CHAPTER TWELVE (HOUSE RULES(
1668 Words
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WRITER POV
It started with a toothbrush.
Harper left hers in Sadie’s bathroom. “Emergency backup,” she said. Then came her skincare fridge. Then three duffel bags “just in case.”
By Friday, everyone had a drawer. By Saturday, everyone had a room. By Sunday, Sadie’s mansion had a chore wheel on the fridge that she absolutely did not make.
“This is temporary,” Sadie said, standing in the middle of her living room while Ayla and Layla arm-wrestled over the suite with the balcony.
“Sure,” Mia said, coaxing a new fern to grow over the c***k in the ceiling. “That’s why you keyed us all in on the security panel last night.”
“I was updating fire codes.”
“You gave Merlinda fingerprint access,” Chloe pointed out, dropping a box labeled HARPER – DO NOT OPEN IN SUNLIGHT onto the coffee table. “For snacks.”
Merlinda was already curled on Chloe’s lap, shameless. “She said I need iron.”
“You need supervision,” Sadie muttered.
Asmodeus leaned against the doorframe. He wasn’t inside—he and Darcy had taken separate suites on campus. “Tactical distance,” Darcy called it. Sadie called it “the only reason the house is still standing.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“You have my hoodie,” Asmodeus said. “And Darcy’s leftovers.”
“Visitors bring snacks,” Mia called from the kitchen. A vine handed her a granola bar.
“There are no house rules,” Sadie said.
“We made some,” Layla yelled from upstairs. “Rule One: Sadie doesn’t brood alone.”
“Rule Two,” Ayla added, dragging her suitcase past, “no boys in bedrooms after midnight.”
Asmodeus and Darcy looked at each other.
“Rule Three,” Chloe said, tightening her arm around Merlinda, “no one gets hurt on my watch.”
Everyone paused. Chloe never made rules.
Sadie stared at all of them. Loud. Messy. Hers.
“Fine,” she said. “Break it, you fix it.”
“Deal,” Mia said. The scorch mark on the rug stitched itself closed.
Asmodeus pushed off the doorframe. “We’ll be on campus.”
“Try not to burn it down,” Darcy said to the room at large. His eyes lingered on Sadie for a second too long before he turned.
They left.
The house exhaled.
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AYLA POV
My phone rang at 8:03 p.m. I already knew.
“Don’t answer it,” I told Layla.
“It’s Mom,” Layla sang, stealing my fries. “And you know what that means.”
Trouble. It always meant trouble.
I answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“Sweetheart!” Her voice was that special brand of cheerful that meant she’d already decided my life for me. “Your father and I were talking with Mr. Delsen—you remember, our partner from the import company?”
No. But I said, “Mm.”
“His son is in town. Jaxon. Smart boy. MIT. He’s taking you to dinner tomorrow. Seven. La Maison. Don’t be late.”
“Mom. No.”
“Ayla Rose, he’s picking you up. Wear something nice. Not the green sweater.”
She hung up.
Layla was already cackling. “Blind date with a business partner’s son. This is either a rom-com or a hostage situation.”
“I’m not going.”
“You are,” she said, flipping onto her stomach. “Because if you don’t, Mom will show up here. With him. Do you want Mom meeting Chloe? Or Mia’s houseplants?”
I pictured Mom, five-foot-two and Catholic, walking in on Chloe with her boots on the table and Mia making the walls bloom.
“…Fine. But I’m making him hate me.”
“Atta girl.” Layla rolled over. “Now let’s find you something heinous.”
---
La Maison was worse than I imagined. Candles. Violins. Cloth napkins.
I was twenty minutes late, wearing Layla’s ugliest sweater—neon green, sequined cat, hole in the sleeve—and chewing gum. Loudly.
He was already at the table.
Jaxon Delsen didn’t look like an MIT business heir. He looked tired. Dark hair, rolled sleeves, like he’d come from work and forgot to care. He stood when he saw me.
“Ayla?”
“Disappointed?” I dropped into the chair. “FYI, I talk with my mouth full and I think astrology is a scam.”
He sat back down. Slow. Then he smiled. Not the fake kind. The oh, this’ll be fun kind.
“Good,” he said. “I don’t believe in it either.”
I blinked. That wasn’t the plan.
I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. Changed it twice. Asked the waiter if the steak was “locally traumatized.” Put my elbows on the table.
He just watched. Like I was a show he’d bought tickets to.
“So,” he said after I finished a story about how I once got banned from a petting zoo, “are you always this hostile, or am I special?”
I choked on water. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve been trying to make me leave since you sat down,” he said, calm. “It’s not working.”
“You’re weird.”
“You’re wearing a cat with rhinestone eyes,” he pointed out. “We match.”
The rest of dinner went like that. Me throwing grenades. Him catching them, pulling the pins out, and handing them back. He didn’t ask about my parents’ company. Didn’t ask if I knew Sadie—thank god. He asked if I liked rainy days. If I preferred books with sad endings.
It was… annoying.
It was also the first date I didn’t fake a phone call to escape.
“I’ll drive you home,” he said when the check came. He paid before I could grab it.
“I can Uber.”
“It’s late. And you hate me. You’ll enjoy knowing I had to drive.”
I… had no comeback for that.
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The car was silent. I sat as far from him as possible, arms crossed, puffy and mad that I wasn’t mad anymore. He didn’t turn on music. Didn’t force conversation. Just drove.
That made it worse.
“Gate’s fine,” I snapped when we turned onto Sadie’s street.
He parked anyway. Got out.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, scrambling out.
“Walking you up.”
“I have a taser.”
“Good,” he said. “Use it if you need to.”
I stomped up the path. He followed, two steps back. Not crowding. Just there.
At the porch, I spun. “Look, thanks. For dinner. You’re not… the worst. But this was a setup. My parents—”
He moved.
One second he was on the bottom step. The next, his arms were around me. Secure. Warm. Familiar in a way that made my brain misfire.
“Hey—what—”
His mouth was at my ear. His voice was a breath.
“I found you, little pickle.”
My blood went cold. Then hot.
Little pickle.
It hit me like a slap. Grass. Summer. Scraped knees. Me, screaming, throwing a handful of mud at a boy who’d stolen my popsicle. Him, laughing, calling me that stupid name.
I shoved him. Hard. He let go.
“Why did you call me that?” My voice shook.
He looked at me. Really looked. “You don’t remember.”
“Remember what? Who are you?”
“Jaxon,” he said. “Jaxon Delsen.”
That wasn’t right. That wasn’t the name my head was screaming.
“Goodnight, Ayla,” he said, and walked back to his car.
He didn’t look back.
I stood there, heart pounding, hands fists.
Little pickle.
Why did it hurt?
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SADIE POV
I found Ayla on the porch steps, staring at nothing.
“Hey,” I said.
“He called me little pickle,” she said without looking up.
I sat next to her. “Okay.”
“I know that name. I know it. But it’s… blank. Like a page ripped out.”
I knew that feeling. Dreams of fire. Asmodeus flinching when I got too close. Darcy going quiet when I asked about before.
“Did you like him?” I asked.
She made a face. “He was annoying. And he paid for dinner. And he didn’t hate the sweater.”
“Sounds awful.”
She laughed, then stopped. “Sadie… if you forgot someone important, would you want to remember?”
I thought about it. About choices I didn’t get to make.
“No,” I said. “But we don’t get to choose.”
The front door opened. Mia stuck her head out. “If you two are done brooding, Chloe made hot chocolate. And Asmodeus and Darcy are leaving.”
We went inside.
Asmodeus was by the door, Darcy right behind him.
“Problem on campus,” Asmodeus said. His eyes were on me, but not. Like he was listening to something else. “We’ll handle it.”
“Don’t die,” I said.
“No promises,” Darcy said. He brushed past me. For a second his hand almost touched mine. Didn’t.
They left.
The house felt bigger without them. Quieter.
“Rule Four,” Harper said, coming downstairs in pajamas. “No moping when there’s hot chocolate.”
“There is no Rule Four,” I said.
“There is now,” Layla said, shoving a mug into Ayla’s hands. “Drink. Then you’re telling us everything.”
Ayla looked at me. I shrugged.
Inside, it was warm. Loud. Safe.
Outside, the street was empty.
But in the shadow of the gate, a phone screen lit up.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: She doesn’t remember. Yet.
Send.
And the mist curled closer to the house.
- Writer
