“Celia!” my parents would shout. “Open the door! Are you okay?!”
Jett would bellow, “Sean, you’re going home on the next flight and you’re walking to get there!”
But Sean would kiss me, rasping against my lips, “Worth it.”
Oh fuck! My pussy tightens, pounding out an orgasm that makes me boneless. I grip the wet walls and try to catch my breath as the pulses rush through me, tingles flying down my body. Panting, I turn off the water and open the curtain to find a pair of eyes staring at me. I scream like someone in a horror film even as I realize it’s our cat sitting on the countertop, serenely awaiting the opportunity to be let out of the bathroom.
“Celia?” My mother shouts, bursting from her room.
Grabbing my robe I whip it on and open the door, poke my drenched head out, “It was just Tickles, Mom,” I explain as he scurries past me and into her room. “He scared the hell out of me. Must have come in to use the cat-box and I didn’t see him when I walked in.”
“Oh,” she exhales, says to Dad as he stares out from their room, just his shoulders and grey bed-head showing. “It was the cat.” Pointing to Atlas’s room where I’m embarrassed to find him and Sean standing there, she says, “I thought it was you!”
Atlas points to his chest, surprised. “Me?”
“Not you, dummy! Him! We don’t know him well enough yet.”
Innocent, Sean shakes his head. “Would never do that, Carmen.”
She nods, shaking out her concern as she goes back to bed, muttering before Dad closes the door, “Better not.”
Atlas isn’t fazed—he goes back inside first.
Sean holds my eyes a second longer.
He gives me a wink, and disappears.
CHAPTER 11
SEAN
J ett made me take a day off to heal up. I objected, but it did nothing.
Breakfast was full of ribbings from the Ciphers.
“You fall out of a tree?”
“Scrape your body across glass before you came down?”
“Don’t need to try that hard to impress us, kid.”
“Hey, who’s road kill here? Sean, is that you? Sorry buddy, couldn’t recognize you with all the lacerations.”
“Might want to try a different plastic surgeon.”
“Yeah, that one fucked you up good!”
“I’d get my money back.”
“I’d get my face back!”
“Yeah, where’d you leave it?”
That’s when I start laughing, and they all crack up with me. This pain was a small price to pay for them treating me like I’m a friend. Sage tells the room as she munches on scrambled eggs and jalapeño sausages, “And yet he’s walking around like he’s untouched. You have a high tolerance for pain, Sean.”
As I pour fresh coffee into one of the waiting mugs, I mutter, “Guess so.”
Honey Badger grumbles over buttered wheat toast, “You’ll need it.”
The playfulness of the room dissipates as Ciphers reach over each other to fill their plates. I grab my stuff and head outside to eat on the back porch since I saw Celia and Atlas go out there. Sky’s as bright as it was yesterday, muggier though. As I approach I hear Atlas say to her, “My stomach’s killing me.”
She frowns, totally focused on him. She leans over and touches it.
My gaze drops to the old table where my plate and coffee find a home. I take a seat on one of the rocking chairs, trying to hide my interest in their connection. I still haven’t been able to figure it out yet. I know she likes him, but how does he feel about her?
“Stomach flu?” she asks, voice gentle.
He winces, puts her hand back on her leg, acting tough. “I’m cool. Probably just ate something bad.”
His rejecting her help made her self-conscious and she throws me a look to see if I caught it, too. My face is void of opinion, though I’ve got a few. I take Sage’s example I saw inside just now, and eat my sausage with my fingers, too.
Since I’ve been getting to know Atlas, staying in his room and all, I decide to venture a question. “Your dad mad I’m here?”
“He’s mad my brother’s not.” Shoving some toast in his mouth, he stares off.
Celia’s quiet a moment then shares with me, “Luke slept with Sofia Sol, and that’s forbidden.”
This confuses me. When I met them, I thought they were together. Even called her his girlfriend and they didn’t dispute it. It was an assumption on my part that they let ride. Sofia Sol told me they wouldn’t get close to me until I was one of them. Probably threw out the decoy to confuse me.
“Smart,” I mutter behind my steaming coffee.
Atlas’s explodes, “What’s smart about it?!”
I lower the cup, “Whoa, I wasn’t talking about that. My mind went on a different tangent.” His eyes narrow with suspicion, so I set my coffee on the table. “Didn’t know I’d spoken ‘til you freaked, Atlas. Swear to God.”
Celia hurries to reassure him, her hand clasping his bicep with easy familiarity. “You know Sean’s honest. If he meant to say that them hooking up was smart, he’d own it.”
“It’s true, I would.”
He shoots off the chair, ripping free from Celia’s touch, storms off to who knows where. We watch him. I venture a confused, “What was that about?”
She stares at the spot where he was, voice low, too. “He’s working through some things.”
“Probably just the tension in the house. Misses his brother. Sister treating him like shit. Dad barely talking. Or is his dad always like that?”
“Opposite. He and Jett love each other. They’re super tight. Honey Badger is ferocious out on the road when we do missions, but at home he’s a sweetheart, laughing and making jokes all the time. Always at someone’s expense.”
“I noticed that’s the way it rolls here.”
“You like that?”
“What’s
