Dulcis Domus

CHAPTER-3

The dining room too is all Disney princess esque as the rest of the house, more like the ball room in all those princess movies than actually a dining room, they haven’t even had a dining room back home, just a kitchen/living area and a bunch of bedrooms. Despite her worries, the room regardless of its size and splendor is pretty empty other than the large amount of food placed on the table.

The first person to greet them is a blonde woman who she guesses is Mrs. Ashford, her assumptions are proved right once she introduces herself and politely asks them to take a seat at the glimmering table.

The woman is at least a decade younger than Mr. Ashford, and has a billion times more kindness and manners than her step daughter.

Which, thinking of the devil…

“Ah, Marylyn glad you could finally join us dear” Mrs. Ashford greets and Marylyn looks like she would rather be anywhere but there and continues to scowls as she takes a seat opposite to Mrs. Ashford and furthest away from the two of them.

Luke wonders how much of a bad person she is if she admits that seeing Marylyn’s annoyed features actually make her feel a little better about the whole situation, at least CJ and her won’t be the only ones miserable, seems pretty fair if you ask her.

The next person to join them is their Lawyer Lady Carrie who apologizes profusely for her lateness before taking a seat next to CJ with a warm smile directed at the two of them, by this point Luke is not ashamed to admit how much her presence seems to relax them, as she said a familiar stranger and all that s**t.

She is relived when Mrs. Ashford directs them to dig in, mainly because this means nobody else will be joining them and she couldn’t finally start eating, not to seem eager but she is starving.

“So tell me, what are your interests?” Mrs. Ashford inquires once they have managed to take few good bites of their meal and a comfortable silence has set over them, at least Marylyn hadn’t looked at her so far and when you ignore that headache the room is kind of peaceful, and the food is pretty good too despite all her jokes about rich people eating sea weed and fish eggs so she doesn’t really have a lot to complain about.

Luke turns to CJ hoping he would take the lead as she didn’t have lot to brag about academically or not so academically, but it seems communication is not in her brother’s agenda for the day because he pretends like he didn’t even hear the question, his gaze focused laser sharp on his food and not chocking on his chicken, asshole, she will have to deal with that later.

“CJ is pretty good at the whole science aspects; he won the county science fair 3 years in a row and he is in the track team?” Luke answers once she swallows her food, the last part coming out more as question because all she knew was CJ did sports but not the specifics, their old high school didn’t shed light on the whole sports aspect, there was just the usual gym class and teams but they didn’t have lot of matches.

“Swim Team” CJ corrects with a glare, Luke glares right back because if he cared so much he should have answered the question himself instead of letting her deal with it.

“Yeah that” Luke corrects sheepishly but Mrs. Ashford grins at the both of them.

“Don’t worry Eddridge has a long list of sport teams, from cricket to net ball so you can choose anything you want and even follow a career in that if you are willing, most of our teams makes it to nationwide games, We even had a few Olympians, one even in my year -It’s pretty exciting” Mrs. Ashford says elegantly taking a bite out of her plate.

“Oh, you went to there too?” Luke asks just for the sake of making conversation, she pointedly does not use the name of her new school.

“Oh Yes-A proud Zxenna here” she gleams at the two of them pointing to her elegant blue dress. She must have caught on to their clueless expression because they had no idea what on earth a Zxenna was, is that like a disease you overcome? A sports team?.

“Oh-I thought Marylyn would have told you all about the house system, Didn’t you Mare?” She asks and Luke tries her very best not to snort at that, she doesn’t know whether it’s because of the fact Mrs. Ashford assumed that her step daughter would be kind enough to have civil conversation or Marylyn’s preferred pet name was ‘Mare’, like a horse, despite her best attempts she does manage a smug smile at ‘Mare’s distraught looking face.

“Must have slipped my mind, I am afraid” she lies through pointed teeth, and look at that, there is a person she actually respects in the world. She would have assumed Marylyn was a b***h to her step mother too.

“Yes, with all the wonderful other topic we talked about” Luke can’t help but mummer out sarcastically, mainly hoping just CJ or even Carrie would be the auditors to her natural sarcasm, but with the pointed glare Marylyn gives her, it was pretty loud, Luke just gives her the best devilish smile that made her Ma always keep an extra eye on her.

“Not to worry, Ah it just gives me the opportunity to do the honors I guess, how exciting!! I never had the opportunity to brag about Eddridge, youngest of the lot that’s me. Okay, we have got this amazing housing division system, 7 houses and its according to these houses that your boarding and all the other activities except classes work, its bit like the frats and sororities in college just a lot better and tons more awesome, I am saying that as an alumni of Delta Kappa Nu so let’s keep it between us okay. Haha. Everything is evaluated on the basis of the houses and by the end of the year the house with the highest score gets the prestigious House of the Year Trophy, to win a trophy is such an honor, so everything is a competition, the dorms, the sports, the teams, the academics. And the parties, Ohh the parties are pretty amazing. Do Aphora still throw the best parties? Or does Igneous scoop over that category too?-Oh, Sorry I am getting way head of myself again” Mrs. Ashford says, the calm and elegant exterior popping for a second as she gets excited, luckily she stops for a sip of water, or whatever it is that she is drinking.

“Anyway as I was saying there are 7 houses; Igneous-Who has been winning the HOY trophy for quite a while now, Mare’s Crusadious, My own Zxenna, Aurioum-which is all boys, Aphora-which is in turn all girls, Callisets and Magnium, The Ashford line had been strictly limited to Crusadious for the past decade, which is sad considering Zxenna is the best house” Mrs. Ashford says a with a playful smile towards Marylyn.

“Zxenna hadn’t won the House of The year trophy in the past 20 years Anna” Marylyn cuts in, it’s a bit surprising to see genuine interest in her words without the bitchy demeanor, in fact Luke remembers her telling something about being Crusadious, that s**t must mean something to them then.

“Igneous has been winning the trophy for years, and you constantly tell me how they are all horrible, similarly just because we don’t win the HOY a lot doesn’t mean that we aren’t the best house, we have the sense of team and joy of friendship coursing through our veins. Marylyn is meant to be the Head of House for Crusadious this year, that’s why she is so defensive” she informs them proudly and Luke can do nothing but nod along.

All she understood was there was some Hogwarts s**t going on, but without the magic stuff and you know Dumbledore, she assumes Crusadious is the Slytherin without the wonderful qualities of a genuine Slytherin considering Marylyn is in it.

Mrs. Ashford opens her mouth again, probably to wax poetry about her house once again but before she can one of the butlers is swinging the door open and someone is sauntering into the room, and everyone is stilling in their motion, Luke silently tries to chew the chicken in her mouth once the whole room stills in its motion.

Luke instantly thinks it is Mr. Ashford, and internally wonders if there is some common courtesy of greeting the asshole who plucked them out of their hometown and put them in this s**t, but as the figure comes closer she realizes it’s much younger and much sharper that Luke actually blinks a few times to take all the features in.

“Alexander-What a lovely surprise, I thought you wouldn’t be joining us today” Mrs. Ashford recovers quickly, But Luke notes how she doesn’t have that easy excitement in her face anymore.

And looking at the guy she can tell why, he looks pretty damn intimidating with sharp green eyes and a jaw line that seems to be carved by the gods themselves, hell even his brown hair seems to gleaming under the lights of the chandelier (that’s what the chandeliers are for!!!) and the look on his face is the farthest thing from welcoming, he looks good but scary, scary good, huh she what she did there.

“The meeting got canceled, would you mind if I joined in?” He asks his voice somehow perfectly fitting into his scary features, it’s smooth and silky like a sweet song but it leaves no space to argue over, seriously what was with this guy.

“Please do” Mrs. Ashford says with a smile, but not the openly free one she greeted them with. He only takes a seat after Mrs. Ashford consents, but something about his hardened gaze tells her that he would have done it anyway. Its only when he takes a seat next to Marylyn and she realizes they both have the same hair color that it hits her that he is The Alex, The Alex Ashford Wendell liked to tease her about, this sure as hell was not the guy she remembers, he was fat and chubby and surprisingly gentle for a 10 year old boy. This is- god knows what this is, the closest thing she can compare it to, is a good looking Lionel Ashford which is just eww, so she doesn’t think about it further and pointedly looks away from him.

Marylyn seems to share her step mothers opinions too because her face goes a little darker.

The silence stretch on as one of the butler men serves him a plate and the guy glares him thank you, no she is not kidding, he actually glares while thanking him, hey at least he thanks him, that’s a better step than Marylyn’s manners.

Mrs. Ashford clears her thought when the silence goes on for too long.

“Alex I was just about to tell them about you, about how Crusadious finally won the trophy when you were head of house, maybe we will have similar luck with Mare this year” She starts again, smile polite but her posture hesitant.

Alexander Ashford stares at the two of them all of a sudden, she suddenly feels pinned and Luke does not do well under heavy stares, especially from scary or scary good looking guys, so she finds a crazy amount of interest in her almost empty plate.

Alex doesn’t reply to his step mother, just frowns and glare more. Luke had half a mind to whisper to CJ that he is going to turn out to be a similar version of that guy if he continues to scowl and glare at everything like he has been doing since he hit puberty.

“Of course Mare is not the Head of House Yet, you don’t technically find out till the opening day which is tomorrow, but we all know it’s going to be her, like they would dare to give somebody else the position when there is an eligible Ashford this year” Mrs. Ashford continues with a proud smile towards Marylyn., quickly recovering from Alex’s blatant form of disrespect. Men were assholes.

“Congrats then” Carrie says for the first time and Luke thinks Marylyn says something along the lines of a thank you but she is not sure, because she is pointedly avoiding looking towards that side of the table because for some reason she can still feel scary Ashford’s eyes on her.

“Anyway, I’ve blabbered on about me and Mare, I am afraid, what about you two, which houses do you think you’ll pick?” Mrs. Ashford asks turning towards them, once again pinning Luke because CJ won’t f*****g respond, god she hates her brother. She doesn’t even remembers the weird as hell names Mrs. Ashford said a few minutes ago, and the inner 5 year old in her wants to shout out ‘Hufflepuff’ just to see what happens, she is definitely panicking, so she says the first thing that she remembers from the long speech Mrs. Ashford just gave about the houses.

“Probably the all-girls one, it sounds good” She stutters out and internally high fives herself for the amazing save. Marylyn snorts out loud at her words.

“Oh, Aphora. It’s a good choice you get a real sense of sisterhood” Mrs. Ashford encourages.

“Yeah that one, Aphora” she tries out just so she would have something to say before pointedly going back to finishing her dinner and hoping to god she doesn’t ask more questions about the houses again.

“You don’t look like an Aphora” a new voice interrupts and Luke is honest to go shocked to see it’s Alexander, giving her a glare/frown, (can it be called a frare or grown, not growing kind of grown, the grown that rhymes with crown, which makes her wonder why doesn’t grown rhyme with crown) seriously CJ must be pretty jealous of the guy’s scary expressions and the amazing glare/frown thing that makes Luke feel scrutinized.

“Excuse me?” Luke asks because she is polite like that, sometimes (rarely, usually when her mom’s around, because you know Mom).

“Aphora’s are a congregation of narcissistic Barbie dolls each rooting for the other’s fall, the basic girl group, 5 dollar plaid shirts and worn out jeans are not their type” he explains and Luke blinks owlishly just out of the audacity of the stranger’s words, but then again she shouldn’t be surprised considering the welcome she received from his sister, but this time even Mrs. Ashford seems shocked.

Luke is gaping because she doesn’t know where she should begin, but she sure as hell, no matter how intimidating this asshole is, is going to give him a nice long rant about how not to be an asshole.

“That is sexist” CJ adds all of a sudden giving her the preliminary point to work with, most likely remembering that from all the rants she had given her brothers about misogyny and sexism, that’s why she loves her brother, if her blood wasn’t boiling what anger she would be grinning like a puppy at her baby bother all proudly for saying that out loud.

“Yes, Let me elaborate. first of all your initial opinion about a girl group is ‘narcissistic Barbie dolls’ which implies that you are under the impression all women are the 'blonde mean girls’ edition who wants to stab each other in the back, which is to put it simply judgmental and close minded opinion of a person who has no close female figure in their life, second you imply that I am not the type, which in turn implies there is a certain type, which is very much untrue, the whole ‘everyone is different and one in a billion’ goes in the case of woman too, that would technically mean each woman is their own type, doesn’t mean that we can’t get along, and I am not even sure what a ‘basic girl group’ is meant to infer, that is misogynistic in at least 20 different context dude. And I love my plaid shirt, I will continue to wear my plaid shirts despite anyone’s opinions, and if you must know it did cost more than 5 dollars, it was a 3 in one deal” she completes and pointedly glares back at him relentlessly.

“My apologies if I came of rude” She adds in as an afterthought, mainly to Mrs., Ashford who is gaping at Alex for some reason, and once she does follow her line of sight she realizes why, the guy is smiling, no she is not joking the guy is honest to god smiling at her.

“I am the one who attended Eddridge” he adds in a second later, bringing a piece of chicken to his mouth without breaking his pinning gaze from her face, ugh, how does he even manages that?. He should choke, that will teach him to pay more attention to what he is eating instead of you know scrutinizing the s**t out of her with those damning eyes, seriously nothing about this guy was fair.

“Were you by any chance in Aphora to know the inner working of the group?” She asks with the same determination.

He shakes his head, No.

“My point stands” she puts in simply before finishing off her plate.

“My apologies for being offensive, what I said was clearly out of line, and your plaid shirt looks good, it was a good deal” He adds, simile getting bigger, Maybe his eyes shine for a second, what does that mean?.

“Thank you” She murmurs and looks away once the gaze gets too uncomfortable and hell she is blushing, why the hell is she blushing. What a stupid primitive emotion.

“Now, Have you thought about joining the debate team?” Mrs. Ashford asks…..