Be My Friend

Chapter 47: Sympathy For The Devil

The upstairs has much more room than the downstairs. Here, there wasn't as much memorabilia and the floor was divided up into four rooms with a thirty foot hallway. At the end was my old room, cleared out many years ago but it seemed that mom had made it into a office of sorts, but the walls were still painted a dark navy blue. Right across from that was a bigger than average bathroom with a dark purple and white theme to it. Andy's room was next to mom's at the opposite ends of the hall and Ethan had the misfortune of having a smaller room downstairs, but Ethan was moved out just as I was so it didn't really matter.

A glass sliding door led out onto the terrace and overlooked the back yard. Closing the door behind us, I inhale the fresh scent of pine and crisp autumn air. Flickering of light catches my attention and I turn to face Alex who has a cigarette pinched between his lips and the flame of his lighter making the end of it glow. His two fingers grab near the end of it and he exhales a long puff.

"I didn't know you smoked." I note aloud and watch as the smoke trails above our heads and dissipates into the air.

"Only when I'm stressed." He answers back and meets my gaze. I look away and to the ground and frown, he has a better mask on than I realized. I focus on how tense his shoulder are and the slight pull of his brows.

"If my family is stressing you out, believe me when I say I get it, we can leave-" I attempt to console but get cut off.

"No, no. That's not it." He says reassuringly. "I feel this need to impress your family which is really new to me, and so far I'm not sure I'm doing that great of a job." He admits and scratches the back of his neck while averting his eyes.

I nearly choke. "I- what? Your hundreds, thousands of years old and you feel you should impress my family?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice. Even more shocking was the slight blush appearing on his pale cheeks. Hold the phone- I made the King of Hell blush. He shrugs and exhales another swirl of smoke. A pang of sympathy hits me as I take a moment to string something together.

"Listen," I say and grab his hand in mine. "If my mother spends time with you, she will love you. Alright? And if that doesn't happen then so what, she cannot control who I'm with, and neither do my brothers." I intertwine my fingers with his and rest my head on his shoulder while looking out into the forest. "But I know she'll like you. I just know it."