Bad Company (Seven Deadly Sins #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Five: Eyes Come in That Color?

I stood inside Crawford's Hardware store wondering for the millionth time the greatest mystery of my life: how could one person be such a bad luck magnet? In just a couple of days I'd managed to break two mirrors, which were now coming out of my measly pay and according to widely accepted superstitious gospel would entitle me to fourteen years of more bad luck, splashed paint all over my favorite Chuck Taylors, and found a hornet's nest under my window the hard way.

I'd tried to clean my room a little that morning, moving the boxes out of it and airing out some of the dust. When I'd grabbed the edge of the window sill, I had no idea a hornet's nest was tucked just underneath. Now my right hand was bandaged where several hornets had tried their hardest to turn it into a colander. My neck stung too. One of them had caught me there before Dante stormed inside my room and pulled me away from the window.

He'd batted the hornets that had flown inside for the attack like they were nothing but a bunch of gnats. Then he shoved me out of my bedroom hard, like a bouncer at a club. Ticked, he'd shut my door, glared at me for a minute before marching back into his room. He'd shut the door in my face so I couldn't even peek inside. When he'd opened the door again, he'd shoved a big first aid kit at me then stormed back into his room and shut the door in my face a second time. Besides slamming the door, he'd never made a single sound the entire time.

Now, as I was looking around, trying to figure out where they'd stock the insect spray or bombs or whatever you used to get rid of hornets I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find a cute boy smiling at me.

A really, really cute boy.

His eyes were the green of fresh cut summer grass, and his light brown hair had golden highlights that girls in my old school would've paid a fortune for in a Manhattan salon. He was tall and athletic without being too big. He was wearing a green tool apron with a nametag that said his name was Chase and he would be happy to help me today.

"Hi there. Need help finding something?" he asked in a friendly drawl.

I smiled in relief, happy someone was actually being nice to me. Between Aunt Celeste's nasty little remarks and Dante's gruff silent treatment, I was starting to feel a little like a plague victim. Neither one of them seemed too keen on having me around, which shouldn't have bothered me but did anyway.

"Yeah, actually that would be great. I need to find something to get rid of a hornet's nest." I raised my bandaged hand for emphasis.

"Wow. That looks pretty serious." he said solemnly.

"Yeah, I think my days of hand modeling are over now."

The boy named Chase grinned. "Guess you'll just have to stick to face and body shots then, huh?"

Blushing, I didn't say anything. Was he really complimenting me or was he just joking? Did guys like him ever really notice girls like me? I didn't think so, but I was a little out of my element in Blackwater so I couldn't be entirely sure.

Chase stepped around me and walked further down the aisle a ways until he found what he was looking for, "Hornets huh? How big is the nest? About basketball size?"

"Yeah, that's about right."

"Outside or inside?"

When I looked at him like he was speaking Klingon, he repeated himself a little slower this time, "Is the nest outside somewhere or inside a wall?"

"Oh." I blushed, feeling all kinds of stupid. "Outside. It's under my window actually."

"Okay." He reached for a tall can of foaming wasp and hornet spray. "You can use this stuff. It works really well but make sure you wait 'til it's late at night before using it. You need to wait until the hornets are the least active."