Chapter 1
Amira
It has been a few months since Rodger was sent to Prison. The judge managed to sentence him to several years in prison. I hope that by the time he gets out he's learned to finally leave my sister and I alone. Matthew, Erik and Luke have been really great at helping us adjust and deal with the aftermath of what happened. Eira tended to have panic attacks if she was left alone in public places and she would call one of the guys or me for support.
I was not much better. I tended to have night terrors about our kidnapping when I was alone. I was not afraid to say I have called one of the guys for emotional support each time it happened. All three of them would video call me and fall asleep with me or waited with me for Eira to get home. Eira and I both worried at some point they would get annoyed with us, but the event or doubt was met with compassion and kindness.
After the incident with Rodger the guys decided to open a private security firm. They focused more on installing security devices, but every once in a while they would take on a bodyguard job for clients. Shortly after Matthew and the others opened their firm Eira decided she didn't want to pursue psychology anymore and dropped out of college. Luke ended up offering her a management position at the firm when she ranted about the future one night when the guys came over for a game night at our house. She ended up loving the work and has no plans to leave. Since Kane ended up closing the bar to pursue his dream of traveling the world which led me to become unemployed. I didn't want to rely on the guys even when they also offered me a job, but after getting rejections from several employers I finally relented and accepted their kindness.
My job now was to greet clients and inform them of the services we offer as well as our prices. It turned out I was great with people. Matthew excitedly called me a miracle worker once I started working due to the massive increase in jobs after only a few weeks of me working.
Eira's and I's relationship with the guys has remained pretty platonic since we joined the firm. I feel like it is mainly because the guys did not want to push us into something we weren't ready for especially after Rodger, but I was starting to get impatient with the lack of progress.
"Have you booked the flights for the convention?" Eira's voice brought me out of my musings. I turned away at the profiles of potential clients to glance at her. Erik had gone out to investigate a house for good places for security cameras while Matthew and Luke had left the office to get themselves and us lunch which left Eira and I alone in the main office.
"Yes I have. We will have to be up early for it. Don't be late reading again." I said in a tone that sounded like what a mother would use to correct her child. She just rolled her eyes and went back to sorting papers while I focused on the profiles again. We were both ignoring the elephant in the room.
"Are you sure we shouldn't tell them why we are really taking time off of work?" Eira spoke nervously filling the silent room. I sighed loudly, throwing the papers on my desk. We'd originally told the guys we were leaving for a family get together at Camilia and Blaze's summer house which was partly true. We'd plan on staying at that house, but instead of a get together it was a pride event for asexuals. Eira and I started going to it three years ago when we first came into our identities and it has sort of been a tradition ever since.
"You know as well as I that I love to tell them but..." I stopped not wanting to say the reason out loud. I am scared. If I did say it out loud then it would become too real and I would have to face that fact. I was not ready for that. Eira looked away with a look of understanding. She felt the same even if she pushed me to agree to say something. I mean, who wants to try dating someone who would rather cuddle on the couch and watch a movie than have sex. Not a lot of people well, not at least the ones I've met. Besides, if we did tell them we wanted to date them and they accepted our confession then things would be weird at work. Eira and I would probably have to find new jobs at that point.
"You're probably right." Eira said in disappointment. My heart lurched at seeing her expression. I did not like disappointing her like this, but even thinking about telling the truth forced a shiver down my spine thinking of the worst outcome. Eira and I were proud of who we are, but it does not make the realities of the world any less different.
I felt a vibration come from my back pocket. I took out my phone and noticed a text from Matthew. Back with food.
"Come on, Matthew and Luke are back with the food, let's go help them." I said to Eira as I got up, stuffing my phone back into my pocket. "We will table this conservation for any other time."
Yeah, okay." She agreed sadly. She got as well and headed with me to meet Matthew and Luke.
Despite our many objections Matthew and Luke rejected our offer to carry some of the bags. That left us to open doors for them instead which they at first wanted to argue against, but with one look from me had them shutting up. A part of me found it cute that they wanted to do things for us, but sometimes it did feel like we could not do anything for ourselves. Eira and protected our independence fiercely, but the guys had a way of making the actions not tick us off.
Matthew passed out the food to each of us. After a long discussion we all finally decided on chinese for lunch. I felt a bit nervous about the portions Matthew gave me, but since he paid for the food I did not want his money to go to waste.
"So, we have a surprise." Matthew said as I ate my first bite of chicken.
"What's the surprise?" Eire asked, putting down her chopsticks with rice on it. I never managed to learn how to use chopsticks. Eira on the other hand was a natural at it. She always made it look so easy.
"We are leaving tomorrow to go visit our parents. We tried to get the same fly time as you girls, but the tickets were sold out." Matthew said, his eyes a little downcast. I almost choked at what I heard. I looked over at Eira to see she had a similar expression on her face.
"You sure that's a good idea? You just opened your firm after all. Wouldn't it be better to be open a bit longer before you close down for a few days?" I asked, praying the questions would somehow change his mind. I had a feeling this plan had been in the works for sometime now. Matthew shrugged unbothered by my questions.
"Not really it's not like we have a lot of jobs lined up right now anyways. Erik is out finishing the last of the ones we have right now. We figured we might as well visit before we got really busy." Matthew replied. He made a lot of good points.
"I see, so your parents' house is in the same state as Camilia and Blaze's? I asked, trying to gauge if they were going to be close enough to us that we should be worried about them seeing us.
"Oh, our house isn't just in the same state, but in the same district as their house. It's only like a 20 minute drive." Matthew continued, "I figured if you guys wanted to wait for us we'd just drive you to the summer house on our way to our parents." His eyes sparkled with excitement at the idea. Fudge. This is not good. Eira exchanged secret glances of terror. We were going to have to figure out how to fool them. If Matthew did end up dropping us off at the summer house he would be able to tell immediately that it has not been lived in for months.
"Sure that sounds great." I said, forcing as much enthusiasm as I could out of my voice.
The rest of the day went by fast after lunch. Erik had returned shortly after one after he finished the last job. Luke and Matthew turned their focus on finishing the rest of their work while Eira and I pretended to work. She and I kept emailing each other offering possibility suggestions while pretending to do other things. Before we knew it we knew the work day had ended and we were back home. We both collapsed on the couch and stared at the ceiling.
"What are we going to do Amira?" Eira asked.
"I have no idea." I replied as I tried to keep myself from shouting in frustration.
"We could cancel our trip?" Eira said. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Despite what she said, She did not look remotely okay with that idea.
"No, we can't do that. We shouldn't stop doing something we like doing just because we don't want someone else to know about it." I said, trying to sound as convincing as possible.
"What else can we do then?" Eira asked mainly to herself as well as me. I hummed a little as I stared at the ceiling trying to figure something out.
"Oh! I know!" Eira suddenly shouted, bolting upright on the couch. She turned to stare at me with wide eyes as she continued. "We could say that the reunion got moved to a different location and we stayed at a hotel for the majority of the trip!" Eira explained excitedly. Her idea seemed sound, except for the fact that we did not have a lot of spending money which was the reason why we asked Blaze and Camilia to stay at the summer house.
"Okay, but we are going to have to find one that's cheap enough and that still has vacancies since it's such short notice." I said. Eira nodded and pulled out her. I assumed she was going to search for hotels we could stay at. While she did that, I decided to send the guys a text in the group chat explaining the change of plans. I hoped this farce would work out.
