Heartbreak hotel

Chapter 2

Soren knew what he had was an unreasonable fear, but isn’t that what made fears so terrifying in the first place? His fear was of a man, in particular, Scar. He knew the man was probably the softest person out of the bunch, but maybe the scar ran down his face, or how large the man was and how, if push came to shove, he could and would hurt Soren.

Maybe it explained why, when it had taken everyone almost half an hour to gather at his house, Soren had come last and taken a seat as far away from the man as physically possible. He had been sitting near the archway of the kitchen door, and Soren had taken a seat directly in the corner opposite him, where he could see the entire room, and with the door directly in front of him, he could escape if he needed to.

Soren had learned that, when having a family as big as theirs, everyone needed at least some time to spend together, and it had unanimously become dinner. Every day, the people who cooked varied, and today it was Alex and Nathaniel, though they had decided to use their kitchen and host at this house simply because they had just returned from a trip a few days ago and hadn't gone grocery shopping yet.

“Wendy?” Luca asked, a frown on his face as he stared at his daughter. She looked up, some spaghetti dangling out of her mouth as she tilted her head. Ace, her brother, scowled as he caught sight of her. He put his plate down in disgust and glared.

“You eat like a pig,” he muttered. “Can you not eat normally?”

Wendy was about to say something, but Luca stopped her by raising his hand. “Please, swallow your food before you say something.”

She rolled her eyes, dramatically swallowing and going as far as to open her empty mouth to show her father before she turned to glare daggers at Ace, sitting with Gabriel, Eli’s son and Isaac, Gabe’s boyfriend, Silver, Isaiah’s twin brother, and another of Luca’s children.

“I thought you had overtime,” Dai said, frowning as he stared at Sebastian, as he ate his meatballs. “You had the Daniel case to work on, along with the Henderson, Mohammed, Kobayashi and others?”

Sebastian scowled as he stabbed his meatball, glaring at the plate, because he would never glare at his husband. But Ash was sitting on the ground, leaning on his husband’s legs with a smug smile as he ate his spaghetti. “I did. Romeo locked my account before he left. I will get access to it tomorrow.”

Lucky snorted as he eyed his brother. “That sounds like something he would do.” Ash grinned as he stuck his thumbs up.

“What was he expecting? Working overtime, thirteen days in a row,” Ash said, rolling his eyes. “I’d actually like to sleep with my husband.”

Soren looked away, focusing on his spaghetti instead. Thea scrunched her face up in distaste as a noise of disgust escaped her mouth. “God, I hope you mean sleep and not f**k. We don’t need to hear about your s*x life.”

Ash locked eyes with his daughter and wagged his eyebrows. “I mean fuck.”

She made a noise of disgust. “You’re a terrible person.”

“Bubbles loves me.”

“He has no choice but to love you. He married you,” she deadpanned, looking at her father in annoyance.

Ash grinned as he ate his spaghetti. “And I remind him every night.”

“Oh,” Alex said, groaning, glaring at Ash. “Can you not in front of my child?”

“Bailey doesn’t even know what’s going on,” Ash said, waving his hand. He leaned his head back on Sebastian’s leg and looked up at the man with a smile. Soren thought the man wouldn’t smile back, but who was he kidding? Of course, he did.

At the mention of his name, Bailey looked up from his phone with a look of confusion. “Huh? What?”

Ash looked at Alex, the word ‘See?’ written on his face.

“I don’t care,” Alex snapped. “I don’t need any of the kids hearing about your s*x life.”

“I hear yours,” Soren muttered in annoyance as he wrapped his spaghetti around his fork. “The walls are thin; keep it down, Alex.” Silas snorted as Thea let out a laugh. Soren elbowed Silas. It was even more awkward when Silas was spending the night.

“Your kid is horrible,” Alex said, a scowl on his face as he threw a pillow at Soren, which Silas caught before it even hit him. He scowled at Alex as he dropped the pillow. Soren smiled innocently at Alex, who rolled his eyes.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Erza said as she walked in, her hair done in a ponytail. Her heels clicked on the floor as she slipped out of her red blazer. She found her wife in the pile and smiled as Megan moved over a little, and Erza took a seat, kissing her. “The meeting ran late.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Megan replied, smiling at her.

“What are we talking about?” she asked, taking her wife’s spoon and feeding herself a meatball.

“s*x lives,” Isaiah deadpanned, a scowl on his face. “More specifically, Uncle Alex and Uncle Nathan’s. And Uncle Ash and Uncle Sebastian's.”

She hesitated, and Erza raised an eyebrow as she looked at the four men in question. “And why the f**k are we talking about your s*x lives in the middle of dinner?”

Sebastian scowled at his sister, waving his hand. “Don’t even start.”

“I’m just saying, it’s not an appropriate dinner topic,” she replied. “Especially in front of your kids.”

“Oh, and how you killed four people with one of your knives is?” Ash asked, scowling at his sister-in-law. “Because I don’t think that’s an appropriate topic for dinner either.”

“It was a good kill,” she replied. “And the kids already know!”

“Well, they know we fuck.”

“We know, but we don’t want to hear it,” Wendy added as she looked up from her book.

“Or see it,” Soren added, shivers running down his spine as he had once been unfortunate enough to walk in on Ashton and Sebastian doing the deed. He was sure when moving into this home, with this family, that he would no longer be traumatised, oh, how he had been wrong.

“Oh, for the last time, we thought you were at school. You should have been at school,” Ash replied, furrowing his eyebrows. “If you want to skip school, suffer the consequences.”

“You should have been at work!” Soren replied. “Like any good adult.”

“Bubbles didn’t want to do it at work,” Ash muttered.

“Can you not?” Gabriel said, finally speaking up. “None of us wants to hear about you f*****g. Or anyone f*****g. Can’t we talk about normal things?”

“Like what?” Eli asked, eyeing his son. Eli was Sebastian and Erza’s older brother. He was usually teaching abroad, but he had decided to come home for the break and would be leaving soon, leaving Gabriel in Luca’s care once more.

“I don’t know,” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “Like how your day went, or what you did?”

“I killed-”

“Don’t even start, Aunt Erza,” Gabriel interrupted, frowning at her.

“But you wanted to know how my day was,” she whined.

“Someone else, Uncle Luca, you’re the most sensible adult. You speak,” Gabriel said, pointing at Luca.

Luca, who had been put on the spot, looked around as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I caught the car thief.” Some of them cheered. They knew how annoying the car thief had been for Luca, and were all glad he had managed to catch him. Erza had offered to help, using her methods, but Luca had politely rejected the offer; her methods often involved Kat, and from what Soren had seen, Luca had tried to avoid the woman as much as possible.

Soren couldn’t help the smile on his face. He had a family. He had a loud and obnoxious family, but they were his. They had kept him, and they were nice, and he had even been able to meet Silas again. This was perfect. He was happy. And he wouldn’t change a thing.

~*~