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Julian started laughing.

“He made me watch that movie with him,” Julian told me. “He tried to watch it on his own and couldn’t do it. He does that a lot. He might love horror movies and scary shit, but he always needs someone to hold his hand through it. And, you watch it all by yourself in the dark. Our brave girl.”

Julian continued to laugh at Damien’s need for hand holding. I didn’t laugh. Everyone should have a hand holding buddy for when they wanted to watch scary movies. I was envious of Damien having Julian there for those things.

“Do you enjoy scary movies?” I asked Julian.

After a slight hesitation, he answered me, “No. I hate them. I like tragedies and love stories.”

I liked those, too, but still…

“I’ll do your horror movie hand holding with you from now on, if you want me to.” I told Damien before I could think better of it.

Holy crap! This was Damien. Why would I do that, offer to hold his hand? He had a girlfriend… You didn’t offer to hold the hand of someone who had a girlfriend.

“I-” I tried to cover for my error, but he got there before me.

“I would love that,” Damien said in a husky voice while watching me with his warm, intense eyes. “You’re saving Julian’s ass here big time. Before I leave tonight, you’re going to have to give me your number, so I can hit you up.”

What?

Damien wanted me to give him my phone number? What was going on here? And, what about his girlfriend? Wouldn’t that make her angry? I knew it would make me really, really angry.

“We aren’t watching a horror movie,” Quinton stated, cutting into the awkward silence that had followed Damien telling me he was going to get my phone number.

I had agreed with Quinton. My first night in a new place… I absolutely did not need to be watching a horror movie before going to bed.

None of this had anything to do with why I had stepped forward to begin with. I needed to forget about holding Damien’s hand and get back to the important stuff.

I sought out Abel and found him sitting next to his brother. They were both staring at me intently.

“What’s the deal with you and not wanting to watch people going into the water?” I blurted out. “Why would that give you nightmares?”

I didn’t get it, and I wanted to know.

From here on out, if I thought about it, then I was going to ask about it. They never held off on asking me questions. Why should I hold off when they didn’t? That wasn’t how you got to know someone.

There were so many questions I never asked because I didn’t want to be rude in doing so. That time was over.

The silent room had grown still. Everyone froze, becoming statues. They all looked brittle, ready to break at any second.

“Damn it,” I had cursed myself silently. What had I said to turn them into brittle statues? What had I done?

It was like trying to waltz through a minefield with these people. If they could all come with an instruction manual, that would be extremely beneficial to me.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but our parents died in a plane crash,” Abel said in a small, subdued voice. “The plane went down into the ocean. There were very few survivors and our parents weren’t among them. One of the survivors said there had been more of them but they lost a bunch of people to sharks. He said that our dad was one of the one’s to be attacked by the sharks. Unless it’s a pool, water freaks me out and I won’t go in it anymore.”

My heart had tried to break inside my chest, and I had wanted to cry.

Quinton had taken it upon himself to be in charge of what we watched after Abel’s confession.

That was how I had come to find myself seated on the floor in Dash’s living room in between my Salt and Pepper twins with each of them holding on tight to one of my hands.

Thankfully, Binx had climbed into my lap and he made everything seem so much better.

That cat seemed to love me. I fell in love with him right back.

Dash was on the floor with his legs drawn up to his chest and his back to the end of the couch furthest from me. Damien, Julian and Quinton were all seated together on the couch. Tyson didn’t sit. He leaned against the wall beside the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.