It smelled like someone had an essential oils diffuser running, giving the air a citrusy, fresh scent.
There was soft, dark classical music playing from what I assumed was the living room.
“Is that… Adam Hurst?” I asked, totally enthralled by the haunting notes of a cello drifting from the direction Cal was leading me.
Suddenly, I found myself in a living room/kitchen split. The kitchen had white waterfall marble countertops and modern pendant lighting. The living room had a massive TV over an electric fireplace and two couches facing each other on either side of a crystal coffee table.
Sure enough, the TV was playing a dark academia playlist, andDesolationby Adam Hurst was pumping through the speakers.
A young woman with blond hair who had been curled up on the couch with a gnome-shaped pillow turned down the volume and twisted around to beam at us.
“Good ear! Yeah, I love me some dark and twisty classical music when I’m reading.” The girl beamed at me, though her smile faltered when she took in the state of my face.
Her mouth dropped open, and she immediately turned to glare at Cal.
“CALLUM JAMES WALKER!” she exclaimed, and he chuckled.
“Oh boy. You know I’m in trouble when she whips out the full name.”
“Well, what do you expect! Don’t even try to tell me that this isn’t your handy work!” The blond girl leapt up from the couch, tossing her Kindle next to her squishy gnome pillow.
Instantly, she was in front of me, reaching up to touch my chin and tilt my head from side to side.
She was tiny. Much smaller than either Cal or Cass, though, you could see the resemblance in her face. She had the same dark brown eyes and olive skin, and her hair was just as thick. You could tell she was naturally a deep brunette, though I had to admit the blond suited her.
I remembered what Cal told me about how he and his sisters had spent their lives trapped in cages in the early years of their lives. This must be Naomi, the one they had been worried might die from their mother’s neglect.
Looking at this young, vibrant girl before me, my heart squeezed with the unfairness of it. I couldn’t imagine anyone locking this little ball of sunshine up in a cage.
“Ryan has a funeral service tomorrow, and we were hoping you could help teach us how to properly cover it up.” Cal glanced at me, grinning. “No offense, but whatever you tried to do to cover it up last time just made it look worse.”
I sighed. He was right. The concealer I had smeared on hadn’t matched my skin at all and had just gotten really clumpy. The bruises had shown right through.
Naomi popped a hip and rested her fist on it, giving me a smirk and a critical up and down.
“Well, there’s not much I can do about the swelling. You’ll just have to ice your face and hope for the best. But I can certainly fix the coloring for you.
“I’ll teach you how to do it here, and you can borrow some products and reapply tomorrow… actually, I don’t have a lot going on tomorrow, so if you like, I can pop by and do it again for you.”
My heart fluttered in my chest.
“You don’t have to do that. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
Cal moved forward as if he were going to wrap his arms around me, but I jerked away, frantically glancing at Naomi and back at him.
He immediately stopped and acted like he had just been moving to slide his hands into his pockets instead.
“It’s not an inconvenience, Ryan. Trust me, if it was, she wouldn’t have offered,” he said, smoothly moving past myawkward inability to accept any form of affection from him in front of his sister.
“Ooo, Ryan? I’ve heard so much about you!”
Oh god.
“All good things, I hope.” I winced, but Naomi just smiled at me warmly.
“Of course! Cal was gushing to me about you the other day.”
“He was?” I asked, feeling like my heart was stuck in my throat. I didn’t think anyone had evergushedabout me before.
