Chapter 200
"Yeah, I know," he replied, and I looked back up at him. He had a sad little smile on his face. "You don't need to be good at it, it's okay."
"I'm not going to get in the way of you and Layla. But I'm also not going to pretend like the thought doesn't make me want to throw up," I told him.
"Thank you."
"I think that if you were anybody else, I'd never want to see you again," I sighed again at everything I was admitting.
"But you know you couldn't get rid of my sorry ass," he finished my sentence, and I chuckled a little at this. He did, too.
"Yeah, that," I replied, and looked back up at him.
"Can we just forget any of it ever happened?" He asked, exasperated.
"I mean, I guess we could try.. what other choice do we have," I responded, and he nodded.
Jessica's POV
"How do you think we should convince them we've talked it out enough?" I asked Asmodeus, who had tilted his head back tiredly. He sighed.
"No idea," he admitted. We called to Layla and Carla and Kade multiple times, before Layla finally came in.
"How are my boys doing?" She smiled, and we were sitting close enough to each other that she could reach out and ruffle both of our hair at the same time. We both scrunched our faces and leaned away from her hands, which made her chuckle.
"We're fantastic. We were actually planning to go dance into the sunset together singing love songs, so could you and your fellow statist Carla please untie us now," Asmodeus glared up at her, and she pinched his cheek, which made him grunt and go to bite her finger- but she pulled away and slapped him in response.
"Is this true?" She turned to look at me, and I nodded. Then I nodded again when she narrowed her eyes at me.
"Alrighty then," she looked skeptically between the two of us. "We'll come untie you in a bit, I'm in the middle of making a cake."
"A cake?? Jesus are you guys having a full on buffet down there?" Asmodeus looked up at her.
"Pretty much, yeah," Layla replied, shrugging it off. "You guys have a lot to catch his up on, we'll be up in a bit." She began walking towards the door.
"Ugh. Bite me." I mumbled, annoyed.
"Later, sure," she winked at me and shut the door behind her with a chuckle at my instantly embarrassed blush.
"Ew," Asmodeus scrunched his face in disgust, "You're twelve!" He shouted to Layla on the other side of the door, and I decided against making any jokes. Perhaps we weren't there just yet.
"That reminds me, what the hell happened between her and Alex?" Asmodeus asked me, and I was confused for a second before I realized Layla must have mentioned him to Asmodeus. I chuckled a little.
"I mean like, Alex?? He's the biggest douchebag in your family- and that's saying something. He has a higher body count than the mafia," he added, and I held back another laugh, "they didn't.. like... you know... did they?"
"No- no God no," I laughed at that one, and he looked relieved. "Don't worry, they barely even met. All it took was for me to tell him that she was your sister and he surprisingly respected that."
"Hmm, I see that that doesn't run in the family," Asmodeus joked. A joke, I thought, good.
"I guess not," I replied and chuckled.
"Hey, on the bright side, now we know who would actually win in a fight," Asmodeus commented matter-of-fairly.
"Do we, though? We never really got to finish," I responded.
"It was me. But if you needed more proof that could always be arranged," he threatened lightheartedly, and I didn't know if he was joking or not. This only made me laugh harder, though.
"I missed you, Asmodeus," I admitted, and he rolled his eyes.
"I don't know how my sister could have possibly went for someone so goddamn cheesy, but same with you, I guess," he also admitted.
"Look at you getting all cute with me," I joked, and he glared.
"You know what else was cute? That black eye. Shall I give you another?" He responded, and I laughed. He didn't know that it wasn't him who gave it to me, though.
I knew that if I had pulled out that card and told him about everything with my dad and my parents, he probably would have fully forgiven me on the spot. But I still didn't want to do that to him. And I was still just scared of telling anyone for some reason.
I knew it made no sense for me to be scared to tell people, but I had been for my whole life... it wasn't exactly easy to switch up your whole mindset after that long, even if it wasn't logical.
"Maybe another time," I said. A few more minutes went by before Josie and Madison came into the room. Both of our eyes nearly popped out of their sockets yet again.
"You guys are here, too?" Asmodeus asked, astonished.
"Nice to see you too, Asmodeus," Josie replied with a smile and handed Madison a pair of scissors from the top of Asmodeus's desk.
By the time they finished cutting us free, we were both hungry as hell. Apparently we had been tied to those damn chairs for a lot longer than we actually thought.
I was never sitting on that goddamn chair again.
When we all got the the kitchen, Kade let out a celebratory holler and brought us in for his typical group hug, which everybody besides him and Layla protested.
Once we finally broke free of his arms, I saw Asmodeus start to tickle Carla as a small form of revenge, who was then a mess of hysterics. Bold move, Asmodeus. Carla did not mess around with tickling. I reached to take one of the cookies set in front of Layla on the table, but she quickly swatted my hand away.
"Get your own, the fk?" She looked up at me, and I laughed to myself before going and grabbing my own.
We relocated to the living room, with me sitting on the couch between Madison and Kade- with Jake on Kade's lap, wincing time to time from Kade's loud ass voice. It was a pretty okay time, but it was very obvious and Asmodeus and I weren't having close to as good of a time as all the others.
I knew that he hadn't fully forgiven me yet. He was trying, but he still visibly held back eye rolls and sighs here and there when I'd say something. It would probably be a while before we were back to normal again, but at least we were finally on the right road now. Or at least I hoped so, anyway.
Layla eventually hopped up from the spot she was sitting on the ground and squeezed herself in between Kade and I on the couch. She looked up at me with a smile, but Kade pulled her into him and ruffled the top of her hair before I could do so myself. They laughed as she tried to push him off of her, and I chuckled. Kev really does take all our girls, doesn't he?
The later it got, the more tired we all got, so we decided to just all sleep there. Layla was already asleep when we made this decision, her head on my lap. I waited until Asmodeus got into his room, and then picked her up to bring her into hers- so that one or two of the other three could have the couch we had just been on.
I was really lucky to be able to keep them both in my life, even if it meant that things were a bit tense with Asmodeus for the time being. Hopefully that would go away soon. But honestly, I was just grateful that I didn't have to hide how I felt about Layla anymore, too.
She was still asleep as I placed a sweet kiss on her forehead and rested her against my chest, hoping that she could feel my embrace in her dream. She seemed a little cold, so I made sure to keep her hugged tightly to me as I eventually drifted asleep as well.