Page 66 of Blood Magic (Ariel Kimber 3)

I seriously hoped for my sake that Damien didn’t kill us all at dinner.

If I died, then I’d probably be getting what I deserved.

It would serve me right.

Chapter Twenty

I sat with my butt on the floor, a large fluffy black towel wrapped around my otherwise naked body, in-between Addison’s legs. My knees were pulled up to my chest and I had my chin resting atop of the right one.

The twins were seated side by side on my pretty wicker loveseat. I had ended up between Addison’s legs after the two of them had argued over who got to brush my hair. Abel had won. This meant Addison got to blow dry my hair, which he currently was doing.

I had thought they were both nuts.

They had ambushed me when I’d walked back to my room in my towel after my shower. I hadn’t been prepared for them and still in shock after finding out they’d shared a shower together. I knew they weren’t weird about it and they shared everything, but it had still thrown me through a loop.

This had landed me where I was now.

It was made worse by the mountain of shopping bags that covered my bed. A bed, I might add, that was made and hadn’t been made by me. The twins had denied having done the deed, claiming it had already been done by the time they’d come up here. I believed them because the comforter had yellow rose blossoms instead of red ones.

Dash seemed to be the guilty party. Apparently, when he wasn’t injured and was feeling well, he got up early, as inearly, and liked to do household chores. Making my bed now seemed like one of his household chores. Given the small stack of folded clothes on top of my dresser, washing my dirty clothes was something he considered to be one of his other household chores.

I didn’t like it and I certainly wasn’t comfortable with it. Any of it.

My laundry baskets hadn’t survived the move from houses because I had yet to see them. I would need to get a few new ones for my room and figure out where the washer and dryer were so I could do my own laundry and make sure Dash never had to do it again. If he didn’t want me using his washing machine, I could always take my things to the laundromat. It didn’t sound like much fun and was a serious time suck, but it had never stopped me before. And, besides, it’s not like I had much else going for me or anything I really needed to spend my time on.

That sounded depressing.

Maybe Ishouldconsider going back to school. I knew I couldn’t continue on like this. My current route certainly wouldn’t be lonely but it sure would be sad.

My hair had only been half dried when Julian and Damien knocked on the door.

I panicked, not wanting more people to catch a glimpse of me in my towel. Addison and Abel had invited them in like this was all normal to them.

Neither new arrival had so much as blinked at my appearance. Instead, Julian had asked me if it was okay with me if they started to unpack the boxes that had my clothes in them. I had agreed simply because it would have made me feel awkward not to have.

Addison continued to blow dry my hair as Julian and Damien unpacked my clothes. I had rested my chin on my knee and closed my eyes instead of watching them pull things out of my boxes and put them away. I didn’t want to see them handle my things.

I had closed my eyes and thought about something I had been refusing to allow myself to think about. I thought about Marcus, Mr. Cole. It had been a while since we’d talked. Too long, in fact. He hadn’t been in my life for a very long period of time, but he had made a great impact upon it. I missed him. I wasn’t stupid. I knew Marcus was the reason I was so intent on looking for my bio dad. He was also the reason I was plagued by doubts when it came to Rain Kimber. If a man like Marcus Cole could care about me so much but still want to leave me, what did that say about me? Nothing good, I thought.

I knew down to my bones that I had made the right decision to stay with the guys and not go with Marcus to live with his family in a different state. Even after finding out he had magic, I knew I had made the right decision. Knowing something was right and then actually having to live with your choices were two entirely different things. I never questioned my decision to stay, but I did miss that man a whole lot and whished every single day that he would have stayed behind with me.

It was an incredibly selfish thing to think and every day that I thought it, I wished I hadn’t. Guess that meant I really did love Mr. Cole because his happiness meant more to me than my own ever could. Didn’t make it any easier or mean I missed him any less. It was kind of weird to me, how much I missed him because we weren’t even that close. I think it had a lot to do with him being a decent human being and giving a shit about me and then him knowing my secret and being a part of the guy’s life. Mostly, it was him being a decent human being and giving a shit about me.

“Ariel,” Damien called out over the noise of the hair dryer, snapping me out of my thoughts. He held up a box on its side with the open top aimed at me for inspection. “What about your books? Do you care if I put them on your bookshelf?”

I shook my head.

“No,” I said loudly. “I don’t care.”

I did care.

This seemed all wrong.

Me sitting here in a towel while someone else put away my belongings.

I looked around the room, going from person to person. None of them seemed to care or think anything was wrong here. Abel was relaxed and looking at something on his phone. He didn’t look like he had a care in the world. Julian had two of my dresser drawers pulled all the way out and on the floor. He was busy color coordinating my clothing. Damien had already done this with what they had both decided belonged hanging up in my closet. This was one of the few times where I had been grateful I didn’t have a whole lot of clothes for them to go through.

However, I didn’t want them going through the rest of my boxes. I kept journals and they were in there somewhere. None of them said anything about them but they said other things about my life that I wasn’t really fond of sharing and rehashing.

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