As soon as my eyes opened, I had about forty-five seconds to make it from my room a few feet from the staircase to the bathroom at the end of the hall before I covered the recently mopped upstairs floor in vomit. Fortunately for me, Sam was just walking out when I shoved passed him and threw myself down against the cold porcelain, throwing up all my internal organs and then some. He stood in the doorway, massaging his own temples as he contemplated what to do. I'd only thrown up this much once before; the first time I'd ate after my mother died. For over two weeks all I did was pick at the crust on toast, so when my aunt forced me to eat an entire bowl of soup and pie for dessert, I'd sat curled in a fetal position with the toilet as my best friend the rest of the night.
I could barely make out Sam still in the doorway, or Nix, who'd wandered over to him at some point. It felt as if someone was taking a jackhammer to both temples while spinning me around in a computer chair. Nix's figure leaned into my brother, then Sam was in his room a few feet away, the door clicking shut sending another surge of pain through my head.
"Not looking too good this afternoon are we, Fae?" I groaned, thinking it was just a dig at my current state until I turned my head in his direction. Despite my head still feeling as if it were moments from exploding, he slowly came into focus. He was wearing a pair of shorts that were sitting a little too low on his toned abdomen. Just under his left breast there was a nasty bruise, and every time he shifted his body, his entire body tensed with pain. It was his beautiful face that had taken the brunt of it all. His right eye was completely swollen shut, his left not far behind. Though it was obvious he'd done his best to clean it, there was still dried blood on and around his nose, and above his busted top lip. If I were more able, I would have stood and did my best to comfort him, but I couldn't even move without taking the entire room with me.
"I feel like death." Once I comprehended what I had just said, I swallowed hard and added, "What happened last night?"
As he moved closer, my eyes caught the familiar tall glass of Sam's hangover remedy in one of his hands, a small bottle of aspirin was tucked in between his arm and his chest.
"A lot apparently." His voice was quiet, very much not like the usual Nix. Maybe he was speaking so softly because he was scared he'd cause me more pain, that sounded more like him. "I don't remember a lot from last night, Damen filled me in."
Damien. Suddenly in the bank of fog that was clouding my mind, an image of Damien throwing himself at his brother surfaced. Damien had completely mutilated Nix's face.
"It hurts." I touched my cold fingers to my temple. "I feel my head is seconds from splitting open. I'm never touching alcohol again."
Nix tried at a smile, but it must have hurt, because it faltered as quickly as it appeared. "Yeah, I know the feeling. You get used to it though. Not that I want you getting used to it, you're a really bad drunk. Look at the damage you caused my beautiful face."
The damage I caused? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
I reached over my head to flush the toilet as Nix edged closer and slowly extended the smoothie out of to me, setting the pills on the bathroom sink in front of me. "I promise this will help. It gets—"
Before Nix could finish his sentence, Phil began pounding on the wall somewhere in the house, shouting as loud as humanly possible. "Family meeting in fifteen minutes. That includes you too, Damien and Phoenix. Let's go!"
I cried out, burying my head in my hands, and felt Nix wince beside me at the obnoxious noise pollution.
"I'll get out so you can shower. Just try not to think too hard, makes it hurt worse." Nix commented, but just as he was about to turn around, his hand brushed against my thigh and his head whipped back toward me. Even with my head feeling like a heavy weight, I was coherent enough to see the shock register in his eyes.
Then it wasn't him in front of me, but Damien, his gray eyes shining with tears as his hand rested against my thigh.
"No, Fae, baby." Nix brushed my hair off my forehead. "Don't do that to yourself. Why would you do that?"
He must have recognized what they were. Damien did a decent job concealing all his scars, but his own brother would have to have caught sight of his arms at one point or another.
"You wouldn't understand." I whispered, but internally I was questioning if there was a possibility he did. "I didn't even feel half of the pain my mom felt when I did this, but it helped me understand it."
"No, no, Fae. She wouldn't want you doing this to yourself." Nix looked as if there was more he wanted to say, but another round of banging echoed through the silent house, followed by Phil's yell.
"Ten minutes!"
Nix dropped his hand from my thigh and touched my shoulder gently before he turned on his heel and walked back across the hall to his room. I waited until his door had shut to look in the mirror, and regretted it immensely seconds afterward. Sometime during the night, my tight, body hugging dress had been replaced with Damien's royal blue shirt. It seemed that the shirt had been through its own set of turbulations last night as their was blood splattered across the collar of it. My hair was a tangled knotted mess with mustard? Was that mustard in my hair?
"What the hell?" I mumbled, slipping out of the bathroom and grasping the doorframe as another sharp pain shot through my skull, paralyzing me in place. Forcing myself through it, I stepped into my room, just to find that my entire duffel bag and the few shirts I'd hung in the closet had vanished. Or likely sat in Aden's room downstairs.
Sighing, I grabbed a towel from on top of my dresser and headed back out into the hall, in too much pain to try and locate my clothes. If I had to throw the dirty, bloody shirt back on after my shower, that was probably the least of my worries.
"Hey, Miss Independent, here." I barely had enough time to look up before a black shirt hit me in the face. I grasped it in my hands and looked toward the direction it'd come from. Damien was standing in his door way, hands in the pockets of his dark shorts. His shirt was surprisingly lose, not as body fitting as what he typically wore. It was his face that had my stomach churning with nausea again.
He wasn't as battered as his brother was, but there was black and blue marks circling beneath both piercing eyes, giving him the appearance of a racoon. His bottom lip was so swollen that it was hard to see if it'd been just as split as Nix's. But just like Nix, he was acting as if his entire face wasn't a sight for sore eyes.
"Aden took off a few minutes ago with your clothes." Damien went on, seeing how I was staring at the shirt in my hands. "Don't worry, I'll kick his ass and get them back."
"Thanks." I mumbled, continuing down the hall with very slow, small steps. It wasn't until I stepped into the bathroom and touched my hand to the dried blood in the lower right side of my mouth that I grew rigid. The blood wasn't mine, but Damien's.
I had kissed Damien Holt last night.
*
My trip down the stairs was a close second to being the most agonizing experience of my life. Every step I made, a new pain shot through my head. It wasn't until I finally reached the bottom that I dug my nails into my scalp and whimpered. Most of the boys were already in the living room, Nix and Sam being the two appearing to be MIA. Buckley sat with his arms behind his head on the loveseat, eyes squeezed shut, in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. Beside him, looking just as miserably drunk, was Hudson, a bag of frozen vegetables on his forehead as he ran a hand across his bare chest. In front of me on the couch were Aden and Damien with a huge gap between them, clearly meant to be filled by Nix and me. Aden looked pretty hungover, but the rush of anger in his eyes washed any other emotion away. Damien sat with his head propped on his hand, watching as Phil paced the room. Walking all the way to the kitchen door then back to where Buckley sat moaning and groaning.
"Phoenix! Samuel!" Buckley slowly lifted his head with a grimace, eyes opening only enough to show he was glaring at our older brother.
"Is that necessary, Phil?"
Phil barely looked in his direction, running his hand along the five o' clock shadow that had seemingly appeared overnight. His yell was enough to bring Sam down the stairs, pushing Nix down in front of him. Both Buck and Phil inhaled quickly when they saw the damage that'd been done to Nix's face, but with Buck's pitiful look, came an extremely irritated one out of the eldest Bennett.
"Sit. Now. All of you!" I pressed my palms into my temples, even with the Aspirin fighting the headache, Phil's yelling was sending shock waves of pain through my head.
Nix and Sam sat in the gap between their brothers, leaving me the only one still standing. Phil shot me a warning look that made me consider turning around and running up the stairs out of fear. Feeling his blue eyes burning into me as I walked around the couch, I perched myself on the arm beside Damien.
"What happened last night?" Phil snapped, broad arms crossed over his chest. Daimen's arm grew tense beside my leg at the question, but nobody spoke up. "Okay, you want to play these childish games. Give me your phones."
If he didn't look on the verge of murdering the four of us, I would have laughed. Was my brother seriously thinking he could step in as our father right now?
"What?" Aden retorted, touching his hand to his phone on his lap protectively. "Why the hell would we do that?"
Phil's jaw was clenched so tight I was starting to worry he was going to hurt himself.
"You all want to act like your seven, then I'll treat you like your seven. Phones. Now!"
Damien was the first to fish his phone out of his pocket and toss it to my brother, then dropped his head back into the same position it had been seconds before. Nix sighed, face completely guilt ridden as he outstretched his hand to Phil. When Phil looked between Aden and me, all I did was eye him cautiously.
"Phones. Now." He ordered once more.
"What did I do?" I finally said, my voice barely above a whisper, but sounding as if I'd shouted with how silent the room was.
Aden snickered from the other side of the couch. "What didn't you do?"
Phil, who was passed the point of no return, tore Aden's phone from his lap and slapped him upside the head. Aden crossed his arms over his chest, slumping back into the cushion with a dark look in my direction.
"Arianna." Phil opened his palm in front of me expectantly. "That means you too."
I hesitated, but decided I didn't want to test the waters with my brother and rested my phone in his hand. Once he'd slipped them into his pockets, he looked around the room.
"Who's going to tell me what the hell happened last night?"
"I don't remember." Buckley said through a yawn. "Last thing I remember is Arianna stripping for Damien. Then she was gone."
I felt all eyes in the room fall on me at the comment, but my own shock must have been just as evident, because Damien straightened himself beside me and shook his head.
"She didn't strip for me. Aden's a dick and purposely covered her in food so her dress would be ruined." Damien explained. "But rather than be smart and just go back home with me, she stripped down to her bra and panties and walked off."
Phil let out a long, disappointed sigh. "Since you're the only one who was sober, tell me what happened between you and Nix."
Damien tensed again, lips pursed. Nix, who was only able to use one eye, was waiting with just as anticipation as the rest of us.
"Arianna was wasted. Cady found her on the beach, but she wandered off, apparently back to my brother. So when she wasn't there after Cady brought me back down, I headed back for the beach and found her with Nix." Damien was staring at his bruised knuckles, uncomfortable with all the attention on him. "He was drunk too. They were seconds away from heading back to the beach house to fuck, so I grabbed her and told him to let me take her back home. He refused and said something that pissed me off."
"What'd he say?" It was Sam, speaking for the first time. He was staring at his best friend beside him with a disapproving look, one most of my brothers were sharing.
Damien was quiet for a while, then finally he turned his head to look up at me beside him. "He said I was just pissed that he, as always, had something I wanted."
My eyes didn't remain on Damien, but fell on Nix beside him. He had shrunk into the couch the same way Aden had, hands buried in his hair as he shook his head to himself.
"Okay." Phil massaged the back of his neck. "Since you all wanted to sit around and act like a bunch of kids, you're going to be treated like one. All of you are housed unless you're leaving for work. Other wise you are eating, drinking, whatever, in your rooms. I will give you your phones once you all can show that you're responsible enough to have them."
"I'm nineteen." Nix said with a bitter edge in his voice. "You're seriously going to treat me like a child?"
For the first time since I'd arrived, my brother's anger was directed at Nix. "You want to act like one, yes. The housing also means no more sneaking into his room, Arianna. If you have to spend time together, you can come down here in the living room or out in the pool."
"Come on, man. Seriously?" Nix threw his hands up in exasperation. But it was Buck who responded.
"You're lucky we're even allowing you around her, bro. Don't push it."
Aden was shaking his head, clearly not taking a single thing our brother said seriously. Phil was already beyond furious, but when he saw Aden's expression, it was the final cut in the chord of composure he'd had.
"You want to do this, kid? I'm already confiscating all your game systems and your phone, you're grounded, but I can promise you I'll find other ways to punish you. All you have done since Arianna got back here is torment her."
Instead of respond, Aden pushed himself up from the couch and threw himself over the back of it so he wouldn't have to pass Phil, and disappeared down the dark hallway, only his door slamming signifying that he'd made it to his room. It was almost as if it were a cue for everyone else to disperse. Damien slowly rose from the couch, but Phil caught his arm before he could walk away and slapped his phone into his palm.
"Thank you for watching out for my sister." Phil said quietly.
It was what Damien did next that surprised both of us. He set his phone back into Phil's hand with a shake of his head, eyes following Nix as he dragged himself back up the stairs, then falling on me in front of him. He didn't say a word, but gently brushed passed Phil and headed for the stairs after his brother, leaving my own to stare after him.