10. Secrets
2016 Words
“Delia!”
She continued to move away from him, grabbing a blanket and extra pillow from the hallway closet and scooting into the living room quickly. Flopping down on the long couch, she fluffed her pillow briefly and pulled the soft blanket over top of her in direct defiance to Michael’s loud protests.
“I’m going to bed, Michael. Good night.”
Michael flipped up the bottom end of her blanket, pulling her legs up and sitting down, settling her ankles on his thighs. She pulled them away and curled up into an awkward ball. He pulled her legs down again and clamped his hands around her to keep her in place.
“Stop it, Delia. I told you there’s nothing really to say. My parents suck, end of story.”
But that wasn’t all. If there was nothing to tell, then why not just say it? Scream it for everyone to hear even.
Delia knew one thing—when someone said there was nothing to tell, there was a whole lot more going on behind the scenes than they wanted you to know.
She had been kept in the loop ever since she had gotten entangled with the supernatural world, and Michael was supposed to be her soulmate—her equal in everything.
Except, it seemed, when it came to the family life he never mentioned and never wanted to talk about with her.
“If it’s nothing, then you should be able to tell me whatever it is,” she grumbled irritably under her breath. Her words were muffled by the blanket that she was curled up under, and Michael tried to pull it away so he could hear her better.
Or at least get a good look at her face and gauge just how pissed off she was on a scale of One to Volcano. When he was successful and her eyes averted from him, he knew he was in deep s**t.
He sighed.
“Sposina, it’s not just that they are not good people, but they are the worst kind of vampires. If they were Ward and June Cleaver, I’d have no problems with you meeting them and getting to know my parents, but they are treacherous, devious, and manipulative. They’d try to…well, to woo you onto their side, convince you that what they’re doing it just—for the betterment of the vampire community. It’s not—no matter what they say, it’s all to their own greedy, clawing benefit. Everything has to do with their bottom line, lining their already overfilled wallets. Living in splendor—luxury—is the most important thing to them, and they don’t care who they step on in order to get what they want.”
Delia still didn’t get it. Sure, they sounded like assholes, people that were only concerned with their own comforts, but a lot of people in L.A. were like that. It was no new thing and wasn’t all that rare.
Shit—her mother was the same way, so she didn’t understand why Michael was being so mysterious about it.
Delia didn’t feel like listening to his excuses as to why he couldn’t talk about them. She wanted definitive answers, and she wasn’t stopping from giving him the cold shoulder until she got some.
“That’s fine, but I want to be alone tonight. I need to think. Please, Michael. Leave me be for now?”
He breathed out an exasperated breath, stood up from the chair and hesitated as he stood in place. Unused to this level of emotion in anyone—after all his mother might have pleaded with him, but it was all crocodile tears he was sure—he didn’t know what to do. Stay and try to coax Delia back into the bedroom, or leave her alone like she claimed she wanted to be.
Women were so confusing for him.
After a few more moments, he watched his mate’s eyes shut as she stretched her limbs to take over the couch.
Still not certain what he was doing was what she would want, he stalked down the hallway to his bedroom, taking his phone out of his pocket before pulling up Eli’s number. He thought for a moment before tapping out a single word.
Michael: Question…
Eli: Shoot. Not going to bed anytime soon. My mini-me has decided that sleeping is optional tonight, apparently.
Michael: Bummer. What do you do when Cassie’s pissed off at you?
Eli: I f**k her until she loves me again. Why?
Michael: Yeah, that’s not happening. Delia is angry because I won’t tell her about my family back in Sicily. She thinks that because she tells me everything about her mom and Gran that I should do the same. I get it, I do, but I can’t tell her without putting her in danger. I’m caught in a Catch-22. Help. Me.
Eli: Hmm… That is a pickle, but there’s only one thing you can do. Just nut up and do it. Explain how dangerous they are and what they’re involved in. You told me, right?
Michael: Well, yeah but you also knew a bit about my situation already. You do a very thorough background check on all your employees. You find anything out about my parents, by the way?
Eli: Nada. Even Alex is stumped. Don’t know why they would be so gung-ho about bringing you back into the family so suddenly. It’s odd.
Michael: Jesus, Eli. I could almost hear you go all Marlon Brando on me. For f**k’s sake, at least try a gangster from this century.
Eli: Hysterical. You done sniveling yet or should I give you some advice that’s worth its weight in Payne billions?
Michael: I wish you could hear me sighing right now.
Eli: Shut it and listen up. Or read up, or something.
Michael: Listening O’ Wise One.
Eli: If our women weren’t best friends…
Michael: My charm and good humor still woulf have pulled you right in.
Eli: Right. Well, in any case, I say tell her everything. Swear her to secrecy. She’s going to end up finding out one way or another. A little Google research and BAM, she’ll know everything and more. You want to give her your version or the distorted one on the internet?
Michael: Not really distorted from what I’ve seen. They’re right up there with the Manson Family, Jeffrey Dahmer, and that creepy clown killer dude from Chicago. Gandy?
Eli: Gayce, John Wayne Gayce. Gandy’s that Brit model that Cass has a crushlet on. Good-looking bloke, but I hope he never comes across the pond to shoot his videos for cars or whatever.
Michael: Yeah, that’s the guy. f*****g clowns, man.
Eli: Well, what are you going to do? Tick tock, tick tock.
Michael: You might be my boss, but sometimes I hate you as my friend, Eli.
Eli: Whatever. Without me it might have taken you years to meet Delia.
You’re welcome or whatever.
Michael: Yeah. Thanks.
Eli: You WILL thank me later. That’s a promise.
Michael didn’t know if his employer’s suggestion was the right thing to do or not. As he listened in on the other room, he could hear Delia’s soft breathing. It was clear to him she wasn’t entirely awake, but not yet asleep. It was that somewhere-in-the-middle area that came right before she snuggled closer in his arms in bed and settled in for the night.
He sighed and flopped onto the bed, bouncing as he stared up at the ceiling until the plain white started to drive him crazy. Tossing and turning for a few hours didn’t help, so he stripped the bed of its duvet, grabbed two pillows, and headed toward the living room.
If he couldn’t sleep in the same bed as Delia, he’d at least settle for being in the same room as her.
***
“s**t, Michael!”
An alarm was blaring, but Michael couldn’t move or even speak to get Delia to silence it. When he’d gone to bed the night before, it was on the floor right next to the couch that Delia was slumbering on. Unfortunately, in her groggy state, she had gotten up from her ‘bed’ for the night and stepped right on his groin. It was just hard enough to knock his nuts around, but not hard enough to do any permanent damage.
“Balls. Oh s**t,” he hissed out as he curled into himself and cupped the family jewels.
Laying on his side, he breathed in shallow gasps of air, willing the pain to go away quickly as Delia dropped to the ground next to him.
“Oh, my God! Did I get you in the junk? I’m so, so sorry!”
“Not a problem. Just don’t…don’t expect kids the next few years until the swelling goes down.” His face turned slightly pink as he forced the words out and a smile onto his face.
“Do you need ice? Should I do something?”
“God, no,” he rasped out. “Don’t do anything. Just let me lie here and die.”
Delia sat back, unimpressed with his amateur dramatics. “You’re not going to die. Besides, it serves you right for leaving me in the dark about your family.”
She stood up from her spot, leaving Michael to wheeze and cough as he tried to quell the nauseating roll in his stomach.
Delia walked into the kitchen after turning off the blare of her alarm. She’d had it set up to charge some time overnight by the corner table and took it with her into the other room. Michael could hear her rummaging through the fridge and popping open a cabinet to make herself a drink.
He was finally able to roll onto his back and look at the ceiling. His hands fell from cupping the gents between his legs onto the floor as he listened to her putter about in the kitchen.
His rest had been rotten. He’d maybe caught a few hours on uninterrupted sleep in all, and even that had been plagued by dreams of his time in Italy where he was always under his mother’s and father’s thumb. He thought about what he and Eli had discussed the night before and was determined to have it out with Delia before she left for work.
He rolled onto his stomach and got up from the floor as Delia called out.
“We have another couch and a perfectly good bed, Michael. Why you had to sleep on the floor right next to me is…just what were you thinking?”
“I couldn’t sleep in our bed without you, is what I was thinking,” he muttered irritably. “And I was thinking that even if I had to sleep on the hard surface of the floor it was better to be nearer to you than across the room or in the bedroom alone.”
Delia was quiet, all movement in the kitchen ceasing. She didn’t respond, which only made Michael sure that she was pondering his words.
He meandered into the kitchen then, watching as she filled some thermoses full of blood for her meals at SecurElite.
“And I was also just thinking—right now—that even getting my d**k stepped on was worth the few precious hours I got of sleep beside you.”
The hard angles of her face softened as her brittle demeanor seemed to crumple.
But he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“I’m still mad at you and want to know what’s going on. No amount of sweet talk or buttering me up is going to change my mind, good sir.”
Actually, he would have been disappointed in her if it had. He rather liked her sassy side. It tempered his soft-spoken demeanor quite nicely at times.
“I know,” he replied softly. “And I promise I will tell you. I just need to figure out a few things before I say anything. Can you give me a few days to sort out everything in my head?”
She looked at him, mulling over his proposition before nodding her head. “Okay. I can give you that much, but no longer than a week.” She looked at her phone, taking in the date. “You have a week to spill, or I’m going to invade the Paynes and you can sleep here. Alone.”
He nodded agreeably. “One week, fiore. One week.”
- Writer
