Like Fridge Magnets

Chapter Twenty

A/N: This chappie is dedicated to tegan_lorraine <3 :-]

CHAPTER TWENTY

ADAM

       I stared at Skylar in utter disgust and anger. I have wanted to beat the crap out of my cousin plenty of times before, I mean we’re cousins yet we had to compete against each other in almost everything growing up; from sports to awards, we were always to trying to have the upper hand and that could be frustrating sometimes. But never had I ever wanted to smack some sense into him more than when he asked me that moronic question.

“Why the fuck would you ask me that?” I said to him once he was a safe distance away from me and I had managed to slightly calm down.

“Then what happened to Elayna’s face, bro?” He asked me with dumfounded expression on his face that was only serving to annoy the crap out of me further.

“I got hit in the face during my boxing match this afternoon after my head gear fell off,” Elayna said, her voice hoarse, when she’d pulled herself out of the stupor she had been in and placed herself slightly in front of myself and between my cousin and I.

“Really?” Skylar asked perplexed.

“Really, Einstein,” I spat, “I wouldn’t fucking hit a girl and you know I especially would not lay a finger on Puffin,” I finished; I hated the heavy emotion that laced my voice but I could do nothing to conceal it when someone who was my blood, my family, would be so quick to judge me so harshly.

“Ahh shit,” Skylar muttered as he massaged the back of his neck with one hand and raked his hair with the other, “I’m sorry, Adam. Shit,” he repeated the curse when he was at loss for words. I could see the regret clear in his eyes and I knew I had already forgiven him considering how much like a brother he was to me but that didn’t mean that I wanted to look at him at that precise moment.

“Why would you think that he’d hit me anyway?” Puffin asked her voice barely above a whisper but in the tension filled silence of the room we both heard her as though she had spoken through a loudspeaker; loud and clear. I looked to Skylar with a blank expression as he squirmed on the spot under our gaze; mine irritated and hers curious.

“It’s not my story to tell,” Skylar mumbled out as he moved to close the door he had left wide open  in his haste to put me in my place since he had jumped to the wrong conclusions.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Elayna asked exasperated.

“It means he wants me to tell you why he’d have thought that I could be a monster to you,” I explained to her.

“Why? It’s not like you’d know why he would have thought that, you’re a lot of things, Adam, but you are not a mind reader,” she replied the exasperation still clear in her voice.

“Yes I would know what he’d thought had happened, Puffin,” I breathed out as I turned away from her and put a hand roughly through my hair as I thought back to moments and memories that would more than justify Skylar’s actions.

“Care to enlighten me?” She said as moved to stand barely a foot in front of me.

“Before he does,” Skylar began which earned him a death glare from Elayna, putting his hands up in a defensive gesture while taking a retreating step back, he continued, “Look, before he tells you whatever he wants to tell you, please let me apologise,” he paused to look away from her, instead focusing his gaze on me, “I’m sorry, Adam. But you know how shit used to go down-”

“And you also know that shit doesn’t go down the way it used to ever since Puffin came into the picture,” I snapped.

“I know,” he said looking dejected, “I don’t know how many times I can say that I am sorry but I am,” he said not breaking our eye contact the entire time. I wanted to tell him that I accepted his apology there and then. I really did. But I couldn’t find it in me to do so at the time, especially since his assumptions could hurt my relationship with Puffin. I didn’t care if he was family or not; she took precedence over everything and he could have seriously fucked things up between us.