Page 9 of Basilisk

Chapter 6

Hastings~

I wasn’t sure what was going on with Kincaid, but it was easy to see something was off with her. Kincaid didn’t have moods, and she was sure having one this morning.

After she’d taken off with Saxton last night, I had taken a hot bubble bath, and had done the whole pluck, peel, wax, shave, exfoliate, buff, and aroma therapy routine, and I’d gone to sleep at a decent hour, determined to save up all my energy for tonight. Feeling extra pretty, I was even planning on going shopping today for a sexy dress that I could wear to Drummond’s party. That was one of the cool things about college parties; a dress, jeans, or a bikini, no one batted an eyelash at how fancy or casual you wanted to dress. Unless it was a theme party, it didn’t matter what you wore.

However, the plan was changing to include Kincaid in my shopping trip because something was obviously bothering her. She’d hadn’t been up in time for breakfast, but she had been for lunch, and the girl had just poked at the food that I’d made before giving up all pretense of wanting to eat it. I had watched in silence as she put it back in the fridge for leftovers, but I couldn’t hold back any longer when I watched her go sit on the couch, then turn the television on to watch golf.

Kincaid hated golf.

I dropped down on the couch, stretching my leg out to nudge her on the thigh. “Okay, what is it?”

Kincaid didn’t even pretend to act like she didn’t know what I was talking about. “Today’s my brother’s birthday,” she answered, surprising the hell out of me. In all the time that I’ve known Kincaid, she’s never mentioned her brother to me.

“Your brother?” I could vaguely recall something about a Black male heir years ago.

She gave me a sad nod. “Yeah. Apollo Black.”

“Your parents sure aren’t traditional when it comes to names, are they?” I teased softly.

Kincaid grinned like I hoped. “Okay, Hastings.”

“Touché,” I drawled out theatrically. When she just smiled back, I asked, “So, why am I just hearing about the mysterious Apollo Black?”

The light went out of her eyes, and dread slithered down my spine. “He’s dead.”

“Oh, God,” I whispered, though that sounded familiar. “I’m so sorry, Kincaid.”

She waved away my condolences. “It’s okay,” she replied easily. “It’s not as if you knew.”

“I’m still sorry,” I told her. “I…” I thought about Brantley and my chest hurt with how much I felt for Kincaid right now. “I couldn’t imagine losing my sister.”

“Apollo was eight years older than me,” she went on. “I was an ‘oops’ baby.”

“I didn’t know that, either.”

She nodded, but she didn’t seem to be taking it personally that she hadn’t been planned. “Yeah, my mother had suffered a couple of miscarriages after she had Apollo, so to spare her from further physical and emotional turmoil, they had finally agreed that Apollo had been enough.”

“Oh, your poor mother.” According to my parents, my mother’s pregnancies had been delightful, so I had no idea the damage that miscarriages could do to a woman.

“So, everyone had gone on with their lives, and then, one day, she realized that she’d missed her period for a whole two months. She’d gone to the doctor and learned that she was pregnant.” She smiled softy at the story. “The way my mother tells it, my father had done everything short of suffocate her in bubble wrap after that. It was the first time, in all his life, that he had taken a leave of absence from work to cater to her every whim.”

I reached out and squeezed her leg. “Well, it obviously worked.”

Kincaid’s shoulders pulled back with tension. “Even though we were eight years apart, Apollo had been the best big brother,” she continued. “Always letting me bug him or follow after him. Even when he was in high school, he’d blow off a lot of his friends to hang out with his ten-year-old sister.”

I could tell the memories were deeply painful. “Did he look like you?”

“Yeah,” she answered as she shrugged. “We both look like my dad.”

“Then he must have been extremely handsome,” I told her. “You’re so beautiful that I can imagine him being just as stunning.”

“He was,” she agreed wistfully.

“Two peas in a pod.”

Kincaid sat up straighter, and I knew where this was going. “He died when I was fifteen,” she finally divulged. “He’d been only twenty-two years old.”

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