The Alpha's Daughter: Whispers in the Wind [on hold]

Whispers in the Wind - Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

Radleigh:

I thought that I was going to die.

That’s what it felt like.

A demon hangover that didn’t seem to want to persist, loomed over me like a disease, practically paralysing me and rendering me an invalid.

I was never drinking again.

There had to be laws about this.

Aye, Radders, Zane trilled, far too loudly for my liking, underage drinking is frowned upon in most cultures!  Bloody know-it-all. Why did he have to be so right? And loud? Zane had to be the loudest bloke in this place, as well as the skinniest.

How did he do that? Lungs the size of Belgium in a guy the width of a broomstick.

Not everything’s the width of a-

I didn’t need to know that! Honest to God, I didn’t need to know that! That sort of thing needed to be kept between him and Ade. I was just an innocent ginger in the grand scheme of things; too young to know about those sorts of things. Aye, too young; too inexperienced was more like it.

It was embarrassing, if I was completely honest; you could hear everyone in this house at it every night, and yet there I was in a lonely bed, with just my niece to keep me company. What had happened to being a good looking ginger? Theoretically, the offers should have been rolling in.

Instead, I had decided to get smashed on my own. With slightly disastrous consequences, if I did say so myself. It was like my brain had found the whole thing so traumatic, that it had blocked out last night’s events. Fair enough, I think it might have ended with me falling on top of Ade...

It had been a week since the wee altercation with Cal, and I could honestly say that things were a long way from getting better. At least she was no longer sniffling and squirming, that had to count for something. No thanks to her waste of space dad. Why have kids if you weren’t going to look after them? It seemed pointless to me.

Then again, I was just the poor sucker who was looking after the wee mite.

Never mind what I thought about it.

My door slammed open, the noise crushingly loud for my delicate head.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and get up, Radleigh,” Dad sighed. Sorry for myself? Had he looked in the fucking mirror? He wasn’t exactly bounding for joy, was he? He’d just sat in that bloody study whilst I faffed about and tried to stop everything from falling apart?

And what thanks did I get? When had anyone actually bothered to turn around and thank me for it? Never, that’s when. Because they were all too wrapped up in their own little worlds to notice what I’d been doing all this time. Rosie would have starved to death if it hadn’t been for me, the house would have been a tip if it wasn’t for me, the bills wouldn’t be paid if it wasn’t for me and Zane would be dead if it wasn’t for me.

A little recognition would have been nice.                                               

“Just get up, Boyo,” Dad muttered, watching me seethe.

“I’m getting up,” I grumbled, flinging back the blankets and getting to my feet. In response, Dad snorted with laughter, shaking his head.

“Oh, Radleigh…”

“What?” I demanded. He nodded at my stomach, which I hesitantly glanced down at. Someone – and I was taking a huge guess that it had been Zane – had drawn an arrow pointing to the waistband of my boxers, paired with the words “100% Ginger”.