Phoenix Found (Brothers of Fire #5)

Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

“Unbraid your hair,” Quentin said.

Oliver should’ve unbraided it last night or, at the very latest, this morning. Instead, he’d left it because every time he touched the braid, he remembered Perrin running his fingers through the wind-tangled strands. “Why?”

“Because it’s messy and not in a good way.”

“There’s a good way?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Bed hair. You know, like you’ve just?—”

“I got it.” Oliver pulled the hair elastic out of the end and began unraveling the braid, which was more knotted than it had been last night. The jeans that Quentin said looked the best were tight on his butt and clung to his thighs. They did look good on, not that he was used to checking himself out.

After trying on a dozen pairs, all brought over by a shopper, then re-trying on the three that Quentin approved of, Oliver was already well and truly tired of dressing and undressing.

Unfortunately, shirts had come next—two different types—along with a couple of hoodies and knitted sweaters. At least Quentin hadn’t also suggested changing his socks and underwear.

“So you’ve really never gone clothes shopping?” Quentin lounged on the sofa in Oliver’s living room.

He’d never had a living room or guests before. In addition to the living room, the suite had a kitchenette, an office, and the expected bedroom and bathroom. The bookcases in the lounge room held a selection of old books that he couldn’t read because they were written in French and Latin and God knew what else. All languages that a past version of himself had been able to read.

Just thinking about a past version of himself living there for centuries, given that the castle was over a thousand years old, or at least parts of it were, was weird. And he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with that knowledge because it didn’t help him now.

He wasn’t sure changing his clothes and trying to capture Perrin’s attention was going to help him either, but for the first time in his life, he was making choices and doing something other than reading and thinking.

He’d vetoed the pair of jeans, which appeared to be more holes than fabric, but Quentin put them in the keep pile, and since the clothes were all going on the account anyway, he shouldn’t worry about the cost.

That wasn’t what he was worried about.

He didn’t see the point of having so many clothes. What was he going to do with them all?

Not that he’d shared that thought because Quentin might insist on getting him more stuff. “No, I never went anywhere.”

“School? Doctor?”

Oliver shook his head and grabbed his hairbrush. “I didn’t realize that I was being raised differently. I had nothing to compare to.”

“Did you play outside as a kid?”

“Yes, the house was on a large property. And I had a dog to play with. I wasn’t lonely.” And he hadn’t felt mistreated. It was hard to explain to someone who hadn’t been there. “I call tell you’re itching to look at my previous lives.”

“Don’t you want to find out what happened? Aren’t you at all curious?”

Oliver ran the brush through his hair. “No. I’m curious about the rest of the world I haven’t experienced.”

“You don’t need to experience it all at once,” Quentin warned him again.

The same way he had several times over what Oliver could only describe as the most mortifying lesson of his entire life. Quentin was younger than him, though not by much, and explaining how to do things Oliver had only read about or had never even heard of.

He’d read about blow jobs and understood how sex worked, though not between two men. And he’d never thought about his butt as much as today. Though that did explain why Quentin insisted that the right fit of jeans made all the difference.

“I’m not planning to.” But there was that drumming in his chest that he was going to run out of time. “How can you tell if you have a soul bruise?”

Quentin shrugged. “Kaine says it’s about the way you react without thinking. Why? What do you feel?”

Oliver set aside the brush and sat on the sofa next to him. “Whenever you say don’t rush, I want to. It’s like there’s a clock counting down within me. You don’t have that?”

“No. It might be because you haven’t lived to be old for a couple of hundred years. Are you sure you don’t want me to take a peek?”

Oliver glared at him. “Is that going to help? ”

Quentin shrugged. “It will only confirm.”

“So, do I listen to it or not?”

“I can’t say, but if you jump into things without being ready?—”

“I’ve lived my entire life in books. I am ready.”

“For your heart to be broken? To be hurt because the other person didn’t listen?”

“He’s not like that,” Oliver said softly.

Quentin slapped his hand over his eyes and groaned. “You’ve known him for, what, thirty minutes and one kiss? You don’t know shit about him.”

“I don’t know shit about you or my brothers , yet here I am, trusting you, because what other choice is there? You lot are the ones telling me the other people who took care of me are the bad guys. I am still being kept, even though I have more space and more freedom with my reading matter.” He huffed out a breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped when you’ve spent all afternoon explaining condoms and fashion.”

“Don’t apologize for how you’re feeling. But until you have ID, and can use a bank card, and call a taxi and a hundred other things I take for granted, you need help so that you don’t get hurt or kidnapped or something.”

“And I want to do all of that now. Even though the idea of going into the city is kind of terrifying.” He gave Quentin a small smile. “That will be the soul bruise.”

Quentin nodded. “If Kaine gives me clearance, I’ll take you into town. I’m happy to help, but I also don’t want you to run before you can crawl and then get too scared to try again. That’ll create a different set of problems.”

“I know that makes sense, but I want to push against the restrictions. Like Dalmon telling me not to fly outside yet.”

“Definitely listen to that piece of advice.” Quentin leaned forward. “No one is trying to stop you, but we want you to be happy and not to fall too many times. It might take months to adapt, maybe even longer. I’ll see if I can find some information on similar cases if you’d like to read about them?”

Oliver nodded. That might help, but now he was aware of the restrictions, he couldn’t help but notice them every time he tried to take a step. He needed to remember that no matter how many steps he took, there would always be more to take. It wasn’t possible to see and do everything in one life.

“Now, are you going to tell me who has caught your eye?”

“No. Some things I need to figure out on my own.”

Quentin grinned. “You don’t want me to vet him?”

Oliver shook his head. “Everyone who works here has already been vetted.”

There was nowhere safer for him to fly than in the castle.