Excited for Help
“Mom is crazy, why don’t you come back home? I really need a hand here. Mcarthy is trying to take the land from us. He says that he and Mrs. Plies had a verbal agreement,” May Bishop said pacing her kitchen as she spoke to her sister Destiny.
“You know that I would rather be there than here any day. I would have left by now rather than stay here and listen to Liz’s complaining and yelling at how horrible we are as daughters. She’s lucky we haven’t written her out of our lives yet,” Destiny said, her voice similar to her sister’s they each had a soft accent from the south but it was barely noticeable as they had each been gone from there for so long.
“Mcarthy is fighting hard and I don’t think that I have the money to keep up with him in court. He’s going to bleed us dry before we can get that land from Mrs. Plies, and she wants to give it to us,” May said.
“He wasn’t even interested in that land before, he had investments on the other side of Denver. What could he want with the land we want to preserve and use?” Destiny questioned angrily.
“What do you think?” May said opening her fridge and grabbing a soda and popping it open. “Apparently it’s in a prime location for commercial development in the near future and he wants to get his hands on it. He could make a fortune with that land and he’s already far richer than we’ll ever be,” May stated.
“We didn’t get into this line of work to get money,” Destiny said. “Don’t worry we’ll get that land. I thought we just got a grant? Plus generous donations,” Destiny said. She knew her sister was working hard and she did want to get back home quickly to help.
“Yeah, and that went to the construction plans of the center, plus the maintenance of the camp. I mean we have plenty for the start of building but if he really goes to fight us on it we’re going to have to dip into that to take care of it,” May responded.
“It just makes me so angry!” May slammed her soda down.
“I know I’m just as angered by this. But we’ll get that worm,” Destiny told her sister.
“You should be here to deal with him. I’m sure you could just crook your finger at him and he’d do whatever you wanted,” May said.
“Now you over-exaggerate,” May could just see her sister rolling her eyes.
“Whatever, his eyes didn’t move from the neckline of your shirt the whole time he met with us a few months ago,” May said.
“Destiny! Where are you? I’m generous enough to let you stay here and your sister can’t even come up to deal with this family matter! You’re talking to her aren’t you?” May rolled her eyes as she heard her mother’s voice. Their mother claimed that she was dying, again. The woman came down with some illness whenever she needed money for something.
“Yes, I am, just give me a few more minutes!” Destiny said and she heard a door slam.
“It’s your turn next time,” Destiny stated.
“I told you not to go. I can’t take her anymore she just wants us around when she needs something. The only time I’m going back is when she really does die,” May said, and she meant that. It wasn’t that she hated her mother, but she was not on good terms with her at all at this point in time. It wouldn’t be so bad if her mother would just apologize but she wouldn’t because it was May’s fault, as she always said.
After their father had divorced her and lost custody of May and her sister because he’d lost his job around the same time, their mother had started to date the worst sort of men. When she was seventeen one of her mother’s boyfriends was staying with them.
They’d both had come home plastered from whatever bar they’d been at. It was something extremely stupid that had set him off and to be honest she couldn’t remember what it really was, loud music or something. They’d argued and he’d struck May, hard enough to make her nose bleed.
Her mother had just said that it was her fault if she’d had the damn music turned down. It wasn’t like that was the first time something along those lines had happened to her and her sister. They’d wanted to live with their dad, and had by age sixteen.
Paul was a nice guy and loved his daughters but he’d lived in a whole different state, and by the time that they could choose they’d had made friends and were used to the school that they went to. May had packed up and left that day to live with her father. Destiny had followed shortly after and they’d finished the rest of their schooling in a whole new place.
“I know, and I understand how angry you are. To your credit you did come a couple of times and she yelled more than she does when I’m here,” Destiny admitted.
“Yeah,” May said moving around her counter toward the table. It was rectangular and she had several files sitting out on the table waiting for her visitors to come and help her with them. She looked out the window and through the screened-in porch and saw a car coming up. It was a yellow jeep of some kind but she knew who it was.
“Yes!” May said her heart rate picking up a little and she moved into the hall really quickly to make sure that she looked okay, glancing in the mirror there.
“What?” Destiny said on the other side of the phone. She could hear the excitement in her sister’s voice and feel it though she wasn’t there. The two of them had a strong connection like that.
“He’s here, well they’re here.” May sounded rather excited and felt a bit nervous. Oh god, did she look okay? Not like a dumpster fire right? May thought looking in the mirror.
“This he, is he the one that you’ve been telling me about. Him and his brother that gave a large contribution to us?” Destiny asked.
“Yep, really you should see this guy and his brother! Yum,” May said, her dark brown black hair fell straight to her shoulders framing her heart-shaped face. “Hot, Destiny hot.”
“Well if they have money butter up to them a little, get some more from them. Show some cleavage,” Destiny said. May laughed.
“I’m not a whore Destiny,” May commented still laughing.
“I didn’t say sleep with them,” she said with her own laugh. “Don’t worry I’ll kick the crap out of them both if they try anything funny with my little sister.”
“You’re barely five minutes older,” May said.
“So, you’re still younger.” May heard car doors and she walked back into the kitchen.
“Bye, I’ll talk to you later,” May said and hung up the phone. Opening up the front door in the kitchen and then into the porch area to open the screen door. There were four people, three men and one woman, the woman walked alongside a man with brown colored hair, her hand on his arm.
The second man had light blonde hair and was taller than the first by a short bit but was built like the last man. She couldn’t help it, she just felt excited whenever she saw him. There was something about Zoren that drew her like a moth to a flame.
“Hi,” May said coming out to meet them, she looked at them.
“Hello,” the woman said first and held out her hand to her. “Lisa, Lisa Hearting.”
“I know that name, you were mentioned in the paper with that family killer a few months ago.” The woman gave a nod and a partial smile.
“Tristan Olsen,” said the man that was with her, she took his hand.
“May Bishop,” she said to them both.
“Nice to see you again Zoren,” she said to the dark-haired one, he just gave her a smile and a nod. It made her stomach flip a little. “And you are?” She asked the blonde-haired man.
“Pierce Olsen.”
“Another brother,” May said and took his out stretched hand. “How many do you have?” She asked looking at Zoren.
“Eight including me,” Zoren told her. His gaze sweeping over her quickly when she glanced at the others for a second.
“Wow,” May said. “So you’re all okay with helping me out? I mean I know this takes time out of your day and it’s pretty much charity.”
“Not a problem,” Pierce said looking at the home in front of him, it was alone tucked in the small opening within the woods. It was a single-story cabin-like house. The front had a porch, on it at the moment a light dusting of snow was coating the roof and ground.
“Well we should go in, kind of cold out here,” May said and motioned for them to follow her. They moved up behind her and went up the few steps to the porch area. May opened the door and went in first. Pierce was the last in and shut the door as they invaded her kitchen.
The kitchen was an L shaped, with a counter right to the left when they came in with two stools, and behind it was the stove and sink area with the fridge. To the right was a rectangular table with a stack of files on it. Straight head was a hallway to the rest of the house.
“Where’s the brother that I did meet?” She asked, though they were twins she could tell them apart easily. She didn’t know what it was, she and her sister didn’t look all that much alike, but Zoren and Xavier did.
“At the zoo,” Pierce said and moved down toward a chair. The other three smiled and the woman gave a short laugh.
“I don’t know how any of you managed to survive your childhood with each other,” Lisa commented.
“We wonder the same thing,” Tristan said and looked at the stacks of files. “Is this our task?”
“Yes, the top three are for the center me and my sister want to build. We need that organized and numbers crunched. I’m short on money at the moment and couldn’t get an accountant.” However, when she’d last spoken to Zoren and Xavier, they had offered their help. She was grateful for it, and had said that a couple of their brothers were good at this kind of thing.
“You have something better, he’s a human computer and his wife’s an encyclopedia,” Pierce said and Zoren moved to sit at the table as well and gave a laugh.
“I’m sure their kid will be a dictionary of some kind.” Zoren’s deep but soft voice said and it was Pierce that smiled and laughed.
“You two are married?” May asked as the woman took off her coat and hung it up near the door. Zoren wasn’t wearing one just a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. Pierce had just put the fleece jacket he’d been wearing on the back of the chair. The one named Tristan put his next to Lisa’s.
“Not yet,” Lisa said.
“Might as well be,” Pierce said. They all sat down and May was across from Zoren and Tristan, sitting next to Pierce. Lisa was at the head of the table and pulled off the first three files, the last three she pushed toward May. May got up and walked down the hall for a moment.
“I’ll be right back," May called to them. She went into one of the extra rooms to get some writing supplies and other utensils. May took a breath and let it out. Alright, steady your nerves and go back out there.
They were being awfully nice to help and she didn't need to vomit on the table because the butterflies in her stomach were going haywire seeing Zoren again.
"I'm so lame," May said to herself and then turned to go back out to the kitchen.
