♥Chapter 36: ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ꜱʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴇᴛꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴠᴇꜱ♥

❆Jake❆

I readjust myself as Kennedy stirs one more fucking time in her sleep.

Her head tucked under my chin with her back pressing against my front, my arm holding her closer to me.

Sometimes when I hold her too tight and she can't move in her sleep, she starts talking until her voice raises to a scream scaring the shit out of me. The first day she did that, I thought I accidentally held her too tight and cracked her rib or something. But no, it's just her and her weird sleeping habits.

I love it.

It's become a habit now.

Sleeping with her beside me every night.

It scares me.

I'm catching on to many habits that has something to do with Ken.

Sometimes I go to do something and then feel as if I should bring Kennedy with me or tell her where I'm going or what I'm doing.

She's on my fucking mind all the damn time.

After readjusting to Ken's new position of sleeping, I'm close to drifting off back to sleep.

That's when-

The door flies open followed by a series of loud gasps from multiple females.

"Oh my! JAKE BABY, LOOK WHO'S HERE?"

My eyes snap open and I bolt right up, staring with wide eyes at my eight fucking aunts filing into my room.

My room is no longer quiet.

"Look! Cole was right, he does have a girl!" One of them, points.

Another one gasps, "She's so pretty."

They all let out responses of agreement.

"She's a redhead. I heard it usually brings blessing to the family."

"Why isn't she waking up?"

"I hope she's not dead. Is she dead, Jake?"

I narrow my eyes at all of them, pulling up the blankets over Kennedy's head to hide her sleeping form from their view.

"In case you ladies haven't noticed," I start with a glare, looking at their faces, "it's five in the fucking morning where people usually sleep or are having early morning sex. It's not appropriate to just barge into someone's fucking room."

"Baby, I barge into my five sons having sex all the time," One of my aunts, Emma, waves it off.

"Were you having sex though?" Another aunt, Bella, asks.

I narrow my eyes, "No."

Sadly.

Aunt Melissa laughs, "Look at his face. It's obvious he hasn't had sex with her yet."

They all laugh.

"Shh! You're gonna wake her up." I hiss, keeping a hand on Kennedy's body.

All the ladies have wide gooey eyes now, looking at me in adoration with a series of 'Awwwwws'.

"Look how he's caring for her," Aunt Alina coos.

"This girl must be something to make this Road Pebble care for someone." Aunt Rebecca grins.

Road Pebble?

I scoff.

Cole and his mom. Always with the fucking nicknames.

"Let's wake her up and see what she has done to this boy." Aunt Chloe suggests.

My aunts start moving in on Kennedy to wake her up.

I quickly get into action. Sitting up on my knees, I move to block my aunts from reaching Ken with my body.

"If any of you ruin her sleep, I'll come at your sons." I glare.

They glare back at me.

"I won't be easy with them," I warn.

They finally huff and move back to their places.

"She's a heavy sleeper though. I can tell." Aunt Melissa says.

I roll my eyes.

"It's best if you wake her up anyway. The rest are downstairs waiting to meet you." Aunt Rosie says.

"I wonder why." I smile sarcastically.

They all start walking out of my room with words like 'Come down as soon as you can' 'wake up sleeping beauty and get her down too' 'if you go back to sleep, we'll send Cole up'.

I grumble loudly under my breath with every curse word I know.

When they leave my room, slamming the door shut behind them, I sigh deeply before looking back at Ken.

I notice her breathing getting heavy and louder and realize the blanket is over her head for too long.

"Shit." I quickly pull off the blanket from her head, letting her breathe properly again.

If I accidentally killed Kennedy, she'd rise up from the dead specifically to kill me too.

I brush away a few strands of long red hair from Kennedy's face before gently shaking her shoulder.

"Ken," I whisper, "Ken, get up."

She doesn't respond.

"Kennedy," I shake her shoulder.

She stirs but doesn't wake up.

"Please don't make me face Cole this early."

I shake her shoulder again.

"Kennedy get up-"

"DIE MOTHER LOVER-" She starts thrashing her hands.

I quickly seize her wrists in my hands, "It's me, Ken. Get up, it's me."

"WATCH ME BURN THIS WORLD TO ASHES AND-"

"Kennedy!"

Her yelling ceases to incoherent mumbles under her breath before her lashes flutter up to reveal two shining eyes of forest green.

My breath gets taken away for a moment when her eyes meet mine.

A lazy smile comes on her beautiful face, "Oh hey Jake."

"Hey," I breathe out.

Her eyes drop to my hands holding her wrists with my body hovering over her.

She frowns in confusion, "Were we doing something?"

"We are going to." I nod and bring her wrist over her head, pinning them to the bed with my hands.

Her eyes widen with red seeping to her cheeks.

"I thought we were sumo-wrestling or something." She mumbles.

I slowly lower my body down on her warm fuzzy one, making sure I'm not crushing her in any way.

My lips latch onto her warm throat, my tongue darting out to lick her skin.

Her breathing gets uneven, and she slightly squirms under me. The side of my face traces her skin as I bring it down to kiss the spot above her breast.

"Jake." Her voice comes out breathy and hot, "I can't handle something like this right when I wake up."

"You're alright," I breathe, placing kisses all over her chest on whatever skin her t-shirt exposed.

"Jake."

"Hmm?"

"I have to pee." She whispers.

"Can you hold?"

"I'll pee on your bed."

"I'll change the mattress."

"Meaning I can pee on your bed?"

I lift my head from her chest, giving her a look.

Unwillingly, I release her wrists, moving off her.

She sits up and does a little stretch, a yawn coming out of her mouth.

Her eyes flick to the clock and her eyes widen.

"Why the flipping heck did you flipping wake me up at flipping five in the flipping, flipping, flipping morning? Is the world flipping ending?"

"My relatives are downstairs," I answer. "They don't function according to time. They do what they wanna do."

Her eyes widen even more, "They're all here already?"

I nod.

"Come on," I take her hand, getting out of bed and pulling her up with me, walking her into the bathroom.

✿Kennedy✿

When Jake said, his relatives were downstairs I almost threw the blanket over my head, shaking my head to say 'Are you crazy? I ain't going down there'.

I don't know why I'm nervous to meet them.

I want them to like me.

What if they don't?

What if they think of me as some weird girl?

Eh, Jake said they're all weird.

So I guess they'll find my weirdness as their normal?

I get dressed in a cream summer dress and put on some white socks because it's a bit cold.

I walk towards Jake's room and open the door right as he pulls a hoodie over his head.

I internally sigh dreamily.

He's so hot every single time of the day.

I told Gary that one day.

"He's so hot Gary." I sigh into the phone. "If you saw him right now, the 'r' in your name would disappear."

There was a moment of silence as if Gary was taking time to process my words.

"Kennedy?" He finally replies.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

Jake catches me watching him and comes over to kiss me on the lips before we both walk out of the room.

I can already hear a number of people talking together with loud noises banging here and there, a few screaming and yelling.

Midway, my nervousness finally kicks in at full speed and I halt in the middle of the stairs.

"I'm not going down there." I shake my head vigorously, trying to free my hand from Jake's.

"Kennedy, it's fine." He tells me.

"It's not. They're not gonna like me!"

"You don't know that!"

"I do!" I try biting his hand when he doesn't let go.

Jake quickly pulls away before my teeth clamp on his skin.

I turn around and ran back upstairs.

"Kennedy!" He follows me.

"I'll just go and hide in the attic until they leave."

Wait no, that's rude though.

He grabs my shoulders and whirls me around towards him before I get the chance to run into my room and lock myself into it. "Kennedy."

"Where are the stairs to the attic?" I ask.

"We don't have an attic."

"What house doesn't have an attic?"

"The roof's flat."

"Ooo like me."

"Shut up."

"Jake—"

"I promise you, they're gonna like you." He assures me. "You'll fit in perfectly."

"Because I'm weird?"

"Exactly."

"That's not..." I pause. "Okay..." I give a considering nod.

"Don't worry." He tells me before holding his hand out to me. I take it with hesitation before letting him lead me down the stairs.

My eyes widen when I see a large group of people occupying the living room. Men, women, children, teenagers.

Maybe it is the end of the world cos this living room isn't capable of fitting that many people.

"I still don't get why don't they just go to Toothy's house since it's bigger than ours," Jake mumbles in my ear.

My eyes stop on a boy, looking a bit younger than me, maybe fifteen, holding a knife in the kitchen, ingredients of a sandwich in front of him.

"How does he get to hold a knife?!"

My question-that comes out louder than I expected-makes everyone in the living room stop whatever they were doing.

Every eye in the room lands on me.

Then everything blurs as people bolt towards me, pulling me away from Jake, showering me with questions and compliments as they pull me towards them in the living room.

What...?

"Oh my, she's really as Alex told me she was." One of the ladies says.

"How is your hair so long?" One of them brushes her hand through my tangles of curly hair.

"She's got all of Reece's looks, doesn't she?" Another one of the ladies says.

I stop with wide eyes, "You knew my dad?"

She smiles and nods, "Amelia's best friend,"

Amelia, Jake's mom.

"They were inseparable along with Alex," Another one of them says, smiling sadly.

"I heard what happened to your father," A hand caresses my hair.

My smile drops a little.

"It's really sad to hear about what happened to Reece."

I was suddenly being hugged by ten different people, all squishing the living daylights out of me.

When I thought I am going to lose my breath with the number of people surrounding me, I pull out my inhaler and put it to my mouth.

"Oh my, are you okay?" One of the women asks, with wide eyes.

"Just got a lil' asthma," I reply, trying to wave it off and hiding the inhaler back into my pocket.

People usually judge me whenever they see me using my inhaler or whenever they knew I had asthma.

Like Eve.

"Oh baby, we're so sorry." One of the women speaks. "You should have told us the minute you came down that you had asthma. We almost crushed you to a pulp."

I chuckle, shaking my head, "I like hugs," I say, "Warm ones."

Jake's ones.

"MOOOOOOM! Brandon's sniffing Alexa's butt again!" One of the kids yell.

"Am not!" Brandon yells back, putting a two-year-old baby back down in its cradle.

"Yes, he was, mom!"

"I was just checking if the baby powder was still there or not!" Brandon glares.

"You were sniffing Alexa!" Another kid starts singing, "Brandon's a dog! Brandon's a dog! Brandon's a dog!"

"Shut up!" Brandon yells, shoving away the singing kid.

"Ouch! Mommy Brandon pushed me!"

"I'll push you again, now shut up!"

"Mommy! Brandon's saying he'll push me again!"

"I'll feed you your own poop!"

"Mommy! Brandon's saying he'll feed me my own poop!"

"Stop telling mom everything!"

"MOMMY!"

I internally grimace, rethinking the definition of annoying.

Oh mama.

"Kids please!" One of the ladies around me, snaps at them. "Be quiet and don't touch Alexa. Let her sleep."

Alex is pretty much wide awake, staring at the screaming and fighting kids in front of her, laughing at them.

There are at least eight women who are surrounding me right now. Eight men are on the couch conversing with Alex and the rest of the kids and teens are scattered around here and there.

It's a mini-crowded New York Times Square in here.

"Ignore them." The lady speaks to me referring to her kids, placing a hand on my shoulder, "Let's get you something to eat. You look like a mosquito sucked all the blood along with the meat from your body."

I find Jake and shoot him a hard glare.

I told him I was flat.

✯✯✯

I stand in the kitchen as Melissa and Emma teach me how to make Arancini.

So far, I've managed to receive seven bonks on the head, five slaps to the arm, three looks of disbelief, and one long speech about pregnancy and babies.

I know, right?

I love these people.

They're fun and also very much scary to be around.

They've slapped my hand too many times, whenever I move to touch something.

All eight ladies.

That's too many slaps for one poor hand of mine.

After preparing enough Arancini for half of China, we put it in a huge bowl and bring it out into the noisy living room.

Everyone almost immediately stuffs their hands into the bowl, finishing half of it within two minutes.

Oh mama.

The men who I haven't spoken to yet, one by one come to greet me, showering me with words about how I looked like Reece, my dad.

They start joking about old times and there's a rumble of laughter everywhere.

I couldn't find Jake and assumed he was locked in his room, preventing himself to be amongst us human beings whom he so dearly hates.

I try keeping up with everyone in the living room, laughing at jokes I understand, fake laughing at jokes I didn't understand.

What? I'm not gonna be the odd one out who doesn't laugh.

My breathing gets a lil' abnormal coz of standing in between all these people for too long.

The air is starting to get a little stuffy.

I ignore the slight burning sensation in my chest and instead take a few pumps from my inhaler, hoping my asthma doesn't decide to cause a scene in front of everyone.

Usually, I like the attention.

But we're talking about forty crazy people here.

No thank you.

"Psst."

Someone hisses at me.

I look behind me, halfway through an Arancini.

The guy who held the knife before smiles at me. He looks fifteen with brown eyes and light brown hair.

He gestures for me to follow him, and I do with an expression of confusion.

Where is he taking me?

Maybe he's going to tell me where he hid the knife he was holding earlier. He's gonna give it to me and tell me to finally complete my destination of ruling the world.

We reach the backyard door and walk out.

Or...maybe we're just going to the backyard.

My eyes spot Cole sitting on a patio chair along with a couple of more guys looking his age. They sit in a circle.

Cole's eyes meet mine and a huge grin comes on his face, "Ken! You came!" He gets the attention of the rest of the guys and gestures toward me, "I told you she was real."

Four pairs of unknown eyes stare at me.

One of them gets up and walks toward me.

He looks like he's twenty or something, big and intimidating.

After him, the rest of the three guys get up and follow him towards me.

I prevent my eyes from going slightly wide as they all stand around me, looking down at me as if I were a frog in a science lab.

They all had matching brown hair and brown eyes which makes me question if they were quadruplets or something.

They all look as if they are in a family mafia or something.

Oh mama.

"Kennedy, right?" One of them asks, tilting his head as he looks at me.

I open my mouth to answer but another voice cuts in.

"Yup, she is." Cole hollers as he squishes in between the towering guys and puts a hand around my shoulder, smiling wide,

"She's tiny." Another one of the guys says.

My eyes go wide with disbelief before I scowl, "Say that again. I dare you!"

The guy blinks in surprise before raising his hands in defence. The rest of them chuckle.

Something tugs on my hair, and I look behind to see one of the guys holding a lock of my hair between his fingers.

When he notices me watching, he grins, "It's natural. Thought your hair was dyed."

"You people work in a mafia?" I ask.

They share a look with each other, furrowing their eyebrows and shaking their head.

"No."

"Bummer," I say, "If you do, just in case, I'll give you my number," I lower my voice down like I'm about to tell a secret, "I'm kinda a wanted criminal around here. Got murder on my hands. I'll be your best assassin." I wink at them.

They all frown with amused smiles.

"Are you on crack?" One of them asks, chuckling silently.

I nod, "Every single hour of my life."

Cole high-fives me, "Same, Sista!"

"It usually gets me all psycho and dangerous." I go on with my lie.

"Better watch out then." One of the guys responds, grinning.

One of them takes my hand, placing a kiss on it, "I'm Santiago."

"Hi, I'm Kennedy." I smile at him.

"Castle." Another guy introduces himself, giving me a finger salute.

"Hi, I'm Kennedy." I smile at him.

"Ivan." He takes my other hand in his and gives it a firm shake.

Strong hands.

"Hi, I'm Kennedy." I smile at him.

"Ollie."

"Hi, I'm Kennedy." I smile at Ollie.

We all look at each other for a moment.

Then we burst out laughing.

I don't even know why we're laughing.

But I'm not gonna be the odd one out who isn't laughing.

Another deep, angry and loud voice cuts through our laughter.

Why do I know that voice?

All our heads lean back to look up at where the voice came from.

Jake stands at his bedroom window, looking down at us with a very angry glare.

"Stay. The fuck. Away from her!" He yells, his eyes narrowing at the guy's holding my hands, the other still playing with the lock of my hair, and Cole who still has his arm around my shoulder.

"Who is he talking about?" Cole asks, playfully looking confused.

"Beats me." Santiago shrugs.

"Who are you talking about, Jakey?" Ollie asks in confusion, his lips tugging up slightly.

"Get your hands off Kennedy!" Jake scowls.

"Oh, you mean this girl?" Cole asks pointing at me, "This one right here?"

Jake narrows his eyes, "Yes."

"Are you sure it's really this girl? You sure you're not talking about any other girl?" Cole continues.

"Motherfucking asshole!" Jake yells.

"Are you talking about me?" Cole continues. "Are you sure your words were meant for me?"

Jake narrows his eyes and glares at Cole for a little longer before he disappears from our sight and into his room.

"Shit, he's coming down." Cole's eyes widen in horror before he runs away to probably hide somewhere.

✄ ✄ ✄ ✄

EDIT: I wrote this book before I wrote No Shame in Desiring. The Castle in this book isn't the Castle from NSID <3 But yeah, I just love the name Castle.

Favourite name for a girl?

Words: 3,280

Date of publishing: 29th May 2022