Breath Control, Chapter Seven
An A Court of Mist and Fury College Swim Team AU
All characters belong to SJ Maas!
Feysand.... and welcome to Elriel.
Let me know if you want to be tagged!
Authors Note: This chapter is a BIG gateway chapter to a lot of things. . . also VERY lightly edited... and enjoy the new POV shift... ;)
It was around 9 am. I’d been in the kitchen for an hour already, trying to decide what to make for breakfast. I’d started making pancakes, then switched to waffles, then omelets. I’d be set on my decision for as long as it would take me to pull out all the ingredients for my choice, then I’d change my mind, put everything back, and pull a bunch of different things out.
My father walked in at around 9:30, as I was pulling the muffins I’d made from scratch out of the oven. I’d decided muffins were neutral enough that everyone in the house would like them and that I could make them well enough to everyone’s satisfaction. Nesta said I worked too hard to please people.
No clue where she got that idea. . .
“Is no one else up?” my father said.
I shook my head. “Just me and the muffins.”
He took one, buttered it, and made to sit down. He seemed to think better of it, though, because he set his muffin down and stood up straight. “I’d better go wake Feyre. I want to ask her about all those paint cans and supplies she’s left in the garage, and someone has to be here to eat these muffins. Best to do it know while Mr. Night sleeps; I know how sensitive that girl can be about her painting.”
I nodded, standing alone at the counter before I remembered.
“Dad, Dad, Dad! Let me wake up Feyre. I--um--”
He was halfway up the stairs when I caught up to him, pausing to look down at me. I went with the oldest trick in the book. “Girl stuff.” I widened my eyes meaningfully. “Best if I check up on her first.”
I prayed my father didn’t see through my very feeble attempt to make him uncomfortable. But it worked. He clicked his tongue and descended the staircase. “I’ll take your word for it, Elain. Hurry down. And tell Feyre to hurry too…”
It was like he knew. Oh Feyre was so going to owe me.
I bounded up the stairs, not slowing until I was at the top of Feyre’s own narrow staircase. I knocked and entered, ready to get a kick out of what was about to happen.
“Oh, Feyreeee, Dad needs you downstairs.”
Nothing for a few moments. I thought I heard whispers but from where I stood, I couldn’t see anything besides the large lump of her white bed coverings. “I guess I could send Dad up here…”
The whispering became clearer, now, and I made out something like, “Shut up!” and “I’ll handle it” and “Calm the fuck down.”
Feyre suddenly appeared in a very large t-shirt and nothing else. “Thanks, ‘Lain.” She practically hissed my name. She stalked across the floor toward me. “How’d you know?” She murmured.
“Got up for a glass of water last night. Saw Rhysand’s ass as it cleared the top of the staircase. Figured I’d save you from Dad’s wrath.”
Feyre rolled her eyes. “We didn’t do anything. And Dad has no right to dictate what I can and can’t do.”
“Obviously not,” I agreed. “But he could make things very awkward.”
“True. We’ll--I’ll--be down in a second. Please don’t tell Nesta. She’d be unbearable.”
“Tell me what?” A voice like iron floated across the small landing.
Feyre shut her eyes and I cringed. Nesta’s judgment might be worse than our father’s.
“Hey, Nesta,” Feyre said guiltily.
“Feyre. Hi Rhys!” Nesta raised her voice imperceptibly.
A tan hand rose from the bed. “Why the fuck do you have so many sisters, Archeron?”
The light that shone behind Feyre’s eyes was like nothing I’d ever seen before. In either of my sisters’ faces. Or my own. I bit back my own grin. After Tamlin, and the shitty year Feyre had had, I just wanted her to be happy. And Rhys was so good-natured. Didn’t hurt that he was hot, too. She deserved to look all happy despite being caught out by her two older sisters.
“I’d get downstairs quick. And arrive separately.” Nesta was fighting back a laugh. “I can’t wait to hear Dad chew you out for your sex life. For once, it won’t be me.” She smiled wickedly.
“We didn’t--I didn’t--get out!” Feyre screeched at us.
“You’re welcome,” Nesta and I said in unison, and we grinned at each other. Feyre pushed us out with surprising strength and slammed the door.
“That was fun.” Nesta started down the staircase first.
I was about to respond when my phone vibrated in my back pocket. I pulled it out.
“Don’t play dumb.” Nesta dropped her voice to a low whisper as we descended the main staircase and headed for the kitchen. “You’re grinning like an idiot, and not in the ‘I just caught my sister with a boy in her bed in my dad’s house’ way you were earlier.”
“Uh, just looking at a meme.” Weak.
“Because you spend so much time scrolling through memes.”
Thankfully, Nesta let the subject drop. I honestly wished she hadn’t. Everyone had been treating me like a fragile piece of glass since the whole Greyson debacle. And while, yes, I wasn’t quite ready to share that I’d been secretly talking to Azriel for the past two months… I was strong enough to handle some sisterly teasing, or even fatherly teasing. Or any kind of teasing.
Instead, everything was, “Oh, Elain, your cookies taste so good!” and, “Oh, Elain, the garden looks wonderful!” and, “Oh, Elain, how’s nursing school?” Nobody wanted to talk about anything real with me, because they thought I wasn’t ready. And if I was the one to start down that road, they’d continue to tread on ice around me and just be grateful I was talking at all. Too grateful to really listen to what I had to say.
Which was why I’d downloaded a dating app two months ago, swiped right on all of two guys before I’d found someone worthy of deleting the app immediately after we started messaging. It’d been a constant stream of texting and snapchatting ever since, even if we hadn’t met up in person yet. My romantic past, Azriel’s loner tendencies, and the fact that he was one of Rhys’s best friends and Feyre’s teammate had made us decide to take things slow. But seeing how happy Feyre was with Rhys--and she didn’t even know it quite yet--made me think that I should tell my sister and then get Azriel to take me out.
That would certainly surprise everybody. Elain made of glass, indeed.
Before I could lose my nerve, I texted Azriel back. Sliding my phone back into my pocket, I reentered the kitchen with a smile on my face, trying not to ponder on the message I’d just sent.
Elain: I’ve been thinking. . . We should meet up… Face to face.
I got a response within a moment and didn’t need to check my phone to know what it said.
I slammed the door shut. I looked behind me to find Rhys, breathtakingly shirtless, propped up on one elbow behind me.
“What are the chances that both of your lovely sisters keep their mouths shut about this? Cuz I have a feeling even a mutual love for collegiate athletics won’t stop your father from kicking me out of the house for staying the night in your room.”
I slumped onto the bed and he was suddenly there, filling all the empty space in the room as he hovered over me. I closed my eyes, fighting back a smile. “They’ve had their fun. Sisters don’t snitch.”
He rested his forehead against my shoulder. “Great. Not that I care about you, of course. I’m just very concerned about where I’ll have Thanksgiving dinner if your dad kicks me out.”
I sat up and pushed him back against the blankets all in one motion. “You take that back,” I said playfully.
“How about I go down there and confess to my dad before Nesta or Elain can rat us out? Then I’d be rid of your sorry ass much more quickly.”
“Feyre!” Elain’s voice floated up the stairs tauntingly, interrupting our flirting.
“This isn’t over, Archeron,” Rhys said threateningly.
I pointed to the door. “Go put on something presentable. Your hair’s a mess.”
He scowled. But he kissed me lightly on the lips before he left the room and I almost told him to forget about family breakfast and stay up here with me, instead.
The day passed in a blur. We spent the majority of it in the kitchen prepping for Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow afternoon. After a while, we all retired to the living room and marathoned the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Rhys sat next to me on the couch and as soon as it got dark enough outside that my father, Nesta, and Elain probably wouldn’t notice, he took my hand under our shared blanket and I set my head on his shoulder.
I stayed in his room that night, although we were both too tired to do much other than fall into bed after a day spent in the kitchen. I woke before him the next morning and tiptoed downstairs to let him sleep.
I found Elain and Nesta arguing in my kitchen.
“Why don’t you just tell me who he is,” Nesta was saying in a very low, very dangerous voice.
“Butt out, Nesta. It’s no one.”
“If it was no one, there’d be nothing for me to butt out of, now would there be?”
Elain was gripping the island countertop in the center of the kitchen. Nesta, surprisingly, was cooking up a huge skillet of scrambled eggs. It smelled as though they were starting to burn while her attention was focused on Elain.
Elain’s phone vibrated. “Who is he?” Nesta shrieked.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
They both started speaking at once.
“Nesta won’t stay out of my own fucking business--”
I held up my hands. “Oh, both of you shut up! Elain. Explain.”
Nesta mumbled something under her breath that I chose not to hear as Elain sighed. “Nesta thinks I’m talking to a boy. She thinks that she has a right to know who he is--if he even exists,” Elain added with an eye roll, “and that she deserves the right to approve. I told her to fuck off, but she’s not listening.”
I’d never heard so many “fucks” from Elain in one conversation. There was definitely a boy.
“Well, why don’t you tell us? After everything…”
Elain pushed herself back from the countertop, throwing her hands up in the air. “I’m not some fragile teenager who doesn’t know how to speak to boys! Despite what you think about how terribly broken I am after Greyson, I know what I’m doing! And now I don’t want to tell you even more. So leave me alone.”
She turned and pushed through the door that led from the kitchen to the side yard.
I looked at Nesta. She looked at me.
“She better be getting it reallll good to get so upset with us for asking about it,” Nesta said.
I took a seat at the barstools surrounding the island. “Do you think she. . . Do we really treat her like a teenager who doesn’t know how to speak to boys?”
“Maybe. But that’s because she doesn’t know how to speak to boys--or men, for that matter.”
Nesta thought she knew what was best for Elain--and she usually did. But Nesta also liked getting her way. When her way wasn’t Elain’s way. . . It was difficult for both of them. I resolved that no matter what Nesta thought, I’d try to give Elain some space when it came to her Mystery Guy. Even if I was dying to find out who it was.
“Speaking of boys. . .” Nesta began, but at that moment, Rhys stepped into the kitchen. Thank God. I didn’t know what exactly was going on between us at the moment. Discussing it with Nesta would be torture.
“Good morning,” I said brightly as Rhys took a seat beside me.
“Is it?” He asked. Nesta had turned around to find her eggs burnt to a crisp, ignoring Rhys entirely.
Rhys leaned his elbows on the counter. “My father called. He’s in town. And wants me to spend the weekend with him in my hometown.”
I couldn’t help the fear that gripped me at his words. Was he just making this up because he wanted to escape me? I struggled to keep my voice steady. “Where’s that?”
“Two hours north of here.”
“Well I can take you and drop you off tomorrow morning,” I managed to say. “Would that work?”
He blinked. “I did tell you that my father is a horrible person, right?”
“Not sure you mentioned it. . . But it’s Thanksgiving. You should be with family.” Which was true. Although I’d rather he stay here.
He rolled his eyes. “I can’t burden you with driving all the way out there and back just so I can spend the weekend with a very unideal candidate.” He gave me a look that told me who was the ideal candidate. Maybe he wasn’t making this up. . .
“Um. . . Uber?” Stay here, stay here, stay here.
“Too expensive.” He glanced at Nesta, and then turned to face me more fully. “You could stay with us. We can just make it ‘meet the parents’ week.” He smiled hopefully.
Relief flooded my body. “Well…” I definitely wanted to go with him. Right now I didn’t want to leave his side at all after the past two nights sleeping in his arms. But I didn’t want to offend my family.
Nesta banged the skillet against the edge of the trash can, causing both Rhys and me to jump about a mile. “Go with him, Feyre. I’ll talk to Dad.”
I couldn’t help the smile that exploded across my face. “I guess you’re stuck with me.” I grinned at him.
“There’s no one else I’d rather be stuck with.”
Tag List: @sleeping-and-books @musicalfae @queen-of-glass
