Page 16 of Love Bleeds

Chapter Six

When I came home, all of my siblings were gathered in the living room. Remy sat on the couch with Nix. Jared sat next to him, and Elena was curled up in one of the armchairs. Collin was placing a tray with cookies on the coffee table. All heads turned to me as I walked in.

"Finished your paper?" Collin asked.

Why did it feel like he hadn't expected me to be home yet?

"Where's your boyfriend?" I gave back instead of responding to my brother's question.

"Sleeping."

"It's already dark outside."

"A vampire can't sleep in?"

I made myself shrug. Why was I feeling so on edge again? There was no reason for me to argue with Collin. "What were you guys talking about?" I walked toward the couch and my brothers made space for me to squeeze in next to Jared. That was when I noticed a stack of notebooks on the coffee table next to the cookies.

Dad's notebooks.

"We were talking about vampires," Jared informed me. "Every one of us read one of the notebook to see if there was anything useful. Tonight we're comparing notes. We didn't think you would want to be involved."

Trust Jared to give it to me straight.

Silence descended upon the room as I processed the information. I didn't enjoy being treated as if I couldn't handle a task. Growing up as the baby of the family, that had happened far too often.

In this case, I kind of got it, but it still made me angry.

The worst part was that I couldn't tell if it would always have made me angry, or if this was part of what was wrong with new-me.

And honestly, after the day I'd had, I was too exhausted to puzzle that out. "Did you think I'd end up crying or something?"

"You've made it pretty clear that you don't want to have anything to do with this," Elena pointed out. "If we have these meetings when you're around, you make up an excuse to leave."

"Go easy on him, Elle," Remy cut in. "He's been through a lot."

"I know that. I'm just explaining."

I stood. "Don't worry about it. I'm just gonna go to bed."

Nix chose that moment to start crying as if he wanted to remind everyone that I wasn't the baby of the family anymore. Well, at least he was going to take the attention offme.

For a moment, I watched a look of horror not unlike my own cross Remy's face as he struggled to figure out what to do with a crying infant. At least I wasn't the only one in the family who didn't know a thing about babies. With the exception of Collin, my brothers were no better than I was.

Or, that was what I thought until Jared reached out to take the baby from Remy as if he knew exactly what to do. Within a few minutes, my oldest brother managed to quiet the inconsolable infant in his arms as if it was no big deal at all.

Remy and I both stared.

"What?" Jared asked. "It's a baby, not rocket science."

True. It would be way easier if it was rocket science. There were established, logical rules behind rocket science.

At my back, Elena laughed. "You should see the look on your face," she said when I glanced at her.

"As if you're any better with babies." I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

Elena shrugged. "Never claimed to be." Her expression turned serious again, and I realized that I'd missed my chance to leave the room while everyone's focus was elsewhere. "I think it's time for you to stop pretending like vampires don't exist."

"I'm not pretending anything! I'm living with a vampire. There's bottles of blood in our fridge."