Revolting
Chapter 20 -

I swiveled my head back and forth between Daisy and Gabe on the porch. Gabe's face had gone all soft and sloppy when his eyes landed on Daisy. He was smiling like a fool, as he practically tripped over himself to come carry her duffel-bag into the house. If possible, the house was more of a wreck on the inside than it was on the outside, in its half-renovated state. "Sorry for the mess," Gabe mumbled apologetically. "My brother and I bought this, we were going to fix it up together. Then he got sick, and..." he trailed off sadly.

"Its a beautiful old house," I said, trying to dispel a little of his gloom. "When its finished it will be a real knock-out."

Gabe rubbed the back of his neck, and kept staring at Daisy. "Yeah, maybe. Look this was kind of sudden and uh, I don't really have a lot of furniture. There's only one extra bed and the couch..."

"No problem," Daisy said easily, "I can just sleep on the floor."

"No! You can sleep in my bed!" Gabe's face flushed. "I mean, not with me, in the bed. I'll sleep on the floor, or something."

"Oh no!" Daisy was blushing furiously, "I can't put you out of your own bed!" It was so cute watching them, I thought with satisfaction. Each of them so frantically trying to take care of the other. That's how it should be with a mate. You should think of their good before your own, put them above your needs.

"There is no problem," I suggested quietly, "Daisy and I can share a bed, and William can sleep on the couch. You've been kind enough to give us a home, we don't want to cause you any discomfort."

"Hey, I don't want to sleep on the couch!" William protested.

At the same time Gabe's jaw jutted out stubbornly and he looked a little pouty. "I want Daisy to use my bed."

In the end, William and I shared the bed which had once belonged to Gabe's brother, Gabe slept on the couch, and Daisy got Gabe's big bed all to herself. I quietly shut the door to our bedroom and looked at William. "I give it three days, before they are in that bed, together."

William sniggered. "I doubt they last that long. I bet by tomorrow night..."

I had no problem sleeping on one bed with William. We had grown close in my short time at Gold Mountain, and being with him was like being with one of my sisters. I didn't feel shy with him at all, because there was no sexual tension what- so-ever. Don't get me wrong, he was a gorgeous man. I could admire him like a fine piece of art. But I knew I was never going to buy that painting. So I didn't feel self-conscious at all as I stripped down and I slipped into an old tank top and shorts for pajamas. There was nothing he hadn't seen of me. He'd seen me naked. He'd seen me ugly-cry. He'd seen me bleed. We'd cuddled together when my heart was breaking.

That being said, I've never actually shared my bed with anyone other than my sisters. Nolan and I had never slept together on one bed. So just the fact that there was another body in the space seemed a little weird. I tried to keep myself on my side, thinking that it would be bad manners if I invaded his space, but I felt very constrained, sleeping like a matchstick. William however, had no such qualms. He yawned loudly and jumped in the bed. To hell with his side, and not touching, he grabbed me up like a teddy bear and snuggled me up to his chest. He threw his leg over mine, and within a minute he was already asleep and snoring softly. I wiggled around a bit to get more comfortable, but I thought, a girl could get used to this. It was nearly five in the morning when I let my eyelids drop, and I slept, feeling safe and content in William's arms.

I was the last one to roll out of bed in the morning. Well, if you could still call it morning, it was nearly 11:00. I dressed myself and inched my way down the stairs. I followed the smell of food to a disaster area that should have been the kitchen. It was ripped apart like the rest of the house. The counter tops were gone, but some plywood had been thrown over top of the cupboards. Daisy was cooking pancakes on an avocado colored stove that looked like it came straight out of the 1970's. Daisy was positively glowing, and Gabe was following her with his eyes like a love-sick puppy. I felt a little stab of jealousy. This is how it was supposed to be when you found your mate. I wondered briefly, if I had met Shane before I had set eyes on Nolan... would my story have had a happy ending? I had to put it out of my mind, because it physically hurt me to even think about it. Fate had not been kind to me, but at least it had favored Daisy.

"Just think," Daisy said dreamily, "If I hadn't come with you, I never would have found him. If I'd stayed at Gold Mountain, I would have been alone forever. It's like magic, Nina. It was meant to happen." I wasn't sure I believed in magic and destiny and all that any more, but I smiled for Daisy, and willed myself to be happy for her.

"So..." William trailed into the room. He had a notebook in hand and a pencil tucked behind his ear. "I've been going through the house. There is a small room on the first floor, Nina. It was probably an office or a study or something. Its not as big as the bedrooms upstairs, but I was thinking we should renovate that first, to be your bedroom. That way you don't have to go up and down the stairs. What do you think?"

"I think you are very sweet and considerate," I replied, easing myself down into one of the mismatched and broken chairs that surrounded a card table in the dining area. He plopped himself down in a chair across from me.

"I uh, heard from mom." He said, pulling the pencil from behind his ear, and fiddling with it.

"How?" I asked dumbly, remembering that we had all abandoned our phones in route.

He tapped his temple. "I can still mind-link with her... I guess you can break off with the pack, but it doesn't necessarily break off with your mother." I frowned at that. My father had never mind-linked me since I came to Gold Mountain. "Anyway... I guess Nolan has lost his shit since he figured out this morning that you left. He's tearing the whole place apart. He's got every guard and scout out looking for you. They already picked up our phones. They've been over at your dad's searching the whole place."

My eyes widened and I felt a little ping of fear in my gut. "What do we do? He wouldn't hurt my family would he?"

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"Relax, Luna. Its a beautiful thing. Its about time Nolan realized he is not the master of the universe after all."

"So what did your mom say?"

William shrugged uncomfortably. "She cried. But mostly she just wanted to make sure that you were safe. She has ordered me to take care of you."

I smiled sadly at that. Caydence was a good woman. "Can you give her a message to give my Dad? Just to let him know that I'm okay. To warn him to be careful of Nolan... and tell him I'm sorry, I wasn't strong enough after all." Daisy set plastic plates of pancakes in front of all of us. Gabe brought out butter and syrup, and a gallon of milk, and we all dug in with some plastic silverware. Gabe looked at us curiously. "So really, whats the story with the three of you?" "We are revolting," Daisy chimed in.

"I think she means rebelling," William mumbled around a mouthful of pancake.

"We ran away." I offered.

His head swiveled around between us. "Aren't you guys a little old to be run aways?"

William shrugged. "Its complicated. Maybe Daisy would like to explain everything to you, later."

Daisy blushed and pushed her pancake around her plate. "Yeah. Okay."

William turned to me. "So what's the plan now, Luna?"

I sighed and set down my fork. I hadn't really planned this out much beyond getting out in one piece. I really didn't know where to go from here. "Like we said in the car... we need to look for jobs. If Gabe is willing to let us stay on here we will need to do some work on the house and set up housekeeping..." and then what? I knew I needed to tell my friends about the baby, but I just wasn't ready yet.

"Yeah, we've already talked about the house." William shot a look at Gabe, who nodded. "He has invited us to stay. I told him we would pay half of the bills and the monthly mortgage, as well with help with some of the renovations. If he decides to sell the house in the future, we get first dibs on an owner-financed purchase."

"Wow, that's really generous. Thank you Gabriel."

Actually, there was very little I had to do. William had put himself in charge of the house renovations before I even got myself out of bed. He had a list of projects and priorities that he went over with Gabe. Daisy stepped in and took charge of the domestic management of the household. She was planning menus, and making grocery lists, and complaining about the washing machine down in the creepy basement.

When breakfast was cleared away, Gabe let us borrow his tablet so that we could type up resumes and start searching for jobs. "This is going to be hard," William said. "We have no references, no work history. Who is going to hire us?" "Fake it," Gabe said with a shrug. "If each of you gets a phone, you can create a fake work history, and list each other as the references." I stared at him and he held up his hands defensively. "What? People do it all the time."

I leaned back in my chair and rubbed at my aching thighs. "Well, fake resumes or not, I think that buying new phones is probably a top priority. The prepaid kind, so there are no contracts. And everyone must remember that there is no calling any contacts in the pack."

Daisy twisted a golden curl around her finger innocently, "Do you really think they will be bothering themselves to look for us?"