their awkwardness is contagious.
“I think,” Troy counters, “you should tell us how you ended up here. You don't have to tell us…everything, but, if you want to? We're pretty good listeners.”
I actually feel pretty embarrassed about how hard I overreacted. Sure, Alex was an asshole, but did I really need to crash out and run this far and nearly get myself killed because of him? Not really.
I take another sip of water and clear my throat. “It's not nearly as exciting as your story. Not a curse in sight. Do you want the short version or the long version?”
“Long version,” they all immediately intone.
“I think you guys spend too much time together. You're kind of just carbon copies of each other.”
They smile at this, and relax against the kitchen counters, giving me a little space.
“Like you said, not many visitors up here,” Wiley says, encouraging me to keep going.
“Feel free to stop me when you get bored. So, I was working a super glamorous job as an attendant at a gas station store. In the town I’m from, not many places will hire a half-breed, let alone one with no formal education. Anyway, it was mostly paying the bills. I was getting by, I think.
“And then one day, this man in a fancy suit walks in, and completely takes me off my game. I make a fool of myself, spill mop water everywhere, including on myself, and he has theaudacity to act all charming and sweet about it.” I find myself with a smile at that memory, so I tap my cheeks to knock it off.
“Spoiler alert, he was my mate. I gave him an out, because I knew there was no way someone like him would be interested seriously in somebody like me, so I wasn't too surprised when he left pretty quickly, and I carried on with the rest of my day.
“Fast forward to the next day, I show up to work my shift, only to find the lot full of construction workers telling me I'm trespassing by being there. It's suddenly been purchased, and I needed to leave. Obviously, I called my boss panicking. He confirmed the story, and I spent the rest of the day bussing all over town looking for another job. None to be found, at least not for somebody like me.
“Then I headed home, figuring I'd think about my options and look for a new job again the next day. Except I got hit again because there was an eviction notice on my door. The apartments were going to be renovated and had been bought out. All tenants had a week to get out.
“And I know what you're thinking,” I say cheekily as I pick up some bites of food to eat, trying to fill the silence in the kitchen. I'm trying to read that silence, trying to figure out if they feel sorry for me, or if they're just really annoyed by something, but I continue on so I can stop talking about it sooner. “You're thinking I'm really unlucky. And that's true, I guess.
“Well, the next morning, I'm woken up by somebody's loud ass moving truck backing up in front of my place, and who but douche face Alex shows up, knocking on my door, all smiles, there to help me move out.” Huh. That’s a weird face they’re all making. Maybe they just have a thing with people named Alex?
“Because you guessed it, he bought out my work. He ‘didn't want me somewhere like that’. He also bought up my apartmentcomplex so I'd have no choice but to move in with him. Oh, did I leave out the part where he slipped me a business card and offered me a job? Yeah. With no other options on the table, I had to take the job. Working for him. As a topless maid—"
Okay, now they get animated.
They all start talking at once. Troy and Jake get so pissed they have to walk outside and cool down, and Wiley fills a glass of water and chugs and repeats a few times until he's got to be overhydrated, but I just happily pick at my food. I'm scared to take apart the prosciutto rose. But damn, it looks really good. I'm going in.
When they're mostly in the same area, I wave my hand in the air like this is all some nonchalant, no big deal. “I move in with him, his cook tries to kill me, he doesn’t talk to me a whole lot but we kind of get along. He offers to set me up with a computer, tells me he’ll support me while I get my high school degree. Offers to teach me a vocation if I want to, and then that's about the time I let my guard down.
“I slept with him. Not my brightest moment. Afterward though he got all weird. Clearly, he didn't mark me—hold on, I'm almost done,” I say when they all start yelling again.
I know they're not yelling atmethough, so it's not scary. “I guess I was feeling bad about him not biting me. So, I kind of pulled away, and then the next morning, well, he was all weird and said he had to go out of town. Said he was going to be gone for a bit, but that I'd have the run of the house, and he was leaving me a credit card.
“Except when I went to go check the credit card, I found he'd actually signed an apartment lease in my name the day after he met me. So, he neveractuallywanted me to live with him, hejust wanted to see, I guess, if sleeping with his fated mate was worth the hype or not.
“Clearly, to him, it wasn't. I can't really say if it was for me since he was my first; but I decided then and there I didn't want anything to do with him. I wasn't going to take the fancy apartment, even if it was paid off for a year. I make really great decisions by the way. I just started running. Next thing I know, bam. You guys find me looking like a human skewer, and not in a sexy way. And here we are.”
I look up at them with a manic, crazy smile on my face, and not a single one of them believes it.
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