Wingless Book Series (book 1) (4 page)

They were just about the
same height give or take an inch, I couldn’t tell because Ace was
still sitting. He finally stood up and I saw that
he was in fact
taller,
and I was happy about that.

“
No, I was just talking to Eve. We
met the other day. Thought I would just say hello.”

Gray stared up at me again. “The
other day Eve?”

“
Yeah the other day Gray. Is that
ok with you?” I snapped. I had one father I didn’t need two. Gray
looked Ace up and down.

“
I’m Ace,” he said, putting his
hand out. Gray didn’t accept.

“
I know who you are. You’re in my
class. You just moved here. And I don’t think it’s that smart to be
hanging around here.”

“
Gray!” I exclaimed, getting up. I
was about to hit him in the head.

Ace put his hand up to let
me know it was alright.
“I don’t see how
it would be stupid to say hello to someone I met. And you
are?”

“
I’m Eve’s brother,” Gray replied,
letting out a long breath. I couldn’t tell if he was upset or
intimidated.

“
Nice to meet you. I promise you
no harm man.”

Gray shook his head looking back
at me. “Wait until dad hears about this,” he said, walking
off.

“
Hears about what?” I yelled,
wincing as my head pounded. “Seriously go take your girlfriend to
the psych ward or something and leave me alone you overachieving
lunatic!”

Ace laughed. Sitting back down, he
watched Gray as he pulled down the drive. Gray glared at me with a
look of I-will-ruin-you on his face; little did he know I could
ruin him faster.

“
Why the hostility from your
bro?”

“
I have no clue, he is always like
that, and usually he doesn’t care about what I do unless it’s
school, but apparently he has an issue with you.”

“
You’ll have that sometimes,” he
laughed, leaning back on my porch steps. Apparently he wasn’t
worried about anyone else coming out of the house.

“
So what do you do here for fun?”
I came down the steps and sat next to him.

I stared at his arms and the small
part of his stomach that was exposed from the way he was lounging
on my stairs- he had nice abdominals.

“
Most guys don’t try to get beat
up by my brother or father,” I said.

“
No one’s going to beat me up; you
don’t know how men are. They put on a fake front to like, um, mark
their territory or something. That’s all he was doing.”

“
Fake is definitely the word for
it,” I said under my breath.

“
So what do you do here?” he asked
again.

“
There’s not a whole lot, that’s
why you found me in the woods,” I shrugged, looking off at the
place I had made a fool of myself. It was still a little
embarrassing. Ace stared out into the woods as well.

Mark coughed at the door, and we
both looked up. “Who’s your friend Eve?” he asked me, stepping out
onto the porch. He made his way over to Ace extending his own hand.
If anything Mark was never rude. Annoying, but never rude. He had a
very graceful way of approaching things.

“
Ace, he just moved here,” I said,
trying to push away from it seeming anything more then what it
was.

I didn’t know what it was or
why he was coming by again but I was thinking maybe it was
because he was a decent guy who genuinely was
concerned about a girl he’d found drunk in the
woods.

“
Well hey there Ace, I’m Mark,
Eve’s brother-in-law.” Ace complied and shook his hand not looking
too concerned with Mark. “Are you in college as well or you
working?”

“
Both, I go to school and I work
on the side when I have time,” he answered, standing up on the
porch.

Mark looked him up and down; I was
starting to think it was a man thing.

“
That’s a good quality to have,
especially at a young age. What is it you do?”

“
I, uh, take on tasks, sort of
like a handyman or something. “He stared over at me as if to say
get me out of this. I sighed, thinking of a way to get off the
porch without Mark having a heart attack as I was walking off with
this new guy in town.

“
Uh, Mark? I
think I heard Hannah calling you.” I pointed toward the door
and
when he turned, I yanked Ace by the
shirt and down the steps.

I don’t think either one of us had
any idea where we were walking. I just kept walking until my house
was nowhere in sight.

“
Do you have a big family?” he
asked as we headed into the neighborhood park. It wasn’t much of a
park: wide open spaces, one playground, a running path for joggers,
and a few benches dotting the paths.

“
I have two siblings, my brother
you met, and I have a sister. And I have a niece and a nephew.
That’s it.”

“
That’s a lot,” he said, sitting
down on the bench resting his hands on his legs.

It was hard to figure him out he
had a mysterious quality about him.

“
I’ve never thought so. Plus,
their older so it’s not that fun,” I said, looking at him. “What
about you?”

“
What is it you want to know?” he
asked.

“
What’s your family like? Do you
have siblings, or a crazy family, or are they normal?”

“
I didn’t move here with my
family,” was all he said.

“
Well, yeah, you’re twenty-two so
I wouldn’t think so. Did you transfer schools or
something?”

“
Yeah, transferred, but we didn’t
really have to travel that far to get here. We lived on the
outskirts in Jersey,” he said, staring away from me.

“
Why were you drinking in the
woods Eve, You’re eighteen you shouldn’t be drinking in the woods?”
he blurted out.

I stared down at my pink toes,
wiggling them one by one, trying to avoid the
conversation.

“
I don’t know, it just seemed a
little odd to me. I’m sorry if that upset you. Just seems dangerous
and a little reckless,” he said.

“
I wasn’t being
reckless I was just getting out of the house. And I wasn’t alone, I
was with a friend. She had
just left
and
I was getting ready to go
home.”

‘
But you didn’t, you fell down
into the creek.”

“
Yeah, I know, I was going home
though,” I said, scratching my arm out of nervous habit.

“
You didn’t
though,” he said again. I looked up alarmed as I thought back to
last night. I had planned on going home, but had ended up walking
on the rocks instead
for some
reason.

“
Let’s talk about something else
okay? I’d like to know some more about you.” I nudged him with my
elbow, seeing that he seemed to have lost his cheerful
manner.

It was like a cloud cast over him
and he was basking in it. He was no longer in his earlier good mood
and I no longer liked being there with him.

“
Let’s not. Tell me more about
you. What do you like to do? What are you interested in? Uh, what
do you want out of life?”

“
I don’t ask for anything out of
life. I’m not expecting anything, and, to tell you the truth, I am
officially sick of this question.”

“
Why?”

“
Because it’s the same question
everyone asks me. I don’t know nor do I really want to right now.
I’m eighteen. I just want to breathe,” I sighed.

“
You know, I never heard anyone
say anything like that before. Seriously, it’s intriguing.” His
smile came back.

“
It’s not a really good thing to
say, but you are honest when you say it, and what more could
someone want from you then that, ya know?” He was right, and I
couldn’t figure out why no one else got it as he did. “Tell me
this, not knowing works for you, but how much not knowing do you
feel comfortable with?”

“
I like the blind aspect of life.
I just feel like, whether we see where we are going in the end or
not, we all are going to crash and burn. So why worry about how we
are going to do it.”

“
Amazing.” He looked at me closely
as if trying to see into my soul. “Your parents must think you’re
crazy. I really can’t believe you are only eighteen. You have an
old soul,” he laughed.

Chapter 4

Hello

A few days had passed and I hadn’t
see Ace. I kind of figured he had no reason to come back over. I
was fine, he had done his job. But I was still thinking about him.
It was a little weird because I sort of felt drawn to the
mysterious side of him.

As it turned out, Gray told
my dad
nothing. He had, as usual, talked a
big game and didn’t back it up. He liked to torture me like that,
although I did not feel too tortured. He did tell me that he didn’t
agree with Ace coming around; he never gave a clear reason as to
why. I just thought he was trying to play the older brother role. I
didn’t need his guidance; I was a smart person when it came to
gauging anyone’s bull.

I went downstairs- it was
morning
yet again
.
My whole family sat at the table like usual eating breakfast, just
the same as any other day. There was Gray inhaling his food, my
father reading his newspaper. I sat down taking a banana; I wasn’t
one to eat a big hearty breakfast everyday- it made me sick
sometimes.

“
What are your
plans for the day Eve?” my dad
asked,
peering over the top of his newspaper at me, my mother
looking as well.

“
I have no idea, maybe a nap,” I
said dryly.

“
I found a young man to do some
work around here. Mark told me about him,” he said, sipping his
coffee.

“
Yeah,” I said, not trying to act
as if I was concerned.

“
He does handy work so I thought I
would give him a go, have him clean the eaves and reroof the
garage- some of the things Gray doesn’t want to do.”

Gray looked up alarmed. “It’s not
that I don’t want to. It would just be easier for you to get
someone a little more….”

“
Competent?” I asked, smiling at
the invitation to insult him. Gray gave me a look of disgust
shoving a piece of toast in his mouth.

“
No, no, it’s fine Gray. This kid
seemed rather willing to get it done; maybe he needs the money or
something. Mark said he is paying his way through school I
believe.”

“
How do you know that he is paying
his way?” I asked my dad. He was so quick to assume things about
people, it always irritated me. For all he knew this guy could have
had a full scholarship and was doing this just for the fun of it.
Or out of sheer boredom. He didn’t know, but he always liked to
think he did.

“
Oh, I don’t Eve. It was just a
guess sweetheart.” He went back to reading.

“
Why are you so defensive? You
worried it’s your little lover boy you had over the other day?”
Gray threw his words out like a dagger, grinning with amazement as
if he had scored a goal or something.

My parents both stopped what they
were doing to look at me.

“
You’re a moron; I simply asked
him a question. Why do you feel it necessary to share my business,
that isn’t even business might I add, with the whole
world?”

“
You share mine. And besides that,
you like to annoy me, so I’m paying you back. “

“
Paying me back? You’re
ridiculous. What do you think Mom and Dad are going to do? Ground
me because a boy came onto our porch and talked to me?” I laughed
evilly. “I’ve seen your girlfriend leaving our house after two in
the morning.”

Gray slammed his fork down, his
face red, his eyes glaring even harder at me.

“
Glare all you want it’s not going
to do anything.”

“
Oh really?” he
asked, with his sly smile. He looked at Mom and Dad
for a few seconds, biting his lip, I rolled my
eyes. My parents stared at the both of us like we were nuts. I
don’t think they knew what to say.

“
Well, I wonder if telling Mom
that you go out in the woods to get drunk would.”

I chucked my banana peel at
his face. My mother
gasped, clutching her
chest. I racked my brain for something more to say about him to
outdo what he had said about me, make the sting a little less to my
parents, but I didn’t have much. “You watch porn!” I yelled,
kicking him under the table.

Gray laughed, shaking his head.
“Oh big deal, every grown man watches porn sometime in their life.”
He got up from the table taking his plate like a good
son.

“
Sit down!” my
dad
ordered angrily.

Gray’s amusement left
quickly. I smiled but quickly stopped as my dad
pounded his fist on the table to get our
attention.