The One Who Left | In Progress

{ Ch. 15 }

Will leaves, angry and embarrassed, especially since I never even heard him out properly. Thoroughly scolded by me - he tried to exit like a man but unfortunately we could tell the childlike fit of anger from a mile away... and not just because he slammed the door on his way out.

"Noah, I'm gonna stay here tonight." I say to him after everyone leaves the room in favour of the kitchen. "I'll stay too I guess." Noah scratches the back of his head; and Wyatt and Jess overhear him as they come closer to our conversation. Busybodies.

"We don't have enough room. Lloyd already took the guest room and Deliliah has her own room," Jessabelle says, a brow raised. "Noah, you're with..." "One, two, three - not it!" Henry shouts and everyone follows suit; sticking their thumb on their forehead. "Wait, I wasn't..." I shout, clearly going to lose. It's official as Lloyd sticks out his tongue at me, his thumb already on his head. "ready." I slump, groaning at my loss. Noah's bunking with me... unfortunately. Noah looks at me before turning to Lloyd. Ugh, not so much as a hi - pretentious.

Lark eyes Noah coming towards me, "I don't trust him." He mutters and I grin, "Then you'll bunk with him?" I ask sweetly, batting my eyelashes at my bestest friend. Lark snorts, "I don't trust the asshole and you know what's in my room so I'm sorry Dels but you're on your own." I sulk. "C'mon, you know you can take him." Lark laughs," I'll make your favourite..." Lark sings and I immediately perk up. "Lasagne?" "The goat." Lark chuckles and I follow him to the kitchen, dreamily sighing as I watch my adopted brother work his magic. "This is the usual sight around here." Lloyd says. "Lark's the chef of the house and Delilah fawns..." "Let me guess, over him?" The voice of Noah rings out and Lark and Lloyd snort, me murmuring eww under my breath. No offense but that's my brother. Well, adopted brother. "No, over the food." Lloyd corrects his friend with an eye roll. "I can't help it." I mumble, "Lark's food is to die for."

"But what are you doing here anyway?" I ask Noah curiously and he looks at me blankly. "I can't help but think there's ulterior motives involved..." I say, unable to put my finger on it. Lloyd and Lark exchange glances before snorting in unison. It was that 'Delilah is as dumb as rocks' snort that they gave me whenever I couldn't figure something out that was completely obvious to them.

"Never mind, don't answer that." I shake my head, just as someone knocks on the door... and I already know who it is before I see them.

"Henry, give it back!" "Stop it Bri!" "But Jess -" "I said STOP! Damnit Henry!" "What?!"

Henry, Bri and Jess' bickering brings a rare smile to my face, Kael follows behind them - intensely glowering at the constant irritations and Noah's gaze lingers on the doorway.

Henry gets up not noticing the three of us sitting in the kitchen. "Whew, that was a close one," He says relieved, walking backwards toward the couch. "For a second there I thought Kael heard." He smiles as the rest of the group stare at him with big eyes that seemed to be saying: 'oh shit'. Kael hated argument, he was anal like that... but he was also the boss - that could sniff out perpetrators immediately. Ironic because he was a perp according to the law.

Henry's face falls, smile fading, "He's right behind me isn't he."
"... And also heard everything." Kael folds his arms, a maniacal smirk hiding behind his stony façade. "You're in charge of the girls."

Okayy, so I definitely didn't see that coming. Did he really think that seemingly normal remark wasn't going to mean anything to Bri and Jess (who were, according to my knowledge, feminists - in the sense that they wanted equality). Mistake number one."What?!" Jess, Lark, Brianne and Henry (and me... and Lloyd) exclaim that same time, and everyone starts arguing all over again, Kael watching coldly as they revert to square one.

"Is it just me or is Kael really starting to think he can control all of us." Brianne mutters as she angrily walks past Kael, stomping to her room. "Lark are you going back to school?" Jessabelle asks after Kael leaves to 'supervise' Henry, "It was a joke Bri! Henry c'mon don't be mad!"
"Sure." Inwardly melting at his big brother behaviour I grin. "Yeah, sorry Jess - but Lark and I are a team." I nod enthusiastically. "You just want him to get you food Dels. You don't count." Jess scoffs and I give her a half smile. "You know me too well." I laugh, "You going?" "Henry's going, I'm not abandoning my little brother so I'm enrolling in the community college - it's meh I guess." "Yeah, Henry's your brother. Kael has no right to try his tricks on you guys." Noah finally speaks from his brooding corner - narrowing his eyes to the direction that Kael left.
"I trust him, he's my boyfriend - he won't do anything selfish without a reason." Jess says simply - too simply - and Lark looks at her, thinking the same thing that all of us are: what if he was selfish? "You guys are back together?" I ask, curiously. She just shrugs. "It's..." "Complicated, we know." Lark and I drone in sync and laugh. It's always complicated with those two - usually they piss each other off and have a 'timeout' on their relationship. It's not healthy, but it's their relationship - not mine.