Chapter 7

When my feet made contact with the bluish Persian rug in the living room, I opened my eyes and had to swallow back a deep gasp of surprise. My widened eyes, however, couldn’t hide it. Luckily enough the sudden irritation whirling inside my stomach shot up like a rocket to my head and overpowered the weakness of my shock.

Ian said nothing at first. He just stared at me, studying my face with intensity, as if I was some intriguing Auguste Rodin’s sculpture—and he was surely planning one of those corrosive lines he used to deliver every time he saw me. At last, he went for sarcasm and a wicked half smile. “Nice to see you, too,” he said with his emerald eyes still on me, his arm stretched across the back of the velvet couch in that lousy style only guys could pull off.

I was about to retort something when Buffy’s voice cut my impulse. “About time you got here.” She said while looking for a DVD on the small shelf next to the huge plasma screen—which looked so out of place in this old-fashioned living room. It was such a Jane-Austen-meets-the-Jetsons image.

“For a second I thought you ran away,” she added, crouched on the floor, wearing yellow sweatpants and a tight white hoodie.

“I just went to Om to grab some—” I stopped and shook my head, remembering my previous train of thought. “What is he doing here? I thought it was a sister bonding thing.” I ended with a hiss.

“What, I can't be part of the sweet bonding?” Ian emphasized his last words with softness in his voice. “I couldn’t miss this grand event of frivolity between twins.” He tilted his head aside, mockingly, his brown tousled hair brushing his forehead. “It’s kind of hot, actually.”

Sometimes I wondered how everyone found this guy so attractive, and sights like these often muted my speculation. The way his plaid shirt covered his upper body—the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, the first buttons hanging open showing a a gray shirt underneath, the careless wrinkles at the hem—exuded a manly quality so strong it could’ve reeled one’s senses.

Thank God I had a sharp eye and could see beyond superficial layers. I was immune to his facade. “Aw, you were so excited you forgot to shower,” I pointed out, looking at the speck of blue paint that covered one side of his forearm, contrasting the warm honey shade of his skin. “Isn’t that super cute?” I added, settling down on the recliner a few feet away from him.

He ran his hand through his hair, with one of those girl-melting smiles playing on his lips, and looked at me. “It’s part of being a passionate art slave. Paint runs through my veins.”

“Take it easy on the theatrics,” I scoffed, laying down the chopsticks on the plate. “I'm passionate about Art, too, and I don’t need to sport a freaking splotch on my skin twenty-four-seven like some neon sign.” Maybe it wasn’t seven days a week, but it was enough to set it as one of his trademarks.

“Well, I like it. I think it’s cute,” Buffy said as she straightened holding several DVDs in her hands, then glanced at him and winked.

I rolled my eyes.

Ian laughed, that low and careless sound flying into the air. “Hmm, I think your sister may like it, too, and she doesn’t know how to handle it,” he told Buffy and turned to look at me. “Am I right?”

“You wish.” I arched my eyebrows and looked down at the sushi resting on my lap, my Japanese craving suddenly shrinking. I so disliked him. “Gran!” I called, the fury boiling in my stomach pitching my voice to a louder note. “I need the…”

“It’s here. It’s here,” Gran repeated as she stepped inside the living room—which had turned into a living hell—with a small bowl in her slightly wrinkled hands. She handed it to me and walked to the solid oak wood cabinet. Several pictures crowded the cabinet’s surface, some dating the times of her youth in dull, faded colors, and some displaying flamboyantly the outcome of her past—us.

Mom and Dad’s pictures were hiding in her bedroom. She’d decided to veil them from our sight for our own good. Every time we saw them smiling at us through the glossy paper, the air in the house became a cold pressure, weighing our heads and chests with a terrible pain. Whenever the need to watch those happy glimpses of time clutched our hearts, Gran’s door always welcomed our hands. Though it’d been only once for me, I knew Buffy’s fingers had enclosed that brass handle a few times more.

“You have a letter, Dafne.” Gran said, pointing to the metallic slinky I’d convinced her to use as a mail holder. It filled the empty spot where Mom and Dad’s pictures had been.

“Oh, yeah, I was waiting for it.” I bent forward and stretched myself to reach the coffee table to place the plate and the soy sauce on it. While I stood up and peeled off the blazer, Gran turned and left the room. Buffy seemed to remember something and followed her into the foyer to speak with her, leaving me alone in the living hell with the prick of Ian.

I threw the blazer over the back of the recliner and turned to grab my mail, which wasn’t in the slinky anymore. Ian was holding it.

“If you don’t want to suffer a slow and painful death, you better give me that envelope, right now.” I pushed my hand to him, palm up, waiting.

He tsked, waving the white envelope in the air. “If you ask nicely, I may consider it.”

“Consider it?” I snapped, blushing in red-hot anger. “There’s nothing to consider. Did you hear me? Nothing.” I closed the distance between us threateningly, feeling like a black panther measuring its prey’s weaknesses. “What you’re holding in your hands is mine. And if you don’t give it back, I’ll kick your ass out of this house no matter what Buffy thinks. Understood?” I narrowed my eyes to a feline glare.

“You would love to do that, wouldn’t you?” he said with that wicked crooked smile pulling up one corner of his mouth.

I ignored his innuendo and rose on my tiptoes to snatch the envelope, but he waved it back in a flash, letting me fall flat on my feet with my hands empty. And the fact that he was about a full head taller than me didn’t help either. I wasn’t small, he was just too tall. “Give it back,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Just be a good girl,” he said in a singsong voice, lowering bit by bit the hand holding the envelope, until it was leveled to his hip. If he was doing it on purpose or not, if it was part of some stupid strategy, it didn’t matter. I threw my hand forward in a mightily attempt, but in the same second, he snapped back his hand behind him and I crushed against him. The soft flesh crowning my chest lessened the hard contact, though it hurt a little. Ian was pure lean muscle; even the ripples of his abs were obvious under the fabric of his shirt.

Okay, I had to give him that. The guy had an amazing body.