Of Warlords and Children (Trafalgar Law Book 2)

Chapter Six

Today is the day. The Whitebeard pirates were scheduled to arrive within a few hours or so. I'm so excited to see Sam and Ace once again. It's been so long and I'm excited to see how they're getting along now. I hope everything with them has been well.

Either way everyone was busy today. With the annoucement from Tema that they would be arriving soon everyone got it in their heads that they needed to clean everything from top to bottom. I have no idea why though. Never the less everyone was running around getting things cleaned.

"Duck!" Shachi says as he carries a huge bag of what looks like laundry, he nearly clocks me in the head.

"Watch out Rayne!" Claire and Cyrus yell as they rush past me, pushing rags down the hallway to clean the floor. I lose my balance and stumble around.

"Alright you're coming with me before you and my nephew get hurt." Vein says as he steadies me. He herds me into the fabric room and settles me down in a chair by his desk. 

I roll my eyes, "You don't know the gender and who says I'll make you an uncle?"

I look around the room to see that it's nothing like what it was a short time ago. Fabrics were rolled up and put up according to color, the floor was swept up, and the porthole window was wiped down. Over in the corner a small hammock made from an old net was haphazardly slung, bedding and a pillow tangled up in it. Looking at it and thinking about my own bed I can't believe that he actually sleeps in such a thing.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Vein pauses from his sorting through various fabrics left on the floor that he hadn't sorted through yet. 

I shake my head, "It's nothing."

"You've got that face on that lets me know you're thinking about something pretty hard."

"What face?"

Vein smirks and holds up a purple fabric with pink polka-dots, "Your right eyebrow always raises a bit and you tend to bite the left side of your cheek."

"And how would you know that?"

He shrugs, "I observe things."

I want to call bullshit on him so bad but it won't get me anywhere. Either way I'll just sit back and bide my time, eventually I'll catch him off guard and he'll tell me what I want to know. Hearing a curse I look back up to see a whole heap of fabrics fall on his head along with some old box. The top flies off and a bunch of random things skitter across the floor. 

Curiosity piques my interest. I pick the item up, “So what are all of these strange things?” I ask. I go to the eclectic box touching the objects one by one and simultaneously gathering them up. 

A broken watch.

An old scarf.

One worn out Marines hat with a hole right in the top of it.

Several shells of varying sizes. 

An old book with a worn out cover, pressed flowers captured on the pages. 

And a pink pen with a ladybug topper.

Vein doesn’t answer me and I turn around to see a far-away look on his face. I may not know what this stuff exactly is but I can tell that it’s important to him. Important enough to take care of these things with the attention he has. 

“Vein?” I prompt.

The ravenette shakes his head, probably clearing whatever thoughts he had. “Sorry-uh- it’s just some old junk I’m too stubborn to throw away, I’m kinda a packrat if you can’t tell.”