Chapter 7 - Julie

Saturday morning breakfast with my parents is a tradition. A miserable tradition, but a tradition we keep. It's usually another opportunity for my mother to tell me I need a man. Mom always goes out with Mrs. Lettie on Friday nights, and she needs hangover food on Saturday mornings. I keep thinking that she'll surely stop doing this now that she's well into her sixties, but every weekend, she proves me wrong.

I hop out of the car, pulling my book back open to the chapter I left off before heading over. I'd finished my pirate book, and this new one is too good to put down for more than a few minutes. My eyes fall back to the scene with the rake, who is actively trying to prove his love for the demure lady. I'm making my way into the house when a deep, increasingly familiar voice stops me in my tracks.

"Nose in another book, I see. This one has to be the rakish gentleman."

I freeze, my eyes still locked on the page in front of me and not wanting to acknowledge the enormous form blurred in my peripheral vision. Kaius? Definitely his voice, but what the hell is he doing at my parents' house?

I peel my eyes away from the page and instantly regret it. He's standing in the small space between our living room and the front hall. Kaius has one hand bracing himself on the top of the doorway, and it looks like he just stepped out of the page of more than a few fantasy novels himself. The muscles of his arm are straining at the sleeve of his t-shirt and it's bunched up just a little, showing off the smooth skin of his waist that has that lovely deep V-shape. My body clenches. I let out a weak laugh as my mind deviates right down the darkest rabbit hole possible.

Oh fuck. You're hallucinating. Too much smut on the brain.

I blink rapidly, but he's still there. Nope. Not a hallucination.

"Why… What are you doing here?" I try to regain my composure, but I can feel the flush growing on my face. My breathing is shallower than I'd care to admit. I snap my book shut and try to remember I don't like him. I definitely don't want him to do that thing where he turns and pins me up against the wall and kisses me… My brain stalls yet again, and a familiar, wet anticipation reminds me there is definitely an attraction there physically, no matter how much I want to deny it.

"Your mom. She needed some tall person's help and I guess your brothers—"

"Yeah, they don't come around as much as she'd like. But I can do whatever she needs. You don't need to be here."

He bites his lips with a slow nod and steps closer to me, letting his hand drop from the door as he steps into my space. I am forced to look up at him because of the height difference and it is doing nothing to stop the visions of what I want him to do from racing through my mind. I back up a step, and he follows, keeping the space close between us.

"No, I didn't need to. But she asked. I can't help but think that you're not as upset to see me as you want to let on."

His voice has gone low, and it's barely whispering in the small space between us. Every nerve in my body is crying out with need. I open my mouth, intending to tell him again how much I don't want to see him, but the words die as an indistinct sound escapes the back of his throat. The look on his face has gone dark and intense, screaming of his own needs.

Oh, fuck.

Footsteps on the wooden floor bring reality slamming back into me. My parents. My parents" house. I cannot sit here lusting for this man, especially him, in the middle of my parents' house.

"Julie! Nice of you to join us this morning; you're late for breakfast," Mom says from behind Kaius, and his face changes to a more measured, patient look as he steps out from in front of me.

"Mom! Uh… Um, yeah. Sorry. I was reading and lost track of time."

"I think I've got the smoke alarms done, Mrs. H, but I do have to get going. I have to get some measurements collected for our project. I can come by again tomorrow for the other things you need," Kaius says as he turns to face my mother.

Her eyes are dancing from him to me and back. She looks like a kid on Christmas morning. She smiles up at him with a nod, and I tune out her rambling as she talks about the other things she wants him to help with. I use the moment to wrangle my brain back into some sort of rational thinking capacity.

Kaius turns to leave, and his eyes meet mine and shift from kind patience to dark intent again. A sly grin pulls at his wide, full lips.

"Julie, a pleasure as always. Tell me how things turn out with the rake later."

My eyebrows raise in response as a single awkward laugh slips out, and I shake my head. How does he even know so much about romance novels to give me a hard time about them? The idea is forming as his big form retreats out the door.

Kaius secretly reads trashy romance novellas. No, surely not. How does he know, though? I want to let my mind run with the idea, but my mother has different ideas. She drags me into the kitchen and pushes me into a chair next to Dad. The rest of breakfast is a long, drawn-out parade of all the ways my mom is trying to play matchmaker. By the time I leave at noon, she's exhausted me.

Snow has been falling since I left my parents' house, and the roads are covered in ice. Seems like a perfect excuse to spend the day inside reading. I curl up on the couch and finish my book. Once done, I have nothing else to do and dwell on all the reasons that Kaius is an absolutely terrible idea. I fall into a pattern of shuffling around the apartment, staring off into space, thinking and sighing. Rinse and repeat.

"Oh my God, Julie. Enough already," Georgia snaps as the sun falls, "Come on. Get shoes and a coat. We're going to the bar. If I have to listen to your mopey sighs, at least let me be drunk while I do it."

"No, come on, I don't want to go out. It's all icy," I whine.

"Did I stutter? Shoes. Coat. Ass in the car. Vamos."

Georgia levels me with an impatient, no-bullshit tolerated glare, and I groan. I know I'm not winning any arguments with her with that look on her face. I grudgingly push myself up off the couch and follow her demands.

We walk into the dim light of the bar, hustling out of the snow, and she drags me over to the end of the bar where Jim is leaning over to chat with our friend, Sarah. She's still in her sheriff uniform, so I'm assuming she's here on the clock and not able to drink with us. Her dark green eyes light up as we approach.

"Hey, you two, didn't think I'd see you out tonight. What's up?" Sarah tosses her short blond hair over her shoulder as she slides out of the way for us to sit at the bar.

"I cannot take another minute in that apartment with Little Miss Mopey Pants here," Georgia sighs dramatically as she gestures at Jim who just laughs and sets a rocks glass in front of her and starts pouring whiskey.

"I don't think I'm that bad," I mutter as I pull myself up into the tall bar stool with a bit more effort than Georgia had needed. My shorter legs make the entire process a little more difficult. Jim tilts his head at me, waggling the bottle of whiskey and I just shake my head. "Nah, I don't really want anything."

"What's eating at you?" Georgia asks as Sarah pats me on the shoulder before stepping away toward my uncle and his friends.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Not asking if you want to. Come on, out with it."

"It's… It's so stupid. Kaius." Her brown eyes widen a little with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows that makes the Breckenridge hat on her head dance up and down a little. "Oh my God, stop. Nothing like that. He's such an asshole. You know? But then today, he shows up at my parents' house to help mom change smoke detectors. She also had him rearrange the entire pantry so she could reach stuff. It just doesn't add up, you know."

"Mmmhmm, and?"

"There's no and. I just find him confusing. He gives off that Luke vibe with his snarky little comments, but then his actions are different. I can't tell if they're all just a way for him to keep people from really seeing him maybe. I just don't know what to do with it."

Sarah rejoins us, my uncle's arm looped around her shoulder while he sways. She sighs with a small shake of her head and gives me an apologetic look.

"Jules, I hate to ask, but I just got another call about a suspicious shadow lurking around the school. Can you get him home?"

"Sure, no problem. I've got him," I say with a smile and turn to Georgia, "You want to head out or hang out here?"

Sarah moves my uncle to lean on the bar and gives me a silent "Thank you" as she dashes for the door.

"I'll get a ride home with Jim. You go. Merl looks like he's thirty minutes from sleeping here on the floor."

I get Uncle Merl out to the car as the snow falls heavier. I'm going to have to take this drive slower than usual with this on top of the ice that's coating the roads already.

He's in a chatty, cheerful mood as we settle in for the short drive up to his house. Johnny Cash is playing on the radio, and he sings along. He's belting out the words with an enthusiasm that is purely fueled by whiskey at this point. He gets down to his "sharing wisdom" mood that always seems to accompany the end of his energy when he is this drunk.

"You know Julsie," he slurs my name, "You should be doing more."

"More?"

"You know… More," he gestures widely with his hands as we turn onto the dirt road that leads up to his house, "You could do better things than stack apples."

"I think I do plenty. Besides, if I don't stack apples, who will?" I ask him as I put the car in park, turning to look at him with a sad sigh. My parents aren't in any state to run the store regularly, and my brothers are never here.

"Eh, fuck the apples."

"I don't think that's going to keep the doctor away, Uncle Merl," I laugh as I push myself out of the car. I walk around to his side to help him out so that he doesn't fall. He's still chuckling at my joke as I pull him out.

"That would be something, wouldn't it? Apples."

"Come on, Uncle Merl. Let's get you inside," I laugh as he drapes an arm around my neck. We make it a few steps when I hear a branch crack loudly to my right. Something large moves in the corner of my eye, and I turn to see the source of the noise stepping through the tree line.

"What the fuck are you doing out here again?" I snap at Kaius, prepared entirely to stand up to him this time, but more branches cracking in rapid succession pull my attention to my left. The sounds are coming from the opposite direction. The dim light provided by the light in the driveway falls on four massive shadows as they break through the tree line.

My brain is struggling to process what I'm seeing. They're bigger than bears, massive. Four creatures are rushing closer, covered in scales, wings stretched out, and running on two legs with clawed hands.

"What the fuck?!"

I turn, trying to figure out what to do. Kaius is a few feet from Merl and me, and my breath stops as I watch a ripple of energy pass over his body. His clothes are torn away as the muscles expand, his body stretches several feet taller, and a set of large wings erupt from his back.

My attention turns back to the other creatures, and the scream is out of my mouth as one of the nearest creatures opens its jaws. A ball of light forms in the back of its throat with a hissing sound seconds before a massive stream of fire erupts in our direction, and Uncle Merl slumps out of my grip onto the ground.

Massive arms wrap around me, lifting me away as the flames sear past my uncle's body and set the back of his coat on fire. I reach out, but his body retreats in the distance as those massive wings beat, propelling us up into the air and away from the scene below.