like everything was still the same but I was experiencing it in a new and different way.
My trepidation was now simply replaced with awe and the sensation that in this brief moment, I was once again alive.
Chapter Eight
Vincent
About thirty minutes later, Estella followed me into my house.
When I turned around to face her, she seemed nervous—her eyes were roaming the hallway as though she was waiting for someone to jump out with a loaded gun. Actually, that wasn’t too hard to believe. Tyson had pulled that on me once, stupid ass.
“Kitchen’s that way,” I said, nodding off to the doorway on the left.
Estella followed where I’d motioned, but before she could even take a step, Dylan came tearing out of his room like a freaking tornado. “Estella! You came!”
Completely ignoring me, he barreled right into Estella and wrapped his arms around her. The bag of groceries she’d been holding almost fell out of her hands as she gazed down at my brother with affection.
“How could I not come when you asked so nicely?” She didn’t sound annoyed at all; she sounded like she didn’t really mind.
Dylan stepped back and surveyed the bag of groceries in Estella’s hands. “Are you making me chicken soup?”
“I sure am. It needs time to stew, so we can get some work done while we wait for it to cook.” Estella glanced up at me, appearing anxious. “Will you be joining us, Vincent?”
It’d been years since I’d had a proper home-cooked meal. That frozen shit from boxes and frying up eggs in the morning didn’t really count. None of us could cook for shit, and eating food made by a woman was something else.
So, hell yeah, I was tempted to stick around and watch Estella as she cooked and then eat her chicken soup, but that was exactly why I couldn’t stay. Because I wanted to. Because this girl was different. Because she didn’t want to sleep with me. She didn’t back down from a disagreement, despite how intimidated she was by me.
This girl was trouble because she was different. And I needed to keep my goddamn distance from her.
“Nah,” I said, trying to appear indifferent, “I got shit to do. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Oh, okay.” Dylan’s face fell and I hated myself for disappointing him. The kid had been through enough abandonment in his short ten years of life, and here I was adding to it.
Still, I couldn’t do it. I had to get out of here and go someplace where I could clear my head.
For a split second, it looked like Estella was going to say something, but instead she bit down on her bottom lip as though to control herself. Her whiskey eyes were saying everything that her gorgeous mouth wouldn’t—she wasn’t impressed that I was leaving, especially since it was clear that Dylan wanted me to stay.
“If either one of my older brothers come home, don’t talk to them unless they talk to you.” I glanced at a spot just beside Estella’s head as I spoke, careful not to stare into the eyes that tormented me. “Dylan knows what to say if they start asking questions.”
My little brother nodded, but the sad look was still on his face. I’d have to make it up to him somehow.
“See ya soon, kid,” I said, ruffling his hair before walking out and leaving behind the girl who made me think too much about a life that I wanted but could never have.
When I came back an hour later, unfamiliar music was drifting in from the kitchen.
My ears tried to make sense of the saxophone and piano playing and the smooth male voice that was singing. What the hell? Was that jazz?
The delicious smell of chicken and something else greeted me as soon as I stepped into the house. Damn. The smell was making my stomach growl.
Estella and Dylan weren’t at the kitchen table like I’d expected them to be. There were books spread out across the table so that the wood was only visible in slivers, but neither of them was sitting down.
Instead, they were in the center of the kitchen, laughing as they spun around the room together—they were dancing.
No one had danced in this house in a long time.
Dylan’s portable radio sat on the kitchen counter, playing the jazz song which I was unfamiliar with. This wasn’t really the kind of music I listened to. I liked my music loud and fast.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching the way Dylan’s eyes were bright as he and Estella shuffled around, his hands on her waist. It was good to see him act more his age. The kid was so obsessed with doing well in school that he forgot to just relax and have fun.
But what really had my insides jumping was the way Estella’s long honey-brown hair flowed around her like waves. The way her laughter seemed to warm every goddamn dark place inside my soul. The way her smile caused my heart to accelerate like I was a kid who’d just hit puberty.
The girl was beautiful. Not hot, not sexy, not a babe—she was just beautiful.
There was something about her, something I couldn’t figure out. She was everything I’d lacked from a female growing up; she was everything I’d hoped my mother would be when I was a kid—caring, genuine, kind.
I’d known she was trouble the first night I’d met her. Now I knew why. Estella was who I’d been waiting for my entire life.
Dylan finally noticed me standing in the doorway and dropped his hands from Estella’s waist. A frown disturbed his features as he pressed against Estella’s side, waiting to see what I would say.
It was pretty obvious he still had the shits with me for leaving earlier.
When Estella turned around to see why he’d stopped, her face went red and she seemed out of breath. “Vincent!” Her tone was higher than usual. “We were just, um, Dylan was saying how he doesn’t know how to dance, so-”
Ignoring her, I glanced over at Dylan instead. “You’re supposed to be studying, kid.”
Dylan shrugged, a pout forming on his mouth. “We were taking a break. Estella’s teaching me how to dance. You should let her teach you, too.”
Straightening up, I approached the table and pulled out a chair before sitting down, without responding. I didn’t fucking dance. I was Vincent Madden. I didn’t dance.
My stomach growled in a way as if to say, ‘fucking feed me’. “You still got food left?”
Neither Estella nor Dylan said anything, but Dylan came over and gathered up all his books and left the room, carrying them in his arms.
While Dil was gone, Estella walked over to the bubbling pot on the stove. She turned off the heat and then began spooning the soup into the bowls—I noticed there were three—sitting on the counter.
Dil raced back into the kitchen and grabbed spoons out of the drawer. He placed them in the center of the table and then sat down across from me, watching Estella expectantly. I studied him, smiling at the way his skin was a light pink. This morning, he’d been really pale. Being around Estella made him feel better somehow.
When Estella was done, she walked over to the table and placed a bowl down in front of Dylan and me, before getting her own bowl and joining us at the table.
We ate the soup in silence and, damn, was it good. I hadn’t eaten anything like this in about eight years since our grandma had died, and Dil had never had a home-cooked meal like this before. The Madden brothers weren’t exactly the chicken soup-cooking kind of guys.
Dylan and I finished eating at the same time, and I took his bowl and went to get more soup since Estella was still eating.
“Do you like it, Dylan?” Estella asked once I was sitting back down again.
Dylan nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve never had this before! You should make it again!”
There was silence as we continued eating. When we were done, Estella rose from her seat, cleared the table, and then proceeded to wash the dishes.
