Kindred (20 page)

“Tow truck’s here!” Harry says from the driveway.

Still straddling Isaac from behind, he walks with me back to the cars where the tow truck is backing its way in. Harry stands behind it, guiding it to the far side of the driveway so that it’s out of the way of the other cars. Seconds later, another car pulls in and a slim, brown-haired girl gets out holding four large pizza boxes. Harry hugs his sister and takes the pizza boxes from her and passes them to Sebastian before going back to deal with the tow truck that’s now letting his precious Darla out of her chains.

Megan, Harry’s sister, can’t be older than twenty-five. And I can definitely see the resemblance as we all hang out on the large deck outside overlooking the ocean. Like Harry, Megan is tall, with dark, dark eyebrows and when she smiles I notice that one corner of her mouth lifts a little higher than the other, exactly like Harry’s does.

All of the guys are literally stuffing their faces with pizza. Daisy, Zia and I eat with a little less savagery, and Hannah (she doesn’t talk much) declines food altogether.

“If you’re going to be working on that car here,” Megan says to Harry, “make sure you put an oil pan and a blanket or something under it this time. I don’t want that stuff leaving black stains all over the sand.”

“Fine, Meg,” Harry says with his mouth full. “Where’s that guy you were dating—Phillip, I think? The one with the killer pinup tat?” Harry swallows his food and takes another bite bigger than the last; the corners of his mouth are red with pizza sauce. He looks at all of us sitting around the wrought-iron patio table and adds, “My sister said she’d never date a guy with tattoos.
Never
.” He smiles triumphantly.

“Harry’s trying to get rid of me,” Megan says to us, taking a little bite of pizza herself. “Hasn’t seen me in a month and is already tired of my company.”

We’re all smiling, listening to their innocent banter.

“Hey!” Harry says to Megan and then looks back at all of us. “She’s just trying to make you feel bad for her. Don’t fall for it. She’s not as innocent as she looks.”

“I’m on her side already,” says Zia on Harry’s right.

“Me too,” I say. “Harry can be shady sometimes, especially when he wants something.”

“Uh huh,” Daisy says with her mouth full too. She points a finger and adds, “He thinks that charming smile and sad eyes of his are failsafe, but he has got it
all
wrong.”

Harry’s eyes get bigger and bigger as everyone gangs up on him. He turns to Sebastian, the one person at the table other than his sister who’s known him longer than anyone.

“Come on, man,” he says, palms up, “back me up here!”

The table gets quiet and all eyes are on Sebastian.

“It’s
her
house,” Sebastian finally says, shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his pizza.

The table erupts with laughter, even from poor, abandoned Harry.

“I’ll be gone before any of you get back tonight,” Megan says, wiping her mouth with a paper towel. She takes a sip of soda and sets the can back on the table. “And Harry, you know my rules. Break them and I’ll tell Mom and I’ll never trust you alone in my house again. Got it?”

Harry winks and makes a clicking noise with his tongue. “Got it.”

I’m wondering what the rules are, but I’m pretty sure it’s basic obvious stuff like no wild parties, no drugs or alcohol and no sex in the house. Stuff like that. Wild parties are iffy, because if we did have any sort of party, it would just be amongst ourselves, so it wouldn’t really be ‘wild’. Drugs and alcohol are no issue because as far as I know, no one here has any bad habits like that. Not sure about Nathan’s girlfriend, Hannah, but somehow I doubt she does either. She’s afraid of peperoni.

Sex in the house? Well, that’s another story.

I’m the only virgin here (again, I’m not sure about Hannah, but being Nathan’s girlfriend, I highly doubt it), and put a house full of couples like us alone in a beach house away from chaperones and there’s a 99.9% chance that
someone’s
going to be having sex.

I look over at Isaac sitting next to me and just imagine it for a brief moment. Oh my god. Maybe I shouldn’t do that….

Isaac smiles at me and I feel his hand move across my inner thigh. It’s nothing sexual. He does that all the time when we sit next to each other, but with the imagery still hanging on the edges of my mind, the touch only intensifies the details. I cross my legs instinctively as chills attack me all over and his hand has no choice but to pull away. I feel Isaac smiling at me from the side, maybe wondering what caused me to do that, but my face is burning so hot I can’t turn around fully to look back at him. I feel his lips touch my jawline just below my ear and my already raised temperature goes up another two degrees.

We spend the next hour dragging our bags in from the cars and checking out the rest of the house. There are three bedrooms, but Megan stresses that hers is off-limits, so that leaves two for all of us to choose from. Harry and Daisy get the one he always stays in when he visits, and Nathan, being the oldest, gets the other room for him and Hannah. That leaves Isaac and I to snatch up the full walkout basement and Zia and Sebastian get the den area with a roll-out couch bed.

By mid-afternoon we head into Portland’s Downtown District and leave the Jeeps parked in a public parking lot. We missed the Old Port Festival by a week, but Harry insists that there’s still plenty to do when the weather’s as nice as it is. On the way downtown, I’ve never seen so many fishing vessels and sailboats. And even though we missed the festival, once we make it into the Old Port District perched on the water’s edge, I see there is no shortage of people walking the cobblestone streets with vendors and shops and restaurants teeming with business and a lot of tourists. By four o’clock, my feet are killing me from walking around so much. We visited just about everything that wasn’t boring, but inevitably it was unanimously decided that the girls must break off from the guys because
they
want to check out the Harley Davidsons at a small motorcycle show nearby, and we of course, do not.

Kissing Isaac goodbye, even just for a little while I think will always feel like I’m kissing him goodbye forever.

“We’ll meet back up at Deering Oaks Park,” Isaac says, standing underneath a small white awning settled between two copper-colored signs. “Cell phone?” he looks at me quizzically.

I reach into the leather purse he bought for me not long ago and dig around for my phone. “Yes, Daddy, I have my cell phone,” I say, holding it up to prove it and my grin just gets bigger.

Isaac rubs his hands up and down the sides of my arms. “What am I going to do with you?” he says. “Might have to conjure up a fitting punishment for that smart mouth of yours.”

I push myself up on my toes to kiss him. I meant for it to be a simple loving peck on the lips, but before I move away, he pulls me closer to kiss me more deeply. “But I happen to love that smart mouth,” he says now inches from my lips.

“Oh come on,” Nathan says. “Don’t make me get cliché and tell you two to get a room.” He’s holding Hannah’s hand, who seems to blush when her eyes meet mine. Someone as quiet and petite as Hannah seems unlikely in our oddly arranged group. They’ve been going out for about a month. And she’s tiny. She can’t weigh more than one hundred-two pounds. She’s pretty, in that cute Hailee Steinfeld sort of way.

We break off from the guys and cut through a small park from Market Street and head to the corner of Middle and Exchange Street to find a mandatory Starbucks. I’m trying to keep a mental map of these places in my head so we don’t get lost. It doesn’t matter that most of us have cell phones with built-in GPS systems; I like to take extra precautions and don’t want to be one of those people who depend solely on technology for everything. As Aunt Bev might say: “It’s casual-thinking like
that
, that ends up lost in the middle of nowhere with a dead cell phone and the only way back is to map your way out by the stars.”

Some kind of blues music carries through the streets like only live music can, the rawness of the guitar and accuracy of instruments that recorded music tends to modify and bury.

We hit several smaller stores tucked into side streets and alleys before finding a restaurant we all agree on and I finally get a chance to rest my feet. The picnic tables outside by the water are full, so we sit inside by a window to eat our food, watching tourists walk by on the side deck. Daisy and Hannah sit across from Zia and me and our shopping bags sit next to us. I only spent a total of $32 on a turquoise beaded necklace for Aunt Bev and a couple of knick-knack’s that’ll probably sit on a shelf and collect dust.

“I started to think you didn’t eat at all,” Zia says to Hannah who smiles almost childlike with her shoulders pushed up near her cheeks. She eats like a bird, pecking at the organic greens and mushrooms her salad had been made with. She does look like she could use a nice fat steak with a buttery baked potato on the side.

I really don’t know much about Hannah except that she is a werewolf. Newly Turned. Not even a year ago. I wonder how in the world someone as small as she is could’ve lived through the transformation. How she can
continue
to live through it. I guess it’s obvious that how small one’s body is has nothing to do with whether a female can survive it, or not. And I try not to think about the process much. Nothing about it exactly deserves my consideration. It would be kind of like sitting around daydreaming about horrific scenes from
Dog Soldiers
, or those two crazy chicks in those
Ginger Snaps
movies.

Not exactly my kind of daydreaming.

Hannah places her fork in her salad and daintily wipes one corner of her mouth. “I’ve never really had much of an appetite,” she says in a voice almost too soft to hear.

Daisy smiles over at her and says, “I think that’s one reason Nathan likes you, doll.”

“Because she doesn’t like
food
?” Zia says incredulously, stuffing a torn-off piece of flatbread in her mouth.

“No, honey,” Daisy says, “Nathan just has a thing for petite girls, and vegetarians tend to be smaller than meat-eaters, I guess.”

Personally, I’m not sure what it is about Hannah that Nathan really likes. Yeah, she’s really pretty, but he usually goes for fun, outgoing girls with loveable personalities. Hannah isn’t very fun, definitely far from being outgoing. And honestly, I think Daisy is just trying to be nice by helping Hannah to fit in with us. Because Daisy knows even better than I do that Hannah isn’t Nathan’s usual type.

That whole talk of being petite and of vegetarianism, it’s just Daisy’s way of including Hannah, as weird as the approach may be.

“You’re a
vegetarian
?” I say, surprised, yet at the same time, not so much.

“Yeah,” Hannah says coyly, “I’ve never eaten meat in my life. I was raised vegetarian.”

I feel my eyes get a little wider. Zia’s are as round as softballs and a piece of flatbread hangs precariously between her lips. “You’ve
never
had meat?
Ever
?”

I think Zia’s eyeballs are about to fall out.

Being a vegetarian really isn’t a big deal to me at all. Both of my best friends back in Georgia were vegetarians. What’s so hard to swallow about this information is the fact that Hannah’s a werewolf and the picture I’m trying to visualize isn’t coming together like I want it to. I keep seeing her all wolfed-out, chomping down on some poor human’s collarbone and stopping to throw up instead of finishing the job.

I lean over the seat so the couple sitting nearby doesn’t hear and I say to Zia, “But she’s…a
werewolf
.” The word ‘werewolf’ I forced through my front teeth.

Zia finally swallows that piece of flatbread hanging from her lips and throws her head back and laughs.

“Adria!” she says, “werewolves don’t actually
eat
people!” She pauses, looking upward and corrects herself, “Well, not intentionally, anyway.”

She had said it all so loud that the nearby couple looks over at us warily.

“Well I know that, Zia!” I say, still pushing the words harshly through my teeth. “Just that being one means you’re likely going to at least
taste
human flesh at some point—know what I mean?”

“I guess that’s true,” Zia admits, going back to her food. “She’s bound to wake up one morning with bits in her teeth.”

I shudder visibly and my face has scrunched up so much I know I look like one of those hideous troll dolls. “God, Zia! That’s gross. Seriously.”

Hannah looks pale now and the coy smile has fled from her face.

“Oh, doll,” Daisy says, reaching over and laying her hand on Hannah’s, “they didn’t mean to make you sick.” Daisy looks across at me and Zia with a cautionary expression. “Maybe we should talk about something else. Maybe a spinach garden, or those cute little shoestring carrots.”

I notice Zia roll her eyes, laughing quietly.

Something tells me that Hannah is going to have to get over that whole vegetarian thing now that she’s a werewolf. I can tell, just by looking at the way her scared, submissive eyes dance around on the table, that she’s just trying to hold on to anything she can of her humanity. Being a vegetarian all her human life and then suddenly she’s made into this flesh-biting beast, it must be traumatic for her. As if being a werewolf alone isn’t traumatic enough.