Housemates – 3

Vinny was a lot less sure of this once she saw all the other… people who lived in the house.  It was one thing to understand, intellectually, that she was going to be the only human, and the only woman in the house.  It was another thing to be faced by a number of large males, any of whom could end her life without trying.  It looked like they all had assigned seating.  Vinny watched them start unpacking the food.  It was a lot of food.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

Vinny jumped.  The voice behind her was deep with an accent that was really weird hybrid of Scottish and Texas.  She turned and came boobs to belt buckle with a minotaur.  While she stared up at him in shock, he eased past her and took a seat at the table.  The drider dropped from the ceiling and slid into the empty space with no chair.  Vinny came over to the table and considered the last two chairs.  Then she looked at Bazur.

“Which one is Kevin?”

Something bumped into the backs of her calves, making her wobble and dance to the side.  A small truck walked past her and jumped into one of the remaining chairs.

“Huh.” she said, finally as she took the last seat.

“What?” rumbled the orc, as he watched her through narrowed eyes.  The tusks meant that orcs always looked like they were frowning, but the wrinkled brow suggested that he was actually frowning.

Vinny cleared her throat and accepted the fried rice the minotaur was passing her.  “I, um,  I’ve never… “  She stopped and tried again, “Mimics are rare.  I’ve never actually seen – met one before.  I was half convinced that was just some prank you pulled to see how people would react.”

Kevin opened his lid and reached out a midnight black arm holding a pair of chopsticks.

Vinny realized she was staring.  She blinked and looked over to see the minotaur patiently holding a carton of lemon chicken in her direction.  She hurried to take some rice so she could pass it along and take the chicken.  “I don’t suppose you would take a moment to introduce yourselves?”

They all froze and looked at her like she had grown a second head.

“Ok.  I’ll start.  Hi! I’m Vinny.  I’m in my fourth year of biochem at the local U.”

No one said anything.  They all just stared.

Vinny cleared her throat and asked softly.  ‘If you can’t be bothered because I didn’t pass the interview, it’s ok to tell me that.  I would rather know.”

The mostly normal looking guy sitting to her left said, “Haven’t we scared you off yet?  You smell scared.”

Vinny narrowed her eyes.  “That would make you …” she drew out the last syllable as she racked her brain then blurted out, “Derick” a moment before he did.

Derick smirked, “See! You didn’t need introductions after all!”

The minotaur cleared his throat.  “We can be polite, we are just out of practice.  I’m Tristan.”

Vinny nodded.  The rest of the men introduced themselves after that, except for Kevin who was busy shoveling food into his mouth and Thea who just waved shyly.

Vinny sighed.  It wasn’t great, but she could work with that.

—-

“No!  Absolutely not!”

Vinny took a deep breath and considered her mom across the breakfast table.  Her little brother was snickering into his milk.  “I really did investigate every other possibility before I applied and-”

“And that’s another thing!  You went there by yourself?  Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?  What if something had happened?”

Now Vinny narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.  “I took Jenn with me. And you don’t like this solution?  Fine!  Tell me how this is supposed to work?”

“You can take a cab home.”

“Really?  After hours rates would be $50 a trip, twice a week for fifteen weeks a semester.  That’s like $1500 a term.  You flat out refused to let me take Uber at that time of night.  Which is worse? Random, stranger driving an Uber at 10:30 at night?  Or a ex-military orc who was honourably discharged?  And you get to know exactly who the orc is and you can give his very specific details to the cops if I go missing.”

“I don’t like this, Vincenzia!  We can get someone to pick you up.”

“Ma!  Who?  You need to be home with JJ-”

Vinny’s little brother looked up from his cereal and said, “Hey! I can take care of myself!”

They both ignored him.  “You can’t load him into a car at 10:00 on a school night to drive the half hour trip to campus.  You going to leave him here, alone for the hour minimum that it is going to take to pick me up?  And that’s ignoring that you don’t like driving at night.  And that you have to be up at five thirty to be at work on time.”

They glared at each other.  Everyone said it was easy to see where Vinny got her tenacity from.  Less charitable people would just say the whole family was taking sheer bloody minded stubbornness to a whole new level.

“It’s Saturday.  Kogan is coming to church with us tomorrow and we are invited over there for brunch so you can meet the guys and see where I’ll be staying and everything.”

Valerie Jovani narrowed her eyes.  “I thought you said you were going to be the cook.  How are we going to go for brunch at their house if they don’t cook?’  She asked the question like a poker player laying down an ace.

Vinny shrugged, “It doesn’t matter if they feed us pop tarts and beer, the brunch isn’t the point.”

“No, the point is that you are not moving into a house with a bunch of men.  You are not Snow White, they are not the seven dwarves.”

“Doesn’t that make you the evil queen?”  JJ asked with his mouth full.

Mrs Jovani was stunned into silence for long enough for Vinny to make her get away.

—-

Vinny knew this wasn’t going to work as soon as Kogan pulled up to their church riding a Road Hawg Orc motorcycle.  It was big.  It was loud.  It was built for a seven foot, three hundred pound plus rider.  He removed a helmet that had a stylized orc skull on the side.  He pulled off a pair of sunglasses and tucked them into the pocket of his worn leather jacket.  He looked a little better when he took off the jacket to reveal a blue dress shirt and navy tie. 

Except…

“Well, bless me father for I have sinned, ”  it was muttered darkly under her breath, but it still wasn’t something Vinny wanted to hear from her Aunt Toni.

Val tried to be subtle as she kicked her sister in the shins.

Toni turned on her heels and made eye contact with her sister as she mouthed, “oh my god he is hot.”

Vinny rolled her eyes.  Yeah.  Kogan knew how to fill out a shirt.  And the slight paunch somehow just made his shoulders look broader.  This was not the reaction she was hoping for.

She wasn’t at all pleased when Aunt Toni invited herself to brunch.  Jesus.

At least Kogan knew the words.  And when to stand and sit during mass.  She almost died during the sign of peace when JJ pushed up Kogan’s sleeve and announced, “Whoa!  Cool rosary tattoo dude!”

He asked but Val wouldn’t let him ride on the bike with Kogan to breakfast.  The Jovani family took their own car.  Val drove.

Brunch was in the garden.  It was crepes and fruit with whipped cream.  Everyone was dressed up.  Sort of.  Bazur was at least wearing pants.  Thea was wearing a brown tartan bow tie and a polo shirt.  He wasn’t wearing anything else, but clothing was also optional for driders.  It might have been better if JJ hadn’t asked if he could pet the drider.  Vinny grabbed his arm and dragged him a way to explain that his had just asked to rub the nice man’s ass.  JJ thought that was hilarious.

Aunt Toni spent entirely too much time staring at Tristan thoughtfully.

Vinny felt like she spent the whole time trying to wrangle her family so they wouldn’t be completely rude to her potential bosses.

OMG!  Aunt Toni just slowly sucked whipped cream off her finger while making heavy eye contact with Tristan.   Vinny was on her way over to have words with her aunt when the woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat and blushed.

Val frowned from across the table, “You ok, Toni?”

Vinny watched as her aunt started to fan herself, “Hot flash,” Toni announced.  “I’ll be fine in a moment.”  The last word came out as a squeak.

 

Vinny felt the blood drain from her face as she looked around and couldn’t find Kevin.  She looked at Bazur in horror.  He blinked, then quickly shook his head and pointed to a side table where JJ had set his orange juice.  Vinny marched over picked up the glass and muttered, “Come with me if you want to live,” under her breath.  She didn’t wait to see if it was going to work but after a few steps she heard the pitter patter of mimic feet behind her.  She marched right in the back door and made a right into the living room.

Once she was in the center of the room she spun on her heels and came face to face with a giant rocking horse.

“Really?  That’s what you are going with here?”

The rocking horse blurred and was replaced with a sea trunk.  Vinny wished she knew how that worked but also was kind of glad it didn’t.

“I have been assure you talk, even if I’ve never heard it.”

The sea chest gave no indication of life.

“I wanna know if you are gonna sabotage this for me.  I don’t exactly have a lot of options here.  I know it.  Ma knows it.  But she isn’t gonna want me staying here if she thinks it isn’t safe and I’m not gonna wanna stay here if I know she is worried about me.  Pop left years ago.  It’s been her and me as a team since then.  And, yeah, I know Aunt Toni is being inappropriate.  But she’s not the one who will be living here.  But she is mom’s sister and her opinion will count for something too.”

Still no response.

“And, yeah, I have no idea how her thing with Tristan is going to play out.  But I can’t exactly ask her if she recognizes him in front of my mom and my brother now can I?”

Nothing.

Vinny hesitated, “If you are actually a really nice guy who is just being slandered by the others, I am sorry.”

After a moment she said, “Ok.  Good talk,” and she went back outside.  At the threshold she was sure she heard snickering.

When she got back out to the garden, Ma and Kogan were having a quiet word in the back corner.  Tristen was giving Aunt Toni and impromptu lecture about varieties of lily.  Toni looked bored out of her mind.  JJ was playing Go Fish with Thea and Dren.

Finally, it was time to go and as they all loaded into the car, Val turned to Toni and asked, “What the hell – sorry JJ – was that thing with the whipped cream?”

Toni laughed, then coughed, and said, “I thought I recognized the minotaur.  But I was thinking of someone else.”

“Yeah well now Vinny’s gonna haveta apologize for you when she moves in.  Otherwise they won’t let us come back to visit.”