Read Seeing Red Online

Authors: Sidney Halston

Tags: #romance, #love, #suspense, #paranormal, #sex, #twins, #psychic, #alpha, #alphamale

Seeing Red (15 page)

BOOK: Seeing Red
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“Xander, you’re being crazy. I’m not talking about
this with you, Mr. Sex Maniac.”

“Sex Maniac?”

“Please, the entire female class swoons over you.
They hang on your every word. Alex is so smart. Alex is so cute.
Alex is so sexy. Blah, blah, blah. What they don’t realize is that
Alex is afraid of the dark like a little baby.” She got on the tips
of her toes and punched him in the shoulder playfully. She had to
get on the tips of her toes to punch him. “So how tall are
you?”

“Hey, I am not afraid of the dark! I just prefer
light. Anyway, don’t be jealous, babe. Alex really is smart, cute,
and sexy. I know you agree? And by the way, I’m 6’4.”

“Wow, that’s really tall. Incidentally, I don’t
agree. The only thing
Alex
is—is a bad influence. That’s
what Alex is.” She smiled up at him.

He stopped abruptly and got very serious, leaned
down a little, and pulled her chin up so that their eyes met.

“Listen. On the first day of school you gave me the
lecture about being a bad influence and a distraction. I’ve kept my
distance from you—the only person that I know in this school—fuck,
in this entire city. I haven’t had one drink while I’ve been in
school. I haven’t used drugs in four years. I alienated all the
friends that were ‘bad influences’ as Oliver puts it. I am kicking
your ass in all our classes, and you agreed to come with me
tonight. In fact, you practically jumped when I asked you to come
with me. You want to turn around and go back to studying? You want
me to go to the grocery store and buy a turkey and cook it while we
watch the parade and drink lemonade? What do you want, Jillian? I
will do whatever you want me to do, but what I don’t want is to be
alone today. It’s the first time I’ve ever been alone, but I’d
rather be alone than be insulted as if I were some sort of
delinquent. I’m not Oliver, Jillian, but I’m not some sort of loser
either.”

He saw her eyes water instantly.

“Xander, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I swear.
Please forgive me if you felt that I was insulting you. I was just
teasing. I’ve been so wrong about you. You’ve changed so much and
I’m so proud of you. You have to admit that you do have a
reputation, but you’re right, I haven’t seen you in so many years
that I shouldn’t comment on things I don’t know. You were my best
friend for so long, but I guess things change. Oliver wrote me, and
I knew all about you guys from him and from Helen, but you never .
. . Anyway, I shouldn’t have judged you by the stories of your
younger days.” She rammed into him, startling him, and hugged him
tightly. She mumbled her apologies into his chest.

They embraced in silence for a long time before he
broke the tension by clearing his throat, “So . . . way to start
our festivities.” She laughed and sighed at the same time, and they
started walking again, hand in hand, fingers intertwined.

A wayward finger absently stroked her wrist as they
continued walking, and she was having trouble thinking of anything
other than his finger on her skin. “By the way, you’re not kicking
my ass in any of our classes.” She said, trying to lighten the mood
and get her mind away from the hand-holding finger-stroking
situation. “We haven’t even had an exam. How would you know?”

“We’ll see come finals, Red. Oops, I’m sorry. I mean
Jill.” He winked.

“No, it’s okay. Red’s fine. I guess it’s grown on
me. Plus, Red is all you’re going to see when I’m top of our class
and you are merely second: a red tide of jealousy.” She smiled up
at him.

“Ha!” He gave her a playful slap on the butt. She
giggled.

The restaurant wasn’t as empty as they’d thought a
Mexican restaurant the size of a small studio apartment would be on
Thanksgiving Day. There were a few people square dancing, which was
typical for Texas even in a Mexican restaurant on Thanksgiving Day.
A few people sat at the bar, and only one of the five tables was
empty. They sat at the empty table, and Alexander immediately asked
for a pitcher of beer.

“Beer?”

“Yes, beer? Why not? What else would you like?”

“I don’t know. I thought we were going to have fun.
You can’t get drunk off beer.”

“You wanna bet?”

She shrugged and laughed. “What’s good to eat
here?”

“They have the best shrimp fajitas in town.”

“Shrimp? I don’t normally do shrimp. I have an
aversion to shrimp and everything else sea related.”

“You mean everything island related. Trust me you’ll
like it.”

“Okay, shrimp fajitas it is. Just don’t order me
coconut anything.”

He let out a deep roaring laugh. “You too, huh?
Oliver and I can’t even smell anything made of coconut without
gagging. Onions too. I hate onions.” They laughed and ordered
shrimp fajitas sans onions, and for the next few hours, they ate
and drank two pitchers of beer. They even tried to do some square
dancing, but it turned out that neither of them knew a single thing
about square dancing. They mostly talked.

Jill told him all about her time at boarding school,
and he told her all about his high-school years, most of which she
already knew from Oliver, but she didn’t say anything and just let
him speak.

 

 

 

Chapter 10

Romance often
begins by a splashing waterfall and ends over a leaky
sink.

-Helen

Jillian

“It doesn’t really feel like we’ve been apart eleven
years. Feels more like ten minutes.” Jillian said, feeling some of
the effects of the alcohol.

“I know. I’m very comfortable with you too. Always
have been, babe.” He smiled at her and took her hand from across
the table. “You know, a few months after I came back from rehab, I
found the letter you wrote me. It tore a hole in my heart. You were
my best friend too, Jill. I’m sorry I let you down.”

She waved her hand in a motion, indicating for him
to stop talking. “I don’t want to talk about that now.”

“Okay. So let’s talk about you some more. Any big
loves in these last eleven years?”

“No. Not really. I mean I’ve dated but nothing
serious.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not so good at making friends and
meeting people. I’m kind of a loner. I have trouble opening up, so
I tend to focus on school and close myself off.”

“I know what you mean.”

“You? Please Xander. You’ve had quite the love
life.”

“No, I’ve had quite the sex life.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Hell yeah, there is a difference! I can’t deny I
have had a lot of meaningless sex, but I rarely even go on a second
date with a woman. I actually hate to have to open up, and I really
hate having to talk about where I grew up.”

“Tell me about it. I guess we are sort of fucked up,
huh?” She said, holding her beer as a sign of cheers.

“I thought you weren’t cursing anymore.” He
smiled.

“Oops. Sometimes, it just slips.”

“So when was the last time you had a boyfriend?”

“When I broke up with Jeff a few months ago right
before leaving D.C.”

“Have you been dating? Are you dating anyone
now?”

“What’s with the twenty questions? And the answers
are no and no, if you must know.”

“So . . . like, what do you do for . . . you know,”
his eyebrows went up and down.

“What are you talking about?”

“For sex, Jillian, what do you do for sex? I can’t
imagine you’ve gone all these months with no sex.”

She shrugged. “It’s no big deal, Alexander. Only
guys are sex crazed. I’m fine without sex. Sex isn’t everything.
And anyway, why are we even talking about this?” She was not one to
openly talk about sex. She felt flushed, and it wasn’t just from
the alcohol.

She had his full attention now. “Sex isn’t
everything? Ha! Then, you’ve obviously been doing it wrong. If you
had good sex, you’d most certainly be missing it, Jill.”

She threw a napkin at him. “Shut up, Xander. I have
had good sex. I’m just . . . I don’t know . . . too busy for that
right now. And anyway, sex is not that important. I like to be in
committed relationships. I like the companionship of it, you know,
the stuff that goes with being in a relationship.”

“Yeah, the sex. The wonderful, mind-blowing
orgasms.”

“Oh my God, Xander. Stop that! You’re embarrassing
me. Keep your voice down. Anyway, that’s just a male thing. Women
don’t have mind-blowing . . . You know.”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“You’re not ten years old, Jill. You’re a big girl.
You can say the word orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm. Orgasm.” He taunted
her.

“Shhhh. People are looking. Be quiet.” She
whispered.

Alexander stood on the chair he was sitting on,
grabbed his glass and his spoon, clinked on it to get everyone’s
attention, and then yelled as loud as he could, “Orgasm!”

Jillian grabbed his arm and pulled him back down to
his chair and put her head down. She was red with embarrassment. “I
can’t believe you did that, Alexander. Oh my God. People are
looking at us.”

“Who gives a shit, Jill? It’s just a word. Pull the
stick out of your ass and loosen up. I want you to say it, or I’ll
get up on this chair again. Maybe instead of orgasm, I’ll yell
something else like . . .”

“No, no, no. Wait. I’ll say it.” She looked around
and whispered, “Orgasm.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”
He put his hand on his ear, pretending he couldn’t hear.

Jill grunted, “Orgasm. Okay. Orgasm, orgasm, orgasm.
Happy now?”

He sat back, and put his hands behind his neck and
stretched his legs victoriously. He had a big smirk on his face.
“You’ve changed so much, Red. You used to be so carefree and fun.
The Jillian I knew wouldn’t have turned beet red, whispering a word
to me.”

“The Jillian you knew was a little girl. A lot has
changed over the years, Xander.”

“Yes. A lot has changed.” He said, looking Jill up
and down with hungry eager eyes. “Anyway, so tell me about your
psychic abilities. How’s that going? Has it stopped since leaving
the island?” She choked on the beer. That was not a question she
was expecting, and it caught her off guard. Half of the beer flew
out of her mouth and all over Alexander.

He threw his head back and barked out a laugh. “Are
you okay?”

She coughed and got up and started patting his face
with a napkin. “S-s-sorry about that.” She was embarrassed. “You
caught me a little off guard. I didn’t think Oliver had told
you.”

“Oliver? Oliver didn’t tell me anything. What does
Oliver have to do with it?”

“What do you mean Oliver didn’t tell you anything?
How do you know about my little . . . Let’s call it . . .
problem.”

“You’re a big girl, Red. Let’s call it psychic.
What’s the big deal? I thought everyone knew.”

“I’ve never told anyone about it until the last time
I saw you two at Helen’s funeral. I had one of my visions after you
stormed out. I didn’t have a choice but to tell him. I saw you in
the hospital and then saw an argument, and then I was hazy from
your overdose myself.”

“Whoa! One thing at a time. First, how did Oliver
not
know? It was so obvious. Every time you were in a
trance, when you snapped out of it, you would say something and it
would come true.”

“Well, believe it or not, Xander, you were the only
one who noticed, because no one has ever asked me or spoken to me
about it, and Oliver seemed genuinely surprised. I can’t believe
you knew.”

“Babe, I know everything there is to know about you.
You think that eleven years apart meant that I didn’t think about
you all the damn time. You were . . . No, you are family. I
remember your trances. I remember that they scared the hell out of
everyone but they never scared me. I was actually a little jealous
that you had this gift and I didn’t. It’s the one thing you can do
that I can’t,” he winked.

“I’m sure there’s more than one thing I can do that
you can’t, and I don’t know if I would consider it a gift. It’s
more like an embarrassing curse.” She deflected the obvious shift
in moods. And this “babe” word? It was making her pulse race. It
was the second time he’d called her that this evening. Oliver had
been calling her baby for years. At first, it felt oddly gratifying
coming from Oliver; but it felt completely different coming from
Alexander.

“Nope, that’s the only thing. Okay, on to the next
question. What did you mean that you felt hazy?”

“Okay, this you may not know. You can’t possibly
know because only Oliver knows. This is something that only
happened a handful of times. I’ve never told anyone or even given
anyone the inclination that I could do this—well, except
Oliver.”

“Just spill it already. You’re babbling.”

“Shut up and let me talk. But first, let’s get
another pitcher of beer.”

“No, tequila. I think this is going to call for
tequila.” He ordered a few shots of tequila, and while they were
waiting on the server to bring it over, he said, “Okay, talk.”

“Okay, do you know what an empath is?”

“Someone who can feel what others are feeling, like
a telepath sort of, but more with feelings than with reading minds,
right?”

“I’m impressed, Xander. You really are kinda smart.”
As she was talking, the tequila arrived.

“Let’s toast,” he said as he held up one of the shot
glasses, “to a sort-of compliment from the most beautiful woman
I’ve ever had the privilege of competing against. Cheers, babe.”
Jillian laughed and they both tipped the tequila back. Jillian
immediately made a face and coughed.

“S-soo hot.” She gagged and coughed.

“Thanks, babe, I know.”

“Not you.” Her eyes were watering and she coughed
again. “The tequila.” Alexander signaled the server to bring two
more shots.

“Okay, so you’re empathic?”

BOOK: Seeing Red
5.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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