Author's Note
Real talk, Giles and Schuyler as roommates would be awesome. Just imagine the possibilities. Beautiful.
(Yeah, Teeth is back.) :)
Just like Lennox is, oooooh.
(Animal by XOV is the theme I'm going for in this book)
Schuyler is staring at her wall- chin laying on her knees and her knuckles bleeding white from her tight grasp on her shins.
He was back.
He's been back.
Her soulmate has left her in the dark for the better of six months. His absence has forced her to retreat into the blurred safety of pills and therapists-- and fucking gardening. For the love of God, she ruined her fresh manicure in the depths of Giovanni's.
The jerk had the audacity to leave the other side of the phone silent for weeks, months. She had dropped letter grades, she lost friends because she became so distant-- she lost the second semester of her freshman year of college to Lennox Armstrong.
Lennox has forced nights of lost sleep-- where the screaming in her head became in sync with her own real voice. Her fathers have cried, her dads- who loved her more than anything on the world's surface- have scooped her off her own bedroom floor and cried with her. The prescriptions Aldis had given her, the pills she had swallowed for the sake of her sanity-- all in vain.
She was going to kill him.
She was going to murder her Lennox.
And hug him. Hug him viciously and cry- a lot- before she took his life.
Giles has been sitting on the end of her mattress, long legs crisscrossed as he noisily shifted through a drawer he pulled out of her closet. It was full of wolf knick-knacks that had been shoved out of sight because it had felt like the equivalent of trying to cover a bullet-hole with a band-aid every time her sight fell onto them.
"You're pissed," he announced the obvious after the clock ticked eight and she hadn't slept a wink more than two hours; trading out sleep for avidly picturing Lennox's painful death like a movie on her bedroom wall.
"You're still here," she whispered in reply, eyes red and puffy around the edges because she couldn't help it. Schuyler was damn happy to know that Lennox was back again-- that she could feel and smell and kiss the puppy of a man's face again. Some of the tears, known as traitors, were stupidly happy and she felt so idiotic.
"And I refuse to leave," Giles didn't even glance up; he lifted a marble statue of a wolf and grinned at Schuyler. "Sorta looks like me, huh?" He smirked, his dark amber eyes squinting from his expression and the morning rays which began to strain through Schuyler's window and directly onto his face.
A snort escaped her without consent before she had the chance to silence it. "The resemblance is uncanny," she ended in a monotonous voice, blinking up at him with one eyebrow raised and a pursing lip.
"Sarcasm!" Giles stood up, reaching his full height as he took an exaggerated take of the room. "Is that our dear Schuyler sounding... like... Schuyler again?" He beamed.
"You've been here for four hours now," she ignores him, instead moving to grab her smartphone and going through notifications. There aren't any; Schuyler opts to refresh her mail every thirty seconds instead.
Giles tilts his head, raising up his dark brows and releasing a full, helpless smile. "I'm not leaving you alone for one second," he points a finger at her, one which is wearing a plastic ring with a paw print emblem on silver surface-- fourth grade summer, she had won it in an arcade with Ben-- and continues. "Understood, Schuy?"
"How in the hell am I going to explain you to my dads?" She flares her nostrils with frustration and takes his accusing hand in her own, pulling off the tiny ring he had jammed onto his finger before flinging it back into the drawer on the bed.
"Ever heard of introducing your guests to your family," the man continued, walking around the room in an effortless grace only werewolves possessed as he began to move trinkets of Schuyler's childhood around. "Most families do it."
Schuyler gritted teeth. "You're not my guest!" She follows him closely, watching as he picks up a picture frame-- some of them are cracked or completely shattered-- and continues, curious as if he were a cat instead of a wolf.
"You're right, I'm Giles," his smile was enough to cause the girl to throw out a hand, smacking him on the chest as he laughed at his own joke.
"I didn't realize you mastered the fine art of dad jokes," she rolled her eyes and moved to her closet. Schuyler didn't even bother to glance up at the clothes on the hangers, which were only shirts and pants she hadn't worn for months, and went for the sweatpants on the ground.
Giles watches, interest still in snooping around. "Finally putting on clothes," he grinned.
"What? Like you haven't seen sliders before?" She stretches the hem of the waistline when it reaches her stomach, snapping it back as she relishes in the comfort.
"Of course I have, I live in a college town, everyone goes around half naked everywhere," he tells her, watching as Schuyler brushes by him to grab her smartphone.
The home is beginning to fill with the scent of eggs and bacon, synonymous with all things good, as Schuyler opens her bedroom door, shooting a glance back to find Giles standing directly behind her, obviously ready to have the full Bradshaw experience.
"Don't do anything weird," Schuyler advised with a serious tone; he shoots her an expression of 'Me? I'd never' while she holds the door open for her friend.
*
The coffee cup-- luckily a cheap, completely standard mug-- shatters to the floor as Ben looks as if he is in the throws of having a mental breakdown in the middle of the kitchen. His husband instantly comes out of the connected laundry room to find the source of all the fuss before gasping.
"Young lady!" Spencer's voice becomes strictly dad; she forces herself not to groan. "Would you like to tell your father and I why a man came from your bedroom--"
"Spence! Spencer!" Ben shouted above his husband's scolding words to point a melodramatic, shivering finger to Giles, who stood with his hands in his pockets and tightly pressed his lips together on his handsome face, as if he was attempting to keep himself from laughing. "It's... Adonis man!"
"Adoni-- ADONIS! Way to rebound without telling us, Schuyler," her father shakes his head as he soothes his husband's shoulders, as if Ben had actually been on the brink of a panic attack. He wasn't, well, maybe the first two seconds of the conversation, but not after he clearly recognized Giles.
"The man we Facebook stalked all those months ago, " Ben whispered, as if his words were to wise for his own good. "Standing here, in our kitchen, before us, in all of his mighty glory."
"Good God, why do I even tell people I have parents," Schuyler rubbed her temples with two fingers as she tried her hardest not to explode. The two men stared at Giles as he waved politely and moved forward.
"I'm Giles," he grinned, letting his hand hover in the air before the both of them grabbed it at once. They muffled sorry, but clearly didn't mean it. "And I am not sleeping with your daughter."
They turned to one another briefly, expression clearly saying they most definitely do not believe him, before Spencer crossed his arms and carefully studied the opposing, younger man, looking for any chink in his armor.
"Why were you in my daughter's room?" Spencer asks, the curve of his lips turning into a frown as all hint of any giddiness towards Giles abruptly evaporated into thin air. Schuyler watches the two of them, both of men sizing one another up before Giles lets out a wild laugh, one that is contagious the majority of the time, but now oddly intimidating and seemingly out of place in the kitchen, before turning back to Schuyler.
"I'll be in the car, Schuyler," Giles's voice suddenly splits apart the tension, shaking his head as he moves easily towards the door, as if his feet knew the home's wooden floors like the back of his hand. "Mister and Mister Bradshaw," he allows his hand to curl in the air as he bows. "Pleasure to meet you," he grins like a wolf.
*
It takes convincing. Obviously.
Ben outright laughs in his daughter's face, patting her on the shoulder before she gives him a stern expression and his back straightens, his smile falls, his imploding laughter morphs into silence. The nineteen year-old arches an eyebrow, crosses her arms and pleads with her blue eyes.
Spencer stays silent, sucking on his teeth as he stares at two of the most important people in his life hashing it out in the middle of the kitchen, where all drama seems to go down between the three of them. Between a sobbing five-year old Schuyler, to a grumpy middle-schooler, to an infuriatingly clever teenager, the paling yellow tiles and the old refrigerator and the chipping marble countertops had witnessed every stage of Schuyler's tantrums.
She is nineteen though, and when Ben forbids her to go back to Covington, where Lennox Armstrong may very well be, Schuyler turns on her heels and runs to her room. They sit in an uncomfortable stillness, soundless aside from the scuffles upstairs.
This is the part of Schuyler that Spencer recognizes in himself. So stubborn and headstrong that neither one of them even realize the potential outcomes of their desired actions. Ben isn't teary-eyed out of sadness, he is just scared like hell for Schuyler, knowing exactly what will happen if that boy fucks her over again.
Spencer walks past his husband, although he aches to comfort him, and walks out the front door, to the secondhand truck the boy, Giles, sat in. He's waiting in the front seat, scrolling through his smartphone as Spencer settles his arms on the open window.
He stares at him for a few seconds, both of them in silence, before he speaks. "I don't want Schuyler just to make it out alive, I want Schuyler to be Schuyler again, understood?" He grits his teeth, the extent of an intimidating father exuding from his every pore. He's too old for this shit.
Giles rests his left hand on the top of the steering wheel, sniffing before nodding. "Then we want the same thing, sir," he replies. He's so young, all smooth skin and strong limbs, but his daughter's friend possesses eyes older than himself.
Spencer would be uncomfortable with his intense gaze if he didn't see a sliver of his own self reflecting in them. He slams his palm onto the top of the truck before stepping away, feeling regret settle in his chest.
*
The kitchen is alive with voices when Spencer finds himself back into their home. Schuyler's old high school backpack is strapped to her shoulders and her arms are up in defense and screaming. Screaming with a shrill voice that not even his own mother could match.
"Dad, dad!" She continues over Ben's words, who is feverishly shouting and pointing and pausing to gather himself before beginning once again.
"Schuyler, stop and think about this, can we sit and eat breakfast, and converse like fucking human beings!" Ben shouts, a broom in his hand as if he were in the middle of trying to distract himself with cleaning up the shattered mug from earlier.
"All I do is talk, dad!" Schuyler's voice is helplessly raw and desperate. "All I do everyday is talk about my feelings and feel even worse. I don't get closure. I've never gotten closure. And I won't get it until I at least have a conversation with the idiot who managed to pale everything else in comparison to him."
She turns, walking out of the kitchen and pauses at Spencer.
"I'm not going to be gone for long, as soon as I come back, I'll go to therapy and I'll be me again," she promises with a warm smile, her words coming out in trembles.
"But you were you, you were you, Schuy," Ben leans on his broom, his knuckles pressing to his eyes as he tries to mask his tears. Schuyler realizes at once, coming around to gingerly unravel his hands from the broom he leaned on and wrap them tenderly around her shoulder.
"Dad," she begins lowly. "I wasn't me. I wasn't the me that I want to be," she kisses his cheek lightly, before taking him into a hug. It feels like a goodbye, even when she says it really isn't, so he clutches tighter to his only daughter, fingers moving to catch on her sweatshirt, keeping her grounded to him for just one more second, another moment she's safe with her father.
Spencer watches, as he always does, and takes her soft kiss to his cheek when she passes him on the way to the door. She only glances back twice, like she's a kindergartener again, patiently waiting for one of her fathers to drive her to school, always beating them both to the car by ten minutes.
Although this time, she has no more baby teeth and she knows all of her alphabet and numbers, and instead, she's walking into an unknown future that isn't as concrete as fate, but as frigid as her own choice.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
So, this book was on a long, long hiatus if you cannot tell. Sorry about that. I think it's back. I didn't really like this chapter, but that is because it's hard to get into the mode of writing this story. My apologies for the wait and for the chapter!
Tell me what you liked and what you didn't! I enjoy all comments! <3
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