Forbidden Love

Chapter 7

 I once again trudged home, hoping to find comfort in a Ben and Jerry's pint of creamy goodness. I looked forward to snuggling into my pjs and watching rom-coms until my eyes couldn't stay open

Once I opened our apartment door, I planned to do exactly that, until Circe started talking.

"Hay Gail, don't lock the door for me will ya? I have people coming over." Circe looked perky as ever while she delivered my death blow. A grey cloud hovered over my hopeful thoughts of comfort, comfort that would never come to unlucky me.

I signed reluctantly. "What type of people Circe? Like work people, friends people. Please tell me it's just Brooke and Rosie and that I just haven't checked my texts." I resignedly plopped my bag onto the kitchen counter.

"Yeah don't worry about it Gail. I can see your longing stares at your room. Go get in your pjs, pick up one of those books Rosie recommended. Imma do all the work, all you have to do is be nice and eat the food I make. Also, it's just some family." I could already see that Circe was cooking something on the stove.

Hopefully, she remembers not to burn it this time.

Circe was a great baker, she just couldn't cook actual food. I normally did most of the cooking around here for my physical health. After all, it couldn't be good for you to eat burnt char every night.

I waved behind my head to show her that I heard and started walking towards my room as soon Circe said family. Her parents normally came to the city for dinner with us. The Mitchels didn't care what I showed up in. After all, I'd known them since I was in grade school, they'd seen me in everything.

I was already cozied up on the couch, reading one of my rom-com books, when the doorbell rang. "Come in!" I shouted enough for Mr. and Mrs. Mitchel at the door to hear me, but not enough to get another complaint about noise from the neighbors. The walls were thin here. I guess that came with living in an old building.

I heard the creaky, chipped green painted door open. Heavy footsteps soon followed. That was my first indicator of doom.

The Mitchel's footsteps were not that loud, they were frail old people, not giants.

My back shot off the couch to take me into a seating position. My heart stopped when I saw who was in our entryway.

Atlas' sea-green eyes stared back at me with zero humor when he said, "You should really keep a lock on your door, this isn't safe at all."

Oh fuck.

Why did the universe hate me?

I became acutely aware of the messiness of my bun, the fact that I had an oversized button-down shirt from some random guy on, and that I wasn't wearing a bra. The button-down was stupid, but I figured if the Mitchels were coming I'd at least make a small attempt at being fancy while also being comfy.

His gaze darkened as he took in my ensemble.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I swiveled my head towards Circe's room, where she went to change a couple of minutes ago. "Circeeee! Girl, where are you?" As soon as my head was turned, the back of it started tingling. I turned back towards Atlas, who was seemingly inspecting our apartment.

I had the sort of thing where if an object was too close to my head, it started tingling. I figured out what that object was when a flash of orange barreled into Atlas. Pumpkin had launched herself from the couch onto Atlas. She was hissing and her claws seemed to be out due to the fact that there were now small tears in his shirt.

Atlas didn't react fast enough and soon his shirt was in tatters. He finally managed to wrangle Pumpkin into his grasp and held her at arm's length. A scowl marked his face as he looked at our orange fluff ball.

A strangled gasp escaped my mouth and Circe's, who now stood behind me and had probably seen the whole debacle. I shot up from the couch. "Oh my God are you okay?" We both stated at the same time as we ran towards where Atlas was holding our cat at arm's length.

Atlas' scowl lessened as he saw us barreling towards him and Pumpkin, but quickly turned back into negativity as Circe and I grabbed Pumpkin from his arms. "Ohh you poor baby. Did the big, mean man hurt you?" We cooed at the Pumpkin who in turn gave a sly glance towards Atlas. Cats were so funny.

I turned all my attention on Atlas. "You could have hurt her! She's small and innocent and you treated her like a parasite." I gave comforting strokes of love on Pumpkin's back as I talked to him.

He stuttered. "What do you mean I could have hurt her? She hurt me! That thing is a parasite." He gestured wildly towards his tattered clothes.

Circe puffed out a slew of generous curses directed at her brother. "How dare you, Pumpkin is my baby. Gail and I have raised her since birth. We are amazing mamas. And you hurt our kid. I'm rethinking inviting you over."

My gaze yet again spun around the room and landed on Circe. I pulled her over from her arm. "You invited him? Where are your parents?" I whispered into her ear while leaning down to do so.

Circe turned her face up to my ear and tugged it down by the lobe. I was forced to crouch even more to even myself with her small form. Atlas growled in the background. Confusion flushed through me, but Circe soon had my undivided attention. "Of course I did. He was the family I was talking about." She released my ear and handed off Pumpkin fully to me. Circe angrily stormed towards Atlas and grabbed his ear. Ha jokes on him, Circe had a great grip. My ear was still ringing and probably red from her grabby hands.

She whispered furious things through his ear, I wasn't able to hear them, but I guessed she was grilling him for hurting Pumpkin and probably threatening him repeatedly.

She looked back at me and dismissed Atlas. "Hay Gail, can you go into my room to get a shirt for this dumbass. I probably have something still from he who shall not be named. I haven't burned all his stuff yet."

I snorted. Actually snorted. Circe never used the word 'shall'. "Yeah of course girly, I'll be back in 5." I walked across the stained hardware floors and heard a distant conversation between Circe and her brother start up.

When I was only a couple feet away I heard Atlas mumble, "You burn your ex's stuff. That's some high-level shit Sis." I almost snorted. Again.

Circe engaged him in conversation. I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, but I thought I heard, "Hay be nice to me, do you want your shot with her or not?" That was odd. I probably heard it wrong. After all, I quite literally got bullied by my friends since high school over the fact that I had selective hearing. So I basically never heard anything that wasn't about books or feminism, and ended up acting like a Grandma with a loud 'What?' whenever my interest peaked in a topic I hadn't been listening to.

This was going to be an interesting night.