He’d pulled me all the way down to his room when I recovered my sense of speech.

“What the hell?”

I forced my hands out of his now trembling one. He started pacing the room and throwing things out of his way, meanwhile, I was still trying to comprehend what just happened.

“You told your dad that I was your girlfriend?” He didn’t respond. He just kept pacing.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I yelled.

“Keep your voice down.”

He exclaimed as he slowed his pace to a stop and I glared at him, turning to leave. Why hadn’t I shoved his hands away that moment he grabbed onto mine? What was wrong with me? It’d been a long night and I needed to collect my thoughts.

“Please don’t leave-” He’d moved over to where I was and shot out his arm to grab my hands but he thought better of it and I looked at him in disbelief.

“At least, not until he leaves.” Had this guy lost his mind? Did the fight with his dad make him go crazy?

“Oh, yeah, I forgot.” He added casually. Your dad called to say you’re staying over.”

At the news, I sank down to the floor over-dramatically. “Why, why, why?” I chanted all over again as I put my hands over my eyes.

“Why? What do you mean? Is this the first time you’re staying away from your dad?” He sounded concerned? What was it with these brothers and their sudden change in attitude? I was sure this was all a dream. It was all so bizarre. Maybe if I went to sleep in my dream, I’d wake up to reality. To the real life before Chloe told me that they were moving and Dad wouldn’t have probably met Miranda, right?

“Hey.” I felt a light tap on my shoulder.

“Hey. Hello. You there? Are you asleep?” I shot up and my fingers scratched at Jamie’s nose.

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know-” I stopped talking as I watched him nurse his probably bleeding nose. I had quite sharp nails. He deserved it though even though I hadn’t done it on purpose. In fact, I think I’d drifted drifting off to sleep right there. Besides, if he was in my dream, he wouldn’t really get hurt. But wait, this wasn’t a dream.

“Geez, woman. Are you a cat or something?” I wasn’t paying any attention to him because I’d started pacing. Why did dad have to do this to me? I thought he’d take a while at least before he set his rules into motion. I only stopped in my tracks when I saw the blood dripping from his nose and rushed up to him.

“Oh no. There’s blood.”

“No shit.” He replied before heading to the bathroom.

I rushed in after him and took control after snatching the first aid box he dug out from under the sink. His blue eyes glared at me. Well, at least, his glare finally made an appearance tonight after all the weird expressions he’d been sporting since we got up here. After a little hesitation, he finally gave in when I glared at him equally. I cleaned the bruise with disinfectant and he flinched. He looked up at me and then, sighed.

“From all the questions running through your mind, you can ask me two out of ‘em”.

I stopped abruptly for a second. How had he moved from being that annoying boy to being the one open for questions about his life? I applied the Band-Aid and moved to wash my hands.

“And who says that out of the questions running through my mind, there’s one for you?”

He stared at me, his infamous frown coming into view. “Well, I gave you a chance to listen to my explanation.”

He got up from where he sat at the counter and I hurriedly spoke, taking the opportunity of him being vulnerable.

“Why aren’t you on good terms with your dad?”

He stopped in his tracks and tuned back to look at me and answered simply. “I’m not telling you that.”

Damn. I should’ve started from the least problem. I realized now that I was so eager to learn about what made his relationship with his father this horrid.

“You were the one who told me to ask questions.” I mumbled and he raised an eyebrow.

“Why uhh…why did you uhm…” I cleared my throat as I tried to find my voice. “Why did you tell your dad that I was your uh-”

He smirked at my stuttering. “Because I wanted to pay you for eavesdropping on our conversation yet again or should I say eavesdropping on conversation that has to do with me?” I felt blood rush up to my cheeks at his revelation.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping.” I argued. “I had to get my phone. And what do you mean by ‘eavesdropping yet again’?” I air-quoted, frowning at him.

“The other day when you eavesdropped on my mom’s conversation on the phone about me.”

“Are you being serious right now?” I scoffed.

“Yes.” He deadpanned.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping.” I said for the second time. “What should I have done? Walked up to her and told her to make her calls somewhere else because I didn’t want to listen to her phone conversation because we were hiding from her? You were also there and don’t forget you were the one scared about your mom finding you there.”

He strolled into his room and I rambled on, following him closely. Why couldn’t I stop? To be honest, about half of my rambling didn’t make any sense to me. The other half could make sense but it was pointless.

“I was scared of her finding me there because I skipped school and I didn’t want to make a bad impression but you were more concerned about her finding you there because you left the house when she probably instructed you not to.”

He didn’t seem to be bothered by me as he strolled over to his study table. I should probably ask him a question before he got bored of my stupid talk. He’d probably even forgotten what topic we were still on. Even I had forgotten. Oh, well.

“So, is Will your real dad?” He turned around immediately, almost bumping into me.

“I already answered two questions.”

“Wha-” I started to ask when I realized I’d asked him if he was being serious. Apparently, he had counted that as my second question.

“You’re a manipulative asshole.” I said bitterly and he chuckled. He actually chuckled. At me, even though it was at my expense. My heart did a weird thing then. It felt like my heart had grown two tiny legs and they started to do jumping jacks. Suddenly, I became very conscious that we were the only ones in the room. Trying to put a rein on my weird thoughts, I cleared my throat loudly and gestured to his nose.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You should be.” There, that asshole was back again but it didn’t lessen my weird intoxicated heart that had the power to grow stupid legs.

I looked out the window, thinking of what to say when he flopped down on his bed, his intertwined fingers moving behind his head.

“Why two?” I asked out of the blue and he looked up at me, confusion written all over his handsome face. I mentally slapped myself for that sacred thought. Seriously, what had possessed me?

“I mean, why do I only get to ask two questions? Three is a significant number; you could’ve said three-uh I have one more question.”

“Two is my lucky number. My brother and I are the only two kids and-” He started to look somber and I quickly bit down the ‘number two’ joke forming at the base of my tongue.

“Okay fine. Bonus question.” I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that he didn’t complete his previous statement. I was glad he didn’t count that as a question to make the three.

“Are you and Natasha dating?” I asked, much to my chagrin. I shouldn’t have asked that way.

“No, that came out wrong. I meant to ask; how do you know Natasha.”

“It’s none of your business. Now, go to sleep. He waved me out of his room. “Mom already cleaned up the guest bedroom downstairs for you. She had to drive Will to the airport and she apologizes for any inconvenience tonight. She’ll see you in the morning.” He’d probably summed up his mom’s words to be delivered to me.

“What? So, who’s home?”

“Nico and I are.” He smirked as he sat up lazily.

“Go to sleep, Tinkerbell.”

“What?” I asked again and I spun around because I’d begun to leave the room speedily. If I’d known that there wasn’t any adult around the house, I wouldn’t have stayed here for the past thirty minutes, if not more.

“Tinkerbell, the pixie who always gets in trouble? Pokes her nose into other people’s business?” He deadpanned.

“I’m not any of those-” I began until I realized something.

“Wait, you watch the adventures of Tinkerbell?” I asked eyes wide open.

“No, I watched Peter Pan, dumb.”