Ineffable Plan

“Oh my gosh, Emmy. This is so good,” I said smiling up at Aaron’s brother, Emmanuel. I stuffed more pancakes into my mouth and heard Julian choke back a laugh.

“Emmy? Really?” He replied scrunching his nose in disapproval at the nickname. “Aaron said blueberry was your favorite.”

I nodded my head; my mouth was too full to verbally respond. I took another bite of my stack of pancakes. My cheeks now resembled a chipmunks and Julian could no longer hide his amusement.

“Damn! She can eat,” he managed to say through his laughing. “Seriously Aaron, where did you find this one?”

When Emmanuel noticed the blush on my cheeks he delivered a brotherly whack to the back of Julian’s head. This only caused him to laugh harder. After I managed to swallow the food that was in my mouth, I gently pushed my plate away from me, signaling that I was done.

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” Julian said and pushed my plate back in front of me. “Eat,” he commanded.

“I’m full,” I mumbled.

Aaron laced his fingers with mine. “Ignore him,” he leaned over and whispered. “There’s nothing wrong with how much you eat. Julian’s just a bit of an asshole.” He looked up at scowled at his brother.

“I’m full,” I repeated again. This time a little more convincingly, but not enough.

“Look what you’ve done, now,” Emmanuel yelled at Julian.

Julian was about to respond but I cut him off.

“I’m eating. I’m eating,” I mumbled. “See. There’s no need for the yelling.” I took a forkful of pancakes and smiled.

“So Aaron, you said you would tell me everything today when all of your brothers were here. So spill.”

“Sorry. Not yet,” he said smiling.

“What? You promised,” I whined childishly.

“I said I would tell you when all of my brothers got here. We’re still two short.”

“There are five of you?” I complained.

“Yes,” he answered simply causing Emmanuel and Julian to laugh.

“Wow, you really didn’t tell her anything, did you?” Julian said laughing.

I rolled my eyes. “Why do we have to wait for your brothers, anyway? I don’t want to know about them. I want to know about you.” I turned to Julian and Emmanuel and smiled. “No offence.”

“Please be patient, baby love. It’s very important that we’re all here when Aaron talks to you,” Emmanuel said softly.

“This is ridiculous,” I mumbled quietly and leaned back into my chair, hands folded across my chest and my bottom lip slightly jutted out in a pout.

“Anyway, Aaron told us that you’ll be living with us for a while…” Emmanuel started.

“You said that the three of you discussed it!” I hissed at Aaron.

“So,” he continued loudly enough to shut me up, “we’ll have to go get your things from your place…”

This time Julian interrupted him. “We’re very excited about having a girl live here… especially one like you.”

“One like me?”

“Very beautiful, baby love,” Julian said in a low seductive voice. I felt Aaron’s hand involuntarily squeeze tighter around mine.

“Will the two of you quit it?” Emmanuel sighed heavily. “I swear Julian, you’re such a child. Like I was saying, since you’ll be staying here we need to go get the rest of your things from your place. We need the keys to your room.”

“I’ve already got them,” Aaron said speaking again for the first time in a while.

“Okay. You and Julian go get her things and I’ll stay here with her,” Emmanuel said and turned to look at Aaron. “I think I’ll take her to the library. You said she liked to read, right?”

Aaron smiled and nodded.

“How do you know I don’t want to stay with her? I know where the library is, too,” Julian half-whined.

“Like I’d leave you alone with her,” Aaron mumbled.

“Why, whatever do you mean?” Julian mused. He turned to look at me, trying to appear innocent.

“It’s not working,” I said smiling.

“You just missed the exit.” I turned to look at Emmanuel. We were driving on the highway and he’d just passed the turn off to the library.

He glanced sideways at me and smiled. “We’re going to the one in Tenino.”

“What? Why? That library is probably useless.”

I was looking at the side of his face and noticed he raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

“Small town, small library,” I answered simply. “The one in Seattle is the biggest. It probably has everything.”

“You’re right. The library in Tenino is pretty much useless but not completely. There’s this book there that I wanted you to see and there’s only one copy. You want to guess where that one copy is?”

“Tenino.”

He nodded.

“So what’s so special about this book that we’ve got to go all the way to Tenino for it?” I asked.

“Like I said, there’s only one copy and it’s kind of a historical book.”

“Oh? Well, what’s in it? Is it history of the town, or history of the world? Is like Salem witch trial kind of stuff? Tell me,” I pleaded.

“You’re very impatient.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re just like Aaron. Everything’s has to be a mystery. It’s all cloaks and daggers; clandestine.”

He laughed again.

“New rule: Don’t bring up anything that you’re not willing to explain immediately.” I stated. “No teasing. That way, I won’t get so…impatient.”