The Rules They Broke

Chapter 2: Day One

ELIJAH

"Hey, Elijah!"

Elijah picked up his coffee mug and went down the hall to find his youngest brother Blake standing in front of Logan's room, now Olivia's room because Logan was usually at college and they had no other bedrooms to give her at the moment.

"What's up?"

Blake motioned to Olivia's door, where she had taped up The Ten Commandments for everyone to see. After briefly meeting Blake the night before, she had gone into her room and not come back out even for dinner. "What's with this?"

"She must have taped this up sometime last night."

"But what is it?"

Elijah took a huge gulp of coffee, scalding his tongue and throat, anything to keep him from thinking about the decision he had made for himself, for his brothers, for Olivia. "When I went to go meet her for the first time, she said if she was going to be adopted, we had to follow these."

Blake's eyebrows shot all the way up his forehead. His eyes seemed to bug out of his head. "How the hell are we supposed to follow these? Don't be seen in public together? Elijah, she has to go to school with me!"

Blake's panic was making all the peace Elijah had made with himself over the course of a painful two days rapidly fall apart. He took another gulp of coffee. "The social worker said it's normal," he said, more in an attempt to convince himself rather than anyone else.

"To hell with the social worker! Why'd you agree to these? We can't possibly follow them!"

Elijah put his foot down. "I couldn't just leave her there, Blake."

"You should've at least told her we can't do this!"

"Quit being so loud," Elijah hissed at him. "Come back in the kitchen."

Blake shrugged off Elijah's hand. "I've gotta get dressed," he said, his thoughts always shifting to the next thing to do.

"Then get dressed."

Elijah left Blake in the hallway, grateful to be temporarily relieved of all the turmoil he was churning up inside of him. Blake was right. Elijah just couldn't think about it right now. He had made the decision and he couldn't send her back now.

By the time Blake returned to the kitchen, he was in a calmer mood. In fact, he was smiling. "Elijah," he said.

When he didn't go on, Elijah indulged him with a response. "What?"

"I'm going to make her want to break all those rules. When I'm through with her, she'll even want to love me."

Elijah couldn't help but smile indulgently at his little brother. With his tall, dark, and handsome good looks and light humor and charming way of charming the shirt off your back, Blake had a certain way with people that he and Logan never had. "Everyone loves you, Blake."

Blake raised a finger in the air. "Not yet. But soon. I'll meet up with you guys after school for her placement tests. Gotta go catch the bus."

Elijah had barely nodded to him before his brother picked up the two pieces of Nutella toast Elijah hadn't eaten yet and rushed out the door.

Blake had always been a whirlwind. Whenever Elijah had a conversation with him, he always came away from it with the feeling that he had barely managed to catch a hold of him for a few minutes of his time. However, there were also times where Blake understood the need to slow down. Usually, the slowing down involved Logan. Elijah had a feeling that exception would now extend to Olivia as well.