The Lost Child

Chapter 3

"Get settled, and then come back downstairs for lunch," Ryan says, and I silently nod, and he leaves the bedroom, shutting the door behind himself.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, I look around the room as I walk over to the queen size bed with dark blue bedding, and place my two bags on top as I sit down. The room is decently sized with light gray painted walls, and two closed doors that I'm assuming are the bathroom and a closet. There's a dark gray colored dresser with three large drawers against the wall with the closet and bathroom doors, and above the dresser is a fifty-five inch flat screen tv mounted onto the wall. There's a window bench seat with three drawers underneath with two dark gray reading pillows, and two dark blue throw blankets, and a floor to ceiling bookcase next to the window bench seat.

Turning so I have my left leg bent onto the bed, and my right leg bent at the knee, my foot hanging above the floor, and grab one of my bags to unload the contents onto the bed. Doing the same with the second bag, I grab my four shirts, another pair of pants, six pairs of underwear and six pairs of socks, and carry these over to the dresser. Setting the clothes on top of the dresser, I open the top drawer to place all of my clothes inside, and shut the door. Wandering back over to the bed, I grab my bathroom items - deodorant, hairbrush, shampoo, conditioner, hair gel, body wash,  black eyeliner, and my six seamless hoops for my snakebites - two are solid black, two are silver, and two are rainbow colored. I currently have two seamless hoops that are currently white.

Placing my bathroom items in a drawer in the top drawer of the cabinet with the sink before heading back out to the bedroom. Grabbing my sketching pad, special drawing pencils, colored pencils, eraser, and sharpener, I place these in the nightstand drawer. Going back to the bed, I grab the two bags, and stuff these into the second drawer of the dresser, and decide that I should head back downstairs now.

Glancing around the room one last time with a deep inhale of breath that I let out slowly while walking over to the door, opening it, and heading out into the hallway as I shut the door behind me while letting out the air. Slowly making my way down the stairs, I can hear five different voices coming from the kitchen area, so that's where I head.

My steps falter when I reach the archway of the kitchen, and I find another guy in the room that wasn't here when I arrived. Well, I don't think he was, but he could have been in the kitchen when Michael and I arrived. Ryan sees me standing there nervously before anyone else, and motions for me to join them, and I make my way over to them, and I can feel ten pairs of eyes on me despite having my eyes on the floor a few inches in front of my feet.

"Sorry that I took too long, sir, it won't happen again," I whisper, hoping that he isn't angry with me.

"Lake, you're fine, and you didn't take too long, I promise," Ryan replies with a gentle voice, and I nod in understanding. "This is William, he's Vincent's best friend, but he's more like another son to me, and another brother to the boys. Will, this is my youngest son, Lake, who I wasn't aware of until just recently, and he's come to live with us now."

"It's nice to meet you, Lake," William states, and his right hand appears in my line of vision, flinching back slightly because I thought he was going to hit me, but then I realize he just wants to shake hands with me.

Lightly placing my right hand in his for a quick hand shake before pulling my hand back at my side, murmuring; "Nice to meet you, too."

"How do you feel about ordering pizza for delivery, Lake?" Ryan asks, and I briefly glance at him with a nod of my head for an answer, and he gives me a soft smile. "Great! I'll call the order in, but first I'd like to know what you like on your pizza?"

Shrugging my shoulders, whispering; "I dunno, I've never had pizza. Mom and dad never allowed me to have pizza. I couldn't even have it when I was at school, or with my friends, so whatever you guys order is fine."

Peaking at the five of them from my eyelashes, I see them giving me strange expressions, like they're surprised I wasn't allowed to eat this particular food.

"Mom and dad said pizza wasn't healthy with all the grease, and if I ate pizza, I'd get fat, and no one wants to be around me if I'm fat," I murmur with dark red cheeks. "Not that any of you are fat or unhealthy, but that's what I was told."

"You're okay, Lake," Reid assures, and I nod in relief that I didn't offend any of them. "We aren't offended by your answer, or what you were told by mom and her husband."

"Let's go into the living room, and we can play on the Xbox until dinner arrives, and then we can watch a movie while we eat," Orion suggests. "How does that sound?"

Everyone agrees but me as I don't know what an Xbox is, or how to play on it, and I wasn't allowed to watch many movies, so my acceptance of either of these doesn't matter. Following behind everyone except Ryan as he stays in the kitchen to call in the food order, and I glance around nervously because I have no clue where to sit, so I'm not in the way.

Deciding to linger until everyone else has sat down, so I can sit in an empty spot, I sit on an end of the couch because the four guys are sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, and are facing toward the tv with controllers in their hands. Ryan joins us a few seconds later, and looks at me and then them in confusion as he sits down in the recliner next to me.

"Don't you want to play video games with them, too?" he softly asks, like he's trying not to draw attention to us, or his question.

"I don't know how to play video games, I wasn't allowed," I mumble, feeling really stupid now that I admitted this out loud.