Gargoyle (Woodland Creek) (8 page)

“And some things do,” I whispered, glancing back down at my food. I cleared my throat quickly, shoving my heartbreak aside, and pushed forward. “Though I did get some brochures for college.” I shrugged a shoulder, pushing my food around on my plate. “I read them, too.”

His chuckle was soft. “That’s progress.”

I glanced up into his eyes, not flinching from his penetrating gaze. “It’s kept my mind busy.”
Trying not to drown in my misery.
“And I still have plenty of time. I’m young enough.”

His lips pinched the barest bit, then he stated quietly and honestly, “You should know this.” His mouth thinned further, glanced once in the direction of my uninvited guests where they were chatting quietly, then back to me. My stomach rolled at what I saw in his gaze. He peered at his food, then back up, and whispered gently, “I went on a date. Two actually. With the same woman.”

My very being utterly froze. I couldn’t breathe as my fork clattered to my plate loudly.

After glancing at the people behind me, their conversation having quieted further, his gaze snapped back to mine. They ran over my face, and his wide lips thinned even more so. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.” He glanced down at his food, his cheeks flushing deep red, and when he peered back at me, there was a fire in his eyes. “I didn’t fuck her.”

I sucked in a harsh lung full, the sound wheezing through my constricted lungs, not even caring that the conversation had halted behind me. I stared at his silent fury. “Will it always come back to that?” My chin had trembled the barest bit before I caught it, my heart aching so damn badly. “I can’t take it back.”

He ran a hand over his face, glanced once behind me, then literally crooked his elbow on the table and rested his forehead on his hand, half shielding his face from the others and stared down at his food. “I don’t know, Kennedy.” His tone was so quiet. So different from anything I had ever heard before from him. He sounded just as miserable as I was. “Let’s just try to make it through tonight.”

I stared a moment longer, fucking miserable as hell, and I nodded once and sat straighter on my chair, hopefully hiding him some from the uninvited behind me. “We can do that.” I lifted a hand over the table, pushing his plate toward him a bit. “Eat. We’ll watch a movie when we’re done.”

It was quiet for a few minutes at our table as we ate in silence, neither of us listening as the other four began speaking again. We just stared at our food, eating quietly. Until the discomfort began to diminish in our quiet, and we started getting seconds, both of us moving easily around each other placing the other person’s favorite on one another’s plates…a silent apology to one another for the pain we were living in. It was such a silent caring act that my heart swelled even more for him.

But I froze completely when a large, heated, strong palm landed on my shoulder from behind. I stayed utterly still as…Isaac…leaned over me, his stomach muscles clenching against the back of my head. He stared down into the open cartons in the middle of our table.

Jonathan stilled too, his gaze flying to Isaac’s hand on my shoulder, and watched as his thumb brushed under my hair to my neck, then stroked once gently in a semi-hidden gesture.

Isaac asked calmly, “Do you two have any more eggrolls? Caleb didn’t get me any.”

I made a choked noise in my throat as Jonathan’s eyes began to simmer vehemence, moving from the hand on my shoulder to Isaac’s stomach pressed against the back of my head. Jonathan’s nostrils flared, and his breakneck violent gaze slammed up to Isaac’s face, his tone deathly quiet, “Get off her.”

“Hmm?” Isaac hummed, still staring down into the containers, even lifting a few with his free hand, completely ignoring the deadly hunter staring daggers at him. His gripping hand on my shoulder swiftly released me, though, when he leaned further over the table, my chin literally pressed down to my collarbone as he reached for the sack, finding the eggrolls. He hummed happily. “Here they are.” He jiggled the bag, pressing away from my chair, away from me. “These are my favorite.” He simply walked away, the bag in his hand crinkling as he dug into it for an eggroll.

My lips were slightly parted as I blinked stupidly. The Mayor seriously shouldn’t have done that. Jonathan had told me that Gargoyles were weird about physical contact—because too many random people touched their statue form. And Isaac had just crossed over that line, showing blatantly he had them with me.

Black eyes flayed me so harshly that I was at a loss. My lips parted further, and I mumbled, “It’s not what you think.”

His gaze narrowed even further, not peering away from me, even as the room had quieted, no conversation occurring at all inside my apartment. Jonathan stayed silent for a full minute, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Until his gaze snapped from my eyes to above my head, his tone a menacing purr. “It was you.”

My fists clenched on top of the table as the crinkling of paper could be heard again.

Isaac was chewing as he merely stated, “That didn’t sound like a question to me.”

Jonathan gradually began to stand, his words a slow, deadly tick. “Isaac…was it you?”

More crunching sounded and the crinkling of paper. Isaac hummed softly. He murmured ever so gently, “That night was no one’s. It was the power that owned the night. The power that took control of everyone. If we were together then, it was neither her fault nor mine.”

I shrieked, quickly shoving my legs to the side, sitting on my chair sideways when Jonathan, in a fit of fury, lifted the table and slammed it against the wall faster than I knew him capable of. The room was silent as the plates and bottles shattered against the wall, the side of the table thumping heavily against the floor. The black wood was cracked down the bottom of it. I hugged the back of my chair, breathing heavily and staring at the wall where the remnants of our dinner remained, slowly sliding down to the floor behind the upended table in disgusting wet thumps.

Jonathan stood utterly still, his fists clenched down at his sides, every single muscle bulging in his body as he kept a tight rein on his growing fury, his eyes like lasers over my head on the Mayor, who had lowered the eggroll sack to the coffee table, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.

A fight was definitely imminent.

Yeah
…that shit wasn’t happening in here.

I quickly pivoted on my chair, and stood to my feet, holding my hands out in either of their directions in the universal ‘stop’ gesture. “There will be no fighting in here.” My tone was serious, even if entirely breathless, my chest heaving. “I’m a human. Remember? I won’t be able to handle that kind of violent power this close.”

Isaac actually grinned, a wicked, sinful tilt of his lips, glancing at me. “Why do you think I haven’t unleashed it?” A black brow quirked, a head tilt at the overturned table. “Besides, if that little bit of vehemence scared you, then you’d probably scream even more like a girl than you just did, and then faint before us like a weeping willow if you really saw what we’d like to do to each other.”

Jonathan growled, even as my eyes narrowed at the Mayor. “What kind of damn game are you playing this time, Isaac?” He was standing stock still, holding himself back. “You may not have been able to stop it
that
fucking night, but you know she’s mine now. You know you can’t have her. You know you will push me past my point of patience if you even think about it, which would most definitely mean I would no longer sit back while
certain
shifters attack my people. Not to mention, Mrs. Stone would never allow her in your bed again. So what the fuck are you doing?”

Isaac’s gaze snapped from me to Jonathan, altering and glowing. He stalked forward until he was an inch away from my outstretched hand, and then he leaned forward, pressing his stomach against my palm. His stomach muscles clenched, his eyes dead set on his enemy as he hissed furiously, “Don’t think for a second that I can’t handle my mother. I’ve been doing it for far too long not to know how to handle that bitch.” His head cocked, his Gargoyle peeking out as he stared him down. “Don’t you think the more adamant question is why did Hanna send her to me in the first place? The true package she sent that night was Kennedy. To me. She knew we would spend the night together, and you know as well as I do, she knew the two of you were together. That wizard knows
everything
.”

Jonathan slowly leaned back from the balls of his feet. He stopped glaring, but he flicked a hand in the Mayor’s direction—even as he started stalking back and forth between the overturned table and my front door. “Quit leaning on her. I’m trying to think, and I can’t with you touching her.”

I swiftly yanked my hand back, crossing my arms, not touching Isaac’s hot stomach any longer. The situation had calmed some. My man, Jonathan, always thought with his head before his fists, this situation no different…even if the Mayor
might
have helped him get past his jealousy.

Isaac leaned back, away from me, his expression calming as he watched Jonathan pace. His lips twitched the barest bit when Jonathan’s back was to him, and he turned and strode easy on his bare feet back to the coffee table. He lifted the bag of quickly diminishing eggrolls and munched silently, the bag crinkling every so often as we watched Jonathan march back and forth, the muscles in his biceps bulging as he continued to stretch his fingers down by his side, then clench his hands into fists.

Absurdly for this situation, I noticed… “That’s a new sweater.”

He glanced once at me in his trek. “I got it today.”

It was black, and appeared delicately soft, stretching across his torso beautifully. “I like it.”

He snorted softly, then peered away from me on his walk. “I saw you looking at it in the store.”

My blink was gradual, comprehension dawning. “You followed me.”

An absent finger flick, his forehead creased in thought as he stared at the carpet he was wearing out. “Technically, I didn’t. I’ve had a man following you, making sure you stayed safe. He called to tell me your whereabouts, and I actually was in the area. But when I saw you were with Rachel and Jackie, I left you alone.” Another finger flick and mumbled words. “Jackie’s going through something right now.”

I hummed quietly. “Yes, she is.” My head cocked. “How long has your man been—”

“Since we started dating.”

My blink was gradual, my words quiet. “You knew.”

His lips curled the barest bit, a cruel tilt as he glanced up from under his dangling red hair. “I knew he was a shifter since it had happened at the shifter building. I didn’t know it was
him
.”

I stood like a stump. “Oh.” Until my eyes narrowed the barest bit. He had pretended not to know. “I’m not happy with you.”

He chuckled quietly, a quiet menace in the air. “Back at you.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging a bit on it, and then he turned abruptly, sharply pointing at the door, his gaze scanning the other occupants. “Your eavesdropping is done. Everyone except Kennedy and Isaac leaves. Now.”

Caleb chuckled softly, picking up his trash. “I had wondered how long it would be before you asked us to leave.” With that, carting the leftovers of his dinner, he began exiting my apartment…and with a small flash of wizard magic, my table, and our dinner was completely fixed, including the wall.

I blinked, calling loudly before the door shut, “Thank you!”

Caleb glanced back. “It’s the least I can do for intruding as I did.” He shut the door behind him.

Isaac crumpled up the empty eggroll bag, nonchalantly tossing it on the coffee table, watching his actions, his tone bored. “Go home, Mike.”

His brother crossed his arms, cocking his head. His expression was blank. “You sure?”

“I am.” He brushed his hands together, wiping off crumbs. “Make a production of leaving.”

Mike hummed quietly. “All right.” He glanced once more between the three of us, scanning the situation, and then he turned into a silver vapor that curled through the air and filtered through the crack in my windowsill, gone.

My blonde brows lifted. I mumbled to no one, “I need to get that fixed.”

My apartment was silent.

I glanced back and forth between the two men now staring at each other. “No fighting.”

“There won’t be any fighting. Not right now.” Jonathan ran his hand through his red hair, his gaze still on Isaac. “How much do you think Hanna knows of the past?”

Isaac abruptly moved, stalking to lean against a wall, resting back against it and dropping his head back to stare at the ceiling. He scratched at his chin absently, his tone quiet. “She’s younger than we are, but she’s cunning with her power.”

Jonathan cracked his neck. “She knows then?”

Still quiet words. “I assume so.”

My brows were furrowed in confusion. “What are you two talking about?”

Jonathan lifted a hand in my direction, a gesture to not interrupt. “What aren’t you saying?”

Staring at the ceiling, Isaac chuckled softly, absently rapping his knuckles against the wall beside his legs. “You think you still know me that well?”

“Give me a damn break, Isaac.”