Page 51 of Shrouded in the Dark

“You win!” Keeping my eyes shut, I searched for the napkin holder on the island to wave one in surrender.

Cody’s chuckle sounded just to the left of me. His body heat felt searing as he hugged me. “That’s right. I win. You can open your eyes, starlight. I’ll behave.”

My eyes squinted at him as he stepped back to go back to the stove.

“I’m going to get you one day, you know that?”

“You can try.” His back was to me, but amusement was clear in his voice.

Tilting my head, I looked at his back more closely than before. There were scars, so faded that I wouldn’t have noticed except I was squinting at him. They were jagged. Something sharp and nasty had to have made them. The scars trailed from the back of his arms in some kind of pattern and continued under the shirt. Those looked like they’d been given intentionally.

There was more to Cody than meets the eyes. His scars were personal and I wouldn’t ask him about them. One day, maybe, he’d talk to me about them when he opened himself up more to me. If there was a ‘one day’ in the future after summer, that is.

The thought of summer ending made me look out the window. What would happen after summer? Would everything go back to the way it’d been before? Would I take a step backward in my social anxiety? These guys had done wonders for it in a few short weeks in making me relax. Would I only get to see Axel and Jasper when Felicity hung out with Axel? Cody didn’t even go to our school. Seth worked.

An ache in my heart had me rubbing my chest. I hoped we’d all still be friends, even if it meant that these feelings that were blooming within me had to wilt to keep in contact with them.

When we were back in the city, there’d be hundreds of better looking, gorgeous skinny women who’d throw themselves at the guys’ feet. There’d be no way I could compete with that. I was the only woman they had around here, maybe that’s why they flirted the way they did. Because I was the only one around?

My thoughts had taken a dark turn. That blackness on the edges of my eyes had creeped in while I’d been musing to myself. I closed my eyes with a deep breath.

The guys weren’t like that. Least of all Jasper. He’d already showed that he wanted to be friends during school.

I wasn’t going to let my insecurities win.

“Hey, Becca,” Cody’s soft voice got my attention, “you alright? Lunch is ready.”

I opened my eyes to find him peering at me from the side of the island where he’d moved again to be next to me. There was a steaming plate of tortillas with the skillet in front of me. He’d even put out the plates and utensils while I’d been mentally talking to myself.

“I’m good. It smells so yummy, Cody. Thank you!” To show him that I was, I started piling my plate with two tortillas filled with the fajita fixings. The first bite was hot, but so worth the slight burn. “How are you all such good cooks?” I mumbled around the food in my mouth except it came out sounding more like, “Puw aw yoo ah gedook?”

He moved to sit next to me, filling up his tortillas. “Seth made us all take a few cooking classes. He was tired of all the burnt toast.” He actually took the time to blow on his food, unlike me, before taking a bite. “Plus, I like cooking.”

“Huh. He really takes care of everyone, doesn’t he?”

We both were quiet in a comfortable silence for a few minutes as we ate.

“Yeah. He’s like our Daddy.”

This was the second time that Cody had made me choke on my food within forty-eight hours. He was busy laughing his ass off as I attempted to slap my chest as I coughed. A large hand patted the middle of my back as I stopped dying from another Cody innuendo.

When I looked upward, Seth was the one who had been patting my back and now stood behind me. I resisted the urge to lean back into him. His eyes swirled with emotions as he graced me with a soft smile.

“We have to start watching to make sure you don’t choke to death at every meal, hmm?” His hands came to rest on my shoulders as I looked up at him.

“It’s not my fault that he’s a pervert and he says those… those things!”

Cody howled louder. I looked over to him to see him slapping his knee as his left hand on the island seemed to keep him from falling over.

Seth’s hands squeezed my shoulders before he pulled up the last stool on the other side of Cody. He filled his plate with the remaining food.

“You’ll learn, Becca, that he may be the most outspoken pervert, but the rest of us are just as perverted. Just in other ways, ones that are more subtle. After all, I am the Daddy who taught him everything he knows.” He gave me an exaggerated wink as he bit into his food.

My mouth gaped as Cody finally laughed so hard, he fell onto the floor on his back. He clutched his stomach.

“Her face! Her face!”

I’d show them. I could get a reaction from them, too. My thoughts whirled as I searched for a way to get back at them both.