On A Stormy Night

Ch.23 Boiling Emotions

Declan

I stood by listening while my mom talked to the Alpha on the phone. I muttered a curse under my breath when my dad decided to intercede. I couldn't believe they were acting like this. Well I understand why my mom was. She never gave up on Catrinna being alive. I saw my dad storm off up the stairs and I decided I should probably follow him. When he went storming into the Alpha's bedroom I pushed him back out of the room and partly down the hall.

"What the bloody hell do you think you are doing?" Frederick yelled, I felt him trying to push me away with air so I pushed back.

"Look dad, I don't understand why you are acting like this. You were the one who stopped believing she was alive. You pushed mom away because you thought mom was holding onto unnecessary hope! You even told me that she was dead! So I don't think you have a right to be upset right now!" I yelled back as I felt my anger rise. I saw his shoulders slouch in defeat, suddenly he looked old and tired. 

"You don't think I know that, Declan? It's something I will regret for the rest of my life," he said quietly.

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding and my anger went with it. I threw my arm around my dad and gave him what seemed to be a much needed hug.

"Hey, let's just go downstairs and stay the night since we're here, then we'll see her tomorrow morning okay?" I said as we started walking back down the hall.

He nodded his head glumly. When we got to the living room I saw mom was still holding Liam who had somehow slept through all the commotion.

"So, this young man gave us a couple of rooms to stay in," Marina said, pointing to a man behind her. I noticed he was the same one who'd guided dad and I to the Alpha's office a couple days ago.

"Sir if you could follow me. I'll take you to your rooms," He said, before turning around and walking down the hall.

He showed us around the house for a few minutes, to the kitchen, library, and anything else we might want or need. Then we went upstairs and down a hallway, we came to a stop with a door on either side of us.

"Here are your rooms. I hope they are to your liking," he said, gesturing to both doors before walking away.

We said goodnight to each other and headed off to bed. 

The next Morning

I was sitting at the bar in the kitchen with a partially eaten bowl of cereal in front of me. I read through a couple of reports from my crew men, then I saw a message from my commander and started typing up a reply. I glanced up when movement caught my eye, it was Elena. She walked into the kitchen without really noticing me. I smiled and waited. She went into the pantry and looked around it for a minute then she came back out and closed the door. Next she walked over to the fridge. Her face lit up as she grabbed something out and placed it on the counter.  She turned around to get something from the cupboard above the bar and jumped in surprise. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't know that you were in here." Elena said surprised, as she almost dropped the plate she was retrieving. 

I chuckled and closed my laptop, "It's ok, it was fun to see how long it'd take you to notice me."

She smiled and her cheeks turned a rosy pink. She went to another cabinet and grabbed out a baking sheet before turning back to me. 

"I was gonna make some cinnamon rolls, do you–," she stopped as she noticed my half eaten bowl of cereal. "Oh, you've already eaten," she said awkwardly.

"Sure, I'd love some. This wasn't that filling, what I even ate of it," I replied shakily, as my emotions started to get the better of me. I couldn't believe I was actually in the same room as my sister, after all this time. 

She didn't seem to notice I was on the brink of tears, too wrapped up in what she was doing. A tear rolled down my cheek and I quickly wiped it away as she turned away to preheat the oven. I took a deep breath and tried to get a handle on my emotions.

"So who taught you to cook?" I asked, as I heard the loud pop of the can opening. 

"Uhm, well I guess I learned a little on my own and my mom also taught me."

I flinched. Thankfully she didn't notice because she was looking down at the pan as she placed cinnamon rolls in two straight lines. 

"Your mom?" I asked, trying to contain my anger at whoever that woman was. 

"Yeah, or… well… I thought she was my mom… but now I guess, I don't really know who or what she is," she said, thinking about what Alec had told her the other day about Gianna.  

"What do you mean?" I asked, wondering what had been going on recently to have changed her opinion of the woman who'd probably been the one to steal her from us. 

"She's just been doing some questionable things lately, I don't really wanna get into it cause I'm really not sure what's going on myself," she said with a shrug. "To be honest it's making me question why I came here with her, you know? I could have stayed home with my adopted mom instead of having her put in a home,  after what happened with my dad." 

At first I was shocked at what she was saying, and the fact that she was even opening up to me. I was a complete stranger. It actually made me feel like we still had the same bond as when we were just little. 

"What happened?" 

"He blamed himself for something bad that happened and he decided he couldn't live with it any longer," she said, getting a little teary eyed.

An alarm on the oven went off and she turned around to remove the cinnamon rolls from the oven. She sat them on the counter in front of me to cool, they smelled so amazing. Then she put the icing into the microwave to soften it so it'd be easier to pour onto them. 

"You want to help me do the icing?" She asked, with a girlish grin. 

"Sure," I said smiling back, how could I refuse her? 

I got up from my chair and came around to her side of the bar. I heard the bing of the microwave go off and she went to get the bowl. She sat it down between us and got both of us a spoon so we could start spreading the icing on each of the cinnamon rolls.

I looked at the beautiful rolls we'd created and an idea struck me that I couldn't resist. I scooped up some icing on my finger and dabbed it on the tip of her nose. Next thing I know she'd scooped some up too and smeared it across my cheek. When we were done both of our faces were covered in a sticky white mess. We looked at each other and burst into laughter, we laughed until our sides hurt, and then we laughed some more. As I looked at her a stray thought caught my attention and suddenly I turned sad. 

"Just think, it could've always been like this."

"What do you mean?" She asked, confused.

"Well we're bro–"

"What's going on in here? Oh those smell so good!" Marina said, coming over and grabbing a cinnamon roll. 

I looked at her and swallowed hard. How long had she been standing there? Did she know what I was about to tell her? Those questions were answered when Elena turned away from us to grab her plate and our mom sent a glare my way.

"I took Liam to your room already, so he's with Alec. I hope that's okay, I didn't know you were down here."

"Yeah that's fine, I'll just take some of these upstairs then. And I'll see you guys later," she said,  adding a couple more rolls to her plate before heading upstairs.

I watched her go and prayed that we would have more time for each other in the future.