Inner Core: (Stark, #2) (11 page)

“I. Will. Be. Fine.” My eye roll comes involuntarily.

“I'll check up on you later. I gotta go.” He shows not a shred of mellowing; his solemnity is intact. I shake my head, amused.

I will most probably survive this, D.

I finally take a shower late in the afternoon. As I take the first step out, the intercom buzzes. I feel much better, though I'm still fighting the last remnants of being sick: it seems to be one of those twenty-four hour viruses. I check out the intercom monitor screen and a smile spreads across my lips at Ian posing like a bimbo-actress-wannabe in some low-budget action premiere. I quickly shrug on yoga pants and a pink hoodie, run my fingers through my hair just for the sake of looking somewhat presentable, and head for the door.

“Took you long enough to answer,” Ian grumbles. He twists his mouth, resting casually on the door frame, his feet crossed at his ankles. Tasha, standing beside him, shakes her head and mouths, “Lame-o.”

“Think it’s easy pulling this beautiful?” I answer, blinking at him with puffy eyes. They both snort and Ian cheerfully proclaims, “You're always beautiful. Now, get your germ-possessed cadaver as far away from me as possible. I can’t be infected. My body is an important work asset.” He pushes me away gently with one cautious finger.

“I could never imagine you looking as stunning as you currently do. So natural.” Tasha flashes her perfect set of teeth at me and squeezes me in a warm embrace. Ian succumbs to herd, hugging me and lifting me up.

“What are you guys doing here?” I ask as I let them in to the main room.

“Well, fuck me dead, some shack you’ve moved to,” Ian states, gesturing with his hands toward the room. His tendency to dramatize every single thing that spills from his mouth sometimes overwhelms even me a little. Tasha and I trade sardonic stares.

Daniel’s house is much less opulent than the mansion Ian’s parents own but trust Ian to stage a mini scene.

“So... What are you guys doing here?” I lead them toward the kitchen and they follow me.

“Not happy to see us, friendie dearest?” Tasha raises a shaped eyebrow.

I beam at her.

“Okay, here's my side of the story.” Ian interrupts us with what he makes out to be the start of an epic tale. “At seventeen hundred sharp I got a call.”

Tasha and I giggle at the way he tries to build suspense with his preface.

“Miss Taylor delivered the King’s order that we shall keep company to his recumbent queen.”

I fire a quizzical stare Tasha’s way for affirmation, my eyebrows nearly melding into one. She nods assent with a small smile.

“Now my side,” Tasha says dryly, as I pour Ian a glass of chilled white, her an Italian merlot and myself a mug of jasmine tea.

“At fourteen hundred thirty...” Tasha mocks Ian’s earlier performance, setting the three of us alight with humor.

“Basically, a few hours ago I got an email from the CEO of my company. Mind you, it was a polite email…well, for him,” she says, teasingly. “Telling me to pack up my stuff and go take care of my best friend.”

Absently I bring my hand up to cover my face.
He doesn’t have any boundaries, that dictatorial significant other of mine.

“Sorry, I guess, err, on his behalf…?” I send them both an apologetic, awkward look.

“Hey, don’t you dare go there!” Ian growls. “My loyalty to the hottest king ever is unquestionable. I execute the king’s orders to the letter.”

“C’mon Sir Lancelot, let’s not get carried away. How about we go sit on the deck,” I say drily and offer Ian the hook of my arm.

“Pfft, as if we wouldn’t be here anyhow.” Tasha engulfs my waist and rests her head on mine.

“Hold on, let’s take these babies with us.” I study the clear container in Ian’s hand curiously. “Freshly homemade ginger cookies,” he says. “I made them especially for you, gorgeous.”

I smile and kiss his cheek
. Gotta love my Ian.

The three of us squeeze into one wicker recliner. Ian places the cookie container on my thighs as I'm the one slumped in the middle. For a better part of an hour we nibble at Ian’s blessed gastronomic work of art, sipping our drinks over T.Y.P. crooning in the background. The two of them fill me in with a minute-by-minute account of their week. I am relieved to hear Ian didn’t violate any poor creature in my bed.

“Yet,” Tasha declares sneeringly.

After that, Ian and I listen very attentively to Tasha’s elaborate stories about her dates with her seemingly perfect new crush.

“What are you humming?” I ask Ian.

“A song from Pinocchio.” At my raised eyebrow he clarifies: “Which I watched with Ayden the other day.” Ayden is the kid Ian big brothers as part of a volunteer program, and it's time he loves serving, though it used to be a slap on the wrist for a crime too idiotic to mention that he committed a very long time ago. His sentence is long served, but he still chooses to take part.

Tasha and I beam at him fondly, adding a collective feminine sigh. He takes a sip of his white and states, “The wooden dude is a genius. He figured out the ultimate lifestyle.”

“Is that so?” Tasha’s lips lift up.

“It goes something like, ‘I've got no strings to hold me down, to make me fret, or make me frown. I had strings but now I'm free’.” Ian's satisfied grin practically blinds us.

Only Ian can make a hymn praising polygamy out of an innocent kid’s song.

“Mmm hmm, I see. You mean guaranteed STDs make the ultimate lifestyle, Sir?”
I shake my head with a chuckle. My companions join me in tittering.

“You’ve been there before getting all domestic with Mr. Sexy as fuck.
You
tell
me
.” Ian squints his eyes at me.

“Ouch, bitchy,” Tasha says, and we all trade amused glances.

“What are we going to do with you?” She asks next.

“Love me til your very last breath on earth?” Ian says and the three of us snort in stereo.

“Truth or dare, gorgeous,” Ian says to me, spikes set aside.

“I’ll go with truth. No chance I’m doing anything that will make me move my butt.”

Tasha huffs in assent. “Before you ask, same answer here,” she tells Ian.

“Truth, no chance in hell are you moving back to the apartment, huh?”

Ian and Tasha exchange amused looks that don’t go unseen, as subtle as they try to be. When I grimace and am about to answer Tasha stops me at, “Uhm, well,” by raising her hand.

“Before you answer, may I remind you that you are still under the oath of the scared pact we made ages ago, the ‘thou shalt not bullshit thy besties,’ one?” 

“Truth.” I surrender, twisting my mouth, and they both smirk smugly at me.

“Spotlight back on you guys now, thank you.” No way am I going to be the center of this, especially with the wicked glee these two have in their eyes.

“Truth Ian, why did you call your dad the other day?”

I wince.
Trying to gut the poor guy out here in the open, Missy?

“I guess, pathetic as it may sound, I thought that maybe if he knew I was in trouble he might reach out to me.”

I lace my fingers into Ian’s in a silent gesture of empathy. The three of us turn quiet; suddenly it feels like evening is approaching quickly and the temperature's dropped a couple of degrees.
Or is it just due to the morbid topic?

“So Tash, how is Brad at dazzling your private parts?” Ian says with a clear attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

“Don’t want to jinx it, but he’s just…” Tasha’s look turns wistful, I can just imagine how her pupils will take on a heart shape any second now. “Well, he does know how to make a woman...smile.”

“Nothing wrong with him?” Ian insists, feigning shock.

“On the scale of one to keeper? I’d go with nine and a half.”

I smile, impressed.
Guess he's a rare species for Missy here to give him such a high ranking.

“So far… I'm crossing my fingers not to encounter any surprises along the way.”

The three of us sit in comfortable silence for a good ten minutes, or maybe eternity. Our spaced out, meditative state reminds me of past times. Times that now seem from another life, times in which we used to sit around like this for hours. The only small difference is that back then it was due to consuming some substance that mellowed you and took your mind to uncanny philosophic places. 

“You know what, guys,” Tasha says, breaking our prolonged meditative silence, “my life is so boring, so banal, so freaking normal.”

We both turn our heads her way.

“I am so normal it’s just about sickening.” She sighs.

“As opposed to us you mean?” I say. Ian’s face twists in a hilarious puzzled expression.

“As opposed to almost everyone we know...” says Tasha. “I grew up in a house surrounded by a perfect white picket fence in the burbs with an ultra-normal family. Guys, seriously, my house has a genuine white freaking picket fence.” She huffs. “Had a perfect GPA. Always had long lasting, no drama relationships. Everything just absofuckinglutely normal.”

“And you consider that a problem because?” Ian puts both his thoughts and mine into words.

Tasha rolls her eyes and continues. “I bet with all this normality, that of the three of us it'll be
me
with the midlife crisis. A sad suburban mental breakdown by the age of 35, caused by severe boredom.” Tasha lingers at the end of the sentence in a dark, dramatic tone, her eyes fixed on some point ahead.

I shake my head in contempt.

“You know, Tash,” Ian says, wearing his serious adult hat, “the last time I can remember that my life was simple and drama free was right before my umbilical cord was cut, and believe me, you don’t want that. Boring is good. Boring is sane.”

“I think you should start sharing my Xanax, babes,” he murmurs next.

Jackpot, gorgeous. Though come to think of it I’d go with right before you outed yourself was the last time
your
life was complex free.
I search inside my head, wondering when my life was last sans-drama
.
Maybe the minute before I met the love of my life?
I sigh.

“C’mon, my life can be categorized in freaking neat little boxes of dullness,” says Tasha.

Where is this coming from?
Maybe we need some more one-on-one time before Barbie morphs into Chucky.

“Did you strengthen the ginger cookies?” I ask Ian, who growls amused and shakes his head.

“You know what, you guys? I want to be badass, not like a Hayley-style, girlie-wanna-be-badass,” Tasha continues.

“No offense taken,” I say lazily, removing cookies crumbs from my shirt.

“I mean Chuck Norris badass, that’s what I want…”

“Okaaaay,” Ian says, sending me an awkward what-the-fuck look.

“Fine, Chuck Norris. Obviously someone had just a little too much of her happy cup.”

“Best thing that ever happened to you?” I ask Tasha. We need to rescue her from the nonsense currently holding her brain hostage.

“Sorry Ian, no offense,” she says, turning to Ian, “but that would be you, Hales.” I grin at her and peck her cheek only to be given a loud smooch on my lips.

“Sick here,” I say, pointing at myself, warning germs transition.

Ian snickers at our brief display and continues the diversion I’ve initiated. “How about you, Hales?”

“The two of you without a single doubt.”

Tasha gives me a sarcastic look. “Ah, ah. And what about your boy toy?”

“Pfft, totally different story…” I twist my lips. “It’s not like I'm going to marry the two of you...”
Whaaaaaa?

“
The fuck,
Hales?” Ian almost squeals and my hand flies up to cover my delusional mouth.

“And here's the epitome of a Freudian slip for you...” Tasha murmurs, and snickers.

“It was just a general saying, I didn’t mean like actually the wedding thing, just what it stands for, a metaphor, no one is thinking of… I didn't mean it like that.”
Yeah, that was convincing.

“Yes you did,” Ian says, annoyingly smug, wriggling his eyebrows.

“No. I definitely did not.”

“Yep,” he pops the p. “You totally did.”

“No, really, you guys?” Tasha says, turning from me to Ian and back. “Really?”

“Listen,” I point my finger into the air. “Mistake! If this is ever repeated there will be casualties!” With my finger still up I add, “Massacre, Kill Bill wedding day kind of casualties."

“Whatevs, psycho.” Ian says, grinning, and I flare my nostrils. When Tasha cracks up, we follow. As our amusement calms I move on to Ian.

“Now you, best thing?”

“My looks!” Tasha and I sneer at him jointly.

“What? C’mon, don’t you think I have this natural, godly beauty?”

“Oh my gawd Ian, you are so grotesquely self-absorbed it’s borderline repulsive,” Tasha shrieks. I love Ian so much, but sometimes I really wish he would drop the mask, just for a little while. At least with us.

“Seriously, you need to be tested. I don’t know for what, but something is definitely wrong.” I add my two cents.

“Or just skip it and enroll directly in Aggressive-Medications -R-Us,” Tasha adds.

“Hales,” Daniel’s husky voice calling me reaches us from within the house.

“Oh, the groom.” Tasha says. I choose to ignore her “witticism”.

“Back here, gorgeous,” Ian shouts back.

“Moron.” I smack his abs in a friendly way.

“Hey,” Daniel says as he approaches, sending the most adorable side smile my way. I watch him for a brief moment and beam in pleasure. Stubble decorates his square jaw, adding some roughness to his usual up to no good, sexy as hell face. He's wearing a white button down and faded jeans with a thick black belt. The jeans fit his pelvis in a way that makes me want to crawl over to him and unbuckle that belt with my teeth. He extends his hand for me to take and pulls me up from between my friends. When I'm standing I find myself being lifted into a warm, strong embrace.

“How do you feel, baby?” He asks in a low voice. He plants a supple kiss on my lips. “Much better.” I grin at him, and wrap my hands around his neck. I reach my lips to his mouth for another short taste of their drug.