Chapter 9: Chapter Nine: I Work Wonders

Chapter Nine: "I Work Wonders."

I'M TAKEN off guard as I stare at him. I smack his hands away and back up, scrunching my nose at his selfishness.

"Louis!" Landon exclaims, and punches his little brother's shoulder.

"What?" The boy–Louis, I guess–screeches. I examine his features. He has brown hair, and while he was checking out my face, he has brown or hazel eyes from what I caught. He's a few inches taller than me, 5'8, maybe? His hair is covered by a baseball cap, a picture of a couple horses on the front with some company logo or something. I'll need to wait for him to turn back around to better look at it.

"You can't just grab a woman's face and stare at it after calling her a victim of the Hulk!" Landon argues, and glances at me. "Not until you know you'll get some!" He whispers to him, but says louder as he turns to me again, "Are you okay?"

I shrug, pretending I didn't just hear him give this boy advice. "I'm a little weirded out, but I'm fine." I answer honestly. It isn't everyday that you have a cute kid come up and stare at your hideous face. Especially if it's one who is incredibly cute.

This kid, Louis–Loo-ee is how it's said–is a teenager who has pretty damn good genetics. Landon wasn't kidding on how I said I'd 'probably' end up falling for one of them. This family is blessed with good looks just as good as David Beckham's family. Though this child is far too creepy for my liking and is definitely younger, I'm not going to lie, he is definitely attractive.

Hopefully–if Landon is right–I'd fall for the brother who isn't arrogant and actually isn't an ass.

It also takes me a few minutes to notice he's wearing a muscle shirt.

His arms are toned–well-defined, I must add–but not as well as Landon's. You can tell he's skinny in the belly, and he must work out given the sweat shining up his hair.

Or he just never showers.

I pray it isn't the latter.

Landon glares back at Louis and smacks the back of his head again just for the hell of it. Though given his face expression, he's pretty damned annoyed and is just proving his point, but I don't miss the glint in his eye that shows that he earns his crown for being related to him.

Boys.

I haven't been here long and they're already hitting each other and–I think–flirting with me. Is this family violent and women attractors? Obviously it's violent, Brooklyn! They're a family made up of boys! Non-violence probably doesn't exist in this house.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts and nod my head at what Landon offered me earlier. I step around Louis and follow Landon as he leads us up the stairs where Louis came from. The stairs are hardwood like the main floor, and once we get upstairs, it's hardwood as well.

He points to the first room. "This is Lucas' room. He's the youngest. This room here is Louis' room. I'm not going to open the door, because I don't want to know what's behind it."

"Really?"

"You'll either find a tower of Playboy magazines, and other things that will burn your eyes and scar your brain."

My eyes widen. Is Louis really that bad? He gives off an intimidating and girl-hungry vibe, but I didn't think it was at the point where his own teenage brother would refuse to enter the premise. And knowing boys, they'd easily walk into a room, even if it spelt like mildew and sour milk.

"Duly noted."

Landon laughs, and shows me the second door. "There's three bedrooms on this floor. This one is my parents'." I nod, and he shows me the last door, at the end of the hall. "And this is our office room. It's usually where all our paperwork for the business is kept and where our father and secretary spend most of the time."

"You guys own a business?" I ask. I think I know the answer, but it's better to actually get it than to just make assumptions. Learned that the hard way. "And a secretary?"

"Well, we don't obviously own the secretary, but yeah, we own a business. We actually run a ranch. We give horse-riding lessons and we breed our animals for other businesses. And we occasionally do horse rides for events and special occasions. Like weddings, sleigh rides, and everything of that sort."

"That sounds actually really cool." I say with a shy smile. I love animals, but my parents–typically my mom–were too selfish to even grant me a hamster. I guess now that I'll be living in a place with different animals that aren't the size of my hand, will be really exciting.

"Really?" He says with mirth.

I give him an 'are you kidding me?' look. "Of course! I love animals. I was never allowed one, but now that I'm here, I guess that changes."

"I'll give you a ride then, sometime, if you know what I mean." He winks.

"Keep your ego to yourself. I'm not falling for your inappropriate antics."

"You will at one point, sweetheart." He smirks, but then his boyish look disappears and he gives me a friendly smile and nods. "Are you allergic or scared of anything?"

"Nothing animal-wise, I don't think, but pineapples and oranges."

"You're scared of pineapples and oranges, or allergic to pineapples and oranges?"

"Well, I guess you can say both?" I say with humour. "I'm allergic to them, but I guess I should be scared of them because of that, right?"

Landon grins and nods. "Huh, never thought of it like that, but alright, good to know."

He shakes his head to his right and gestures me to follow. I fall in step behind him, and he keeps strolling on and we trail up another set of stairs. The hall is narrow, but it seems longer. There's nothing posted on the walls; no family pictures, no achievements, nothing.

"This is the floor where the rest of us are," Landon starts. "On the first door is Lance. He's the eldest, and this room right here is mine, and this last one is Liam's."

He doesn't open any doors, but turns a corner. "This is one of the six bathrooms we have. There's one on each floor, except the main floor has two. I recommend you not use this one."

"Recommendation considered. Though if I gotta go, then I'll go where I need to." I say, and I never meant to sound harsh, it just came out anyway.

"Your bottom might be itchy afterwards, then." Landon shrugs.

My eyes widen, but he just throws his head back with a laugh and continues on. My eyebrows raise for the nth time as we stop at a door, open it, and lo and behold, I look up to see more stairs. "Please tell me this is the last floor. Because as much as I love exercise, I'm not looking forward to climbing this."

Another chuckle. "Don't be such a crank. This is the last floor."

He grabs my wrist and drags me up the steps lazily, and I can't help but squirm as soon as his hand makes contact with mine and shocks me.

It literally shocks me.

At the top of the stairs is a large open concept room. The door down the stairs must have been the door to the room, because I see no door up here but to a corner. In that corner is the bathroom.

There's a king-sized bed leaning against the wall to my left, and the surrounding two walls are like how downstairs is, with floor-to-ceiling windows that look over the lake. It's truly beautiful, and I can't help but smile once I see all my boxes laying around, and a large desk facing one of them. I smile even wider once I see the mini-fridge sitting beside the desk and a white leather couch that is in front of a flat screen TV.

This isn't a bedroom.

It's a damn apartment.

"I take it that this is now your room, since those boxes weren't there before." Landon smirks. "Anyway, I'll leave you to it. My parents should be home soon, as my brothers, but you can come down and explore whenever. My room is right under yours, so you know where to find me." The last part he said suggestively, with a wiggle to his eyebrows and smirk on his face.

"Thanks, Landon." I say with rolling eyes.

He winks and I watch him descend down the stairs. I sigh once I hear the door close, and I sit myself on the bed. The mattress is kind of hard, but I've slept on floors before, so how hard can it be? I take a few minutes and stare around the room. There are some horse paintings on the wall, but they look really nice so I'm not going to bother taking them down. A light flashing at the corner of my eye makes me look at the desk, and I stand up to see my phone going off.

My phone! I hop to my feet and see Justin's name pop up, alongside a picture of him. I swipe right. "Hello? Justin?"

"J–Lo? Is that you?!" I hear his voice muffle from the other line. "Hello, J–Lo? I can't hear anything but static. Can you hear me?"

My eyes widen and I head to the window closest to me. I see a balcony, so I step out on it. "Justin? Can you hear me now?"

"Yes!" He exclaims.

"Okay, good. I have shitty service out here so I need to look for hotspots." I explain, and smile once I finally hear his voice. God, it's only been a month or so and I already miss him like crazy. It's hard going from seeing someone everyday all day to not at all.

"That really sucks." He says.

"God, I miss you so much." I frown into the phone. My voice cracks a bit, and I swallow down the golf ball sized lump in my throat.

"I miss you too, Brookie," he says softly. "We'll visit soon, I promise."

"I've hated these past several weeks. I couldn't take it, Justin."

"I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye. How was it?"

I sniffle, and feel a tear fall down my cheek at the memory. "I have nightmares, Justina. These girls aren't anything like the ones back home. They're worse. Way, way worse."

"I'm so sorry, Brookie. I wish I was there to help you, I do." He says softly and comfortingly. Justin's always been the one to cheer me up and take care of me when I have my downslides, but the fact he isn't here anymore makes this extremely hard and difficult. I don't have the support of my friends, and I'm here, left here alone to cry myself to sleep. I don't have him or Lacey to let me sulk in their arms like the disguise I was.

Like the disguise I am.

"Tell me, how is your new place?" He says, cutting me out of my thoughts–thankfully–and changing the subject. Have I told you how much I love him?

"It's huge," I breathe. "It's like a damned mansion, Justina you need to see it. My room, it's not a bedroom. It's like an apartment. I think it used to be an attic at some point or something, but it's humongous. Oh, and guess what?"

"What?" He laughs.

"They own a ranch. A ranch! With animals! I seen pigs and horses, and Lord knows what else is there too! There's like three huge ass barns, and we live off a lake surrounded by mountains! Like, mountains bigger than the mountains with the Hollywood sign."

"It sounds exciting. You never had the opportunity to have a pet, and now is your chance! I think you'll really like it there."

"I'm not holding high hopes." I grumble. "It's a lot bigger than our ranch in Tennessee."

"Yeah, true I guess, but why not? You live in a house with animals and your own personal space. What could possibly make that bad?"

"The fact that I live in a house of boys." I answer swiftly.

Don't get me wrong, boys are fun and I personally enjoy them more than girls because they're a lot more fun and less gossipy, but they're also pretty gross. And I'm from LA, where gross doesn't really happen.

"So? You have friends that are boys. What's so wrong with that?"

"The couple only have boys. As far as I caught on, there aren't any girls living here except their mom and me." I tell him.

"Use it as a good thing, then," he says, and I can just picture him shrugging it off like a fleck of dust. "Just think, J–Lo, that you won't have to worry about the other girl taking your clothes or things, and dun, dun, dun, no girl drama."

"What about school? Every school has that one girl."

"Don't let her stomp on you like Stacy does," Justin explains, "Think about it, Brooklyn. You aren't from there, you're from here. Nobody knows you, which means nobody knows your story. No background knowledge, not even a speck. You can start off fresh. Don't let the baggage of LA keep you from living freely in Canada."

"Yeah, but that's the thing, Justin. I don't want to start off fresh. Fresh means new, and as new as this is, I don't want to forget everything and everyone."

"Then don't forget the things you want to remember. Forget Stacy, and remember me and your girls. Forget what happened last year and focus on your admiration for the animals you'll be bonding with. Forget prison and act like yourself. No, I don't mean the meaner you that came with the aftermath from grade nine. I mean the nicer you, where you have your meaner days but you're nice at heart. Be sweet, but don't let anyone push you around. It got you somewhere bad before, so don't let that happen again."

See, this is the exact reason on why Justin is my best friend. He's been there for me since day one, and I can't thank him enough for everything he has and will do for me. He'd go a million miles for me, apparently, and it saddens me to know that I can't just run the few minutes to his house just to see him like I could weeks ago. That I'd have to travel over a thousand kilometers just to see my best friend.

I wonder how long I can make it without him. He's always been there for me; to pick me up when I was falling. Whether that be literally or metaphorically, he was always there. I can't replace him, and I think that that in itself is going to be really hard to go through. I'm alone, I have no friends, and I know nobody. These boys won't want any involvement with me most definitely, and that'll leave me to fend for myself again. I have horrible history with people pushing me around and targeting me, but I always had someone there to help me live through it. Whether that be my dad, Justin, Lacey, Jody, hell, even Casey, I still had someone.

Now I literally only have mountains.

Well, at least I have some place to run to if I don't want to be here.

"I really don't know how I'm going to live without you for the next two years." I say into the phone. "Thank you, Justin, really."

"What can I say, I work mental wonders." He says smugly, and that smirk is more than likely on his face. "You know you'll always have me around, right?" He asks with a serious tone.

"Yeah, I do." I say with a smile. "I'll call or text you later."

"Okay, Brookie. Rest easy and I'll talk to you soon."

"Love you, Justin."

"Love you too, J–Lo."

I hang up the line, and sigh as I look out the window. The sun is going to set soon, and I take a look at the surrounding area. It's mainly forest, but across the lake I can just barely see some cottages. Not as big as this one, but still there.

I turn around to situate and unpack, but I nearly jump out of my skin when I see Landon at the top of the stairs, staring at me. "Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me!" I gasp, holding onto my heart that's bound to burst out of my chest.

"My mother told me to come and get you. I guess I have no reason to be confused on why she said there's a girl in our attic now." He answers.

I raise my eyebrows. "Guess not."

"Come on, Rapunzel, dinner's ready." He says, and walks downstairs, no further words said.

Why did he just call me Rapunzel? I know my hair is unusually long, but seriously, I can't count on one hand how many names Landon has come up with for me since I got here a few hours ago.

Besides, what happened to 'Blue'?

I sigh and follow the stairs, trying really hard to remember how I got up here when Landon was showing me my room.

Needless to say, it took me ten minutes to find my way to the kitchen again.

I finally enter the kitchen, and see many boys sitting around the living room watching hockey on TV. Wow, Canadians really are hockey fanatics! I wonder what other legends they do that us Southerners believe.

There's a middle aged woman in the kitchen, and the smell of steak floods my nostrils and practically makes my mouth drool. She looks to be in her forties, with dirty blonde hair that looks more brown than it does blonde. She notices me first and gives me the widest smile ever.

"Ah, you really are here!" She chirps, "I thought Landon was just pulling another one of his antics. Honey, it's so nice to see you, I haven't seen you since you were up to my knees!" I take it this is Ella, so when she pulls me into an embrace, I don't stiffly hug her back and instead do it politely. When she pulls away, I give her a small smile and then drop it.

"Thank you for having me here at such short notice," I mutter, and awkwardly shift my gaze to the floor.

"Oh nonsense, darling." She says, brushing it off. "Now, sit down, dinner's ready." She gestures to the large table, and before I can blink, all boys are up to their feet and already at the table. I see new faces, but don't pay much attention to their features. The last thing I want is one of them to catch me staring at dinner. I see three open seats, and struggle to find which one to sit at. Do they have assigned seats or spots they just claimed and kept? This is really weird.

I decide to pick the seat at the end of the table, where I don't have to sit beside anyone.

"You can take a seat right next to Louis." Ella says, and I frown. Or not.

I hesitantly sit next to the child who grabbed my face once I find his eye, and keep my eyes fixated on my plate. I get shivers and I feel my cheeks heat up suddenly. I look up to see everyone staring at me. So that's why.

I ignore them as best as I can as Ella sets the food on the table and the boys dig in. My jaw drops at how fast the majority of the food has vanquished. The mother of the boys gestures me to eat, and I don't do anything. How do I tell someone I don't eat–or struggle to–when there's a bunch of pigs staring at me?

Justin's words from our earlier conversation pop into my head. He's right; I can start fresh, and maybe that means that I can start eating more and more than I have before. I don't want to, because some things just never change, but if I could try at least. . .

It takes me a few minutes to finally gain enough courage to grab a small portion of everything. Though it was only corn, boiled carrots, steak, and mashed potatoes, it still makes me feel like right now I'll be eating more than I do in a week.

Which is true. Honestly, I'll probably be up all night with stomach pain and nausea. If I really can't take it, then I might have taken things too far and will need to empty my stomach. Which is the very last thing I want to do.

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