The Muse by K. Sumner (good inspirational books .txt) 📕

I woke up the next morning to Rae shaking me to death.
     "You have to go to school," he said grimly. Turns out that Rick had given him a lecture on keeping up with the dates and when school starts. Apparently, it was going to start back up in about four days.
     We left a couple of hours later - after Rick gave us some information and a prediction on what he thought the monster was based on the patterns - and headed for Lexington, Kentucky. By the time we were halfway there, I was enrolled - they had an online enrollment form, I guess - and I had school supplies and a couple more outfits. Of course, we used fake credit cards, considering the fact that we didn't make money by fighting the monsters we killed.
     Rule number 1 when attending school while in a family that hunts monsters: you never tell anyone about them, unless under DIRE circumstances. If you have to tell them about your family, you say that they're entreprenuers and go with that. That's basically the story. I used to tell them that my brothers were really highly ranked in the Army and had to move around to different bases, but I didn't really get the military system, so I stopped using that when people got too interested.
     Rule number 5 is to never invite people over. We stay in motels, so I'd never invite someone over anyway, but it's still a good rule to go by. If my family's entreprenuers, why would you stay in a crappy motel room with two queens? A question that would have an incoherent answer.
     At this particular time, we were sitting in a diner in some town near Lexington, getting some very much needed food and doing a recap on the game plan. I was to only worry about school for the next month or so, while they went on about their business with the whole monster hunting thing. I was sitting in the booth, listening to Drops of Jupiter by Train and whispering the lyrics. That was when this really sexy guy walked up to us in waiter attire. DAMN, I thought. Honestly, that's pretty much all I could think when I looked at him.
    He was like the modern version of Adonis. He didn't have on anything too fancy - just a pair of black slacks and a white tee with a black apron tied around his waist - but he was a sexy beast, nontheless. He was maybe a couple of inches shorter than Briley, with black hair and dark tan skin. To be perfectly honest, he reminded me of one of those sexy mobster guys from the old mafia movies - like a hit-man or something. His arms were strong and thick, as well as his shoulders. His hips were very narrow, and his legs were long. He had a really white smile that looked even whiter against his dark skin, and he had such perfect symmetry and bone structure, I wanted to make babies right then and there. When he spoke, I seriously thought that I was going to melt. For a moment there, I could have sworn my skin was dripping to the floor.
    Rule number 2? No boys. This was a rule made specifically for me as soon as I started liking boys. Of course, this tends to get broken every now and then, but only in secret. Normally.
    "Are you ready for drinks?" he asked politely. Was it just me, or was he looking directly at me while he asked that?
     I just stared at him. There is no way that I can describe his voice to you and do it justice. People say that the symphony of the Creation was beyond beautiful, but I think that God must have wrapped up the sound of the best song on the planet with the sound of the Creation; perfect. I bet that he can sing like an angel.
     I must have been staring at him much longer than I intended because by the time I "woke up", Briley was laughing hysterically, Azrael looked ready to kill the dude, and the sexy waiter guy was smiling the most inviting smile at me. I was this close to taking him up on that invitation. 

"Um, I would like a chocolate milkshake, please," I said. Azrael looked at me, and his face told me everything I needed to know: "You're gonna get a talk on the way there." I took a large gulp of air. 

The waiter walked away, and I'm gonna say that I wasn't ashamed enough to not stare at his ass. It was so round... Briley was stiffling a laugh or two, while Azrael looked about ready to kill; I mean that in a literal sense, too. He looked how he does when he sees a monster eating a person; pissed to the point of angry slaughtering time.

   "What the hell is your problem?! Huh?!" he basically screamed. "You don't need to be worried about boys; I will kill a dude!"
   "Azrael! He's like, seventeen! You can't just go kill every guy that I look at!" I stage whispered. "And stop yelling, man! He's gonna hear you, and then you'll get in trouble for threatening a minor, idiot!"
   Rule number 7 is to not fight. Ever. My dad taught us those fighting skills to defend us in times of need and not anger. Plus, they're military, classified fighting skills; if anyone knew that and reported us, we would be in a lot of trouble and end up being chased down by the country. We also have a lot of dirt to hide, and we don't need that shit in the open.
   "I don't care! You don't need to be tempting teenage boys! I know what they want, and they don't want LOVE -" he said, but I interrupted him.
   "What makes you think I want to give him my love, Rae?" I asked. I was just playing, but it turns out that Rae didn't think it was funny. For about two minutes, it was really quiet, and then -
   "Are you shitting me?! And what THE HELL makes you think I want to hear about crap like that from my LITTLE SISTER!!" he screamed. 
   "Rae, calm down. I was just joking, okay?" I said. I honestly sounded like I was talking to a child.
   "Yeah, come on. Ash isn't like that and you know it," Briley said. Seemed he finally stopped the laughter.
   "Ash, you know that I don't like hearing you talk like that, or seeing you act like that! You can't just say that kind of stuff to me, it's GROSS! It gives me involuntary mental pictures and then I get pissed. You know how I am! If you're gonna look at some guy, at last have enough courtesy to not do it in front of me," said Rae. I'm guessing that he still thought of me as a little, innocent girl.
   The waiter guy came back over, and I tried to be a little bit better about it. If you saw him, you would understand: that task is not so easily done.
   "Sunkist, Pepsi with extra ice, and a chocolate milkshake for the lady," he said. I looked up involuntarily. He smiled at me, and I was a puddle on the floor in two seconds flat. I smiled back once I came to. Then I heard Azrael sigh.
   "Are you gonna ask us for our orders, or not?" he asked, kind of rudely, if I might add.
   The guy looked at him kind of funny; Rae just kind of looked at him. Then the waiter got on with his business: he asked for our orders, we told him, then he went and got them and brought them to our table. Eventually, Rae went to the bathroom, and I told Briley that I was gonna go talk to the Dreamboat.
   "You sure about that?" he asked with eyebrow raised and a mischevious smile placed on his lips. "You do know what will happen when he sees you with him, right?"
   "Yeah, but then again, he is in another room, correct?" I said. Rae technically can't get mad at me since I waited until he's out of the room.
   I walked over to the register - he was standing there waiting for us to finish, and there was no one walking into the building and no other customers at that moment, so I wasn't interrupting something - and I gave him a flirty smile.

   The reaction that I'm used to happened across his face: a dreamy-looking smile.

   "Aren't the waiters normally supposed to introduce themselves? I have absolutely no clue what your name is." I did giggle a little, in case you were curious. I don't normally do that, but I was a little dumbstruck, to be perfectly honest with you.
   "Oh, yeah, sorry," he smiled a very sexy smile. "My name's Hunter. Yours?"
   "Ashlynne, but everyone calls me Ash. What school do you go to?"
   "Paul Lawrence, what about you? I don't think I've seen you around here before," he said. I saw this look in his eye, and I can't truthfully tell you I didn't think it was hot as hell.
   "I'll be going there this coming school year. I'm from California, but we move around a lot during the summers. I just came from Elko, South Carolina. Are you from Lexington?" I asked. I wasn't trying to be all stalkerish or anything, but I wasn't aware that gods lived there, so...
   "No, I came from Maine. My mom's from Italy and my dad's from Ireland. My mom's always wanted to live in Kentucky for some reason." The guy's hot-blooded, then? That's what I'm talking about!
   "Cool," I said.
   "So, do you have your schedule yet? Maybe we can meet up sometime and compare them?"
   "Sure, why not?" I didn't want to act all crazy and desperate. Plus, guys are easy; you can pretty much have anyone you want.
   After that, we pretty much got into a really long flirt session. It involved a lot of whispering from him and giggling and touching his arms from me. You'd be surprised how well that works.
   That lasted for maybe about two minutes before Rae came out. Briley had gotten up and was almost out the door - trying to get away from the hysterics that Rae was gonna throw before they happened - but Rae was almost over the counter, so he came back in and threw him out the door.
   "Umm, I got to go!" I said to Hunter.
   "Wait, I don't have your number," he said.
   "I don't have time! Meet me in front of the school on Monday and I'll give it to you," I said. I rushed out the door and got in the car, as soon as I got in, my brother had a few more than a couple hateful words to spew at me.

******

   School finally started, and after Rae's plan to pretty much ignore me completely and Briley not wanting to piss him off, I ended up actually begging to go to school for some sort of social activity. For the last two days, I was forced to stay in the room while Briley and Azrael searched and searched. This meant that my connection to the outside world was non-existent until they came back, which was normally not until the wee hours of the night; the only thing that was even remotely interesting was the TV, which had no cable - stuck with re-runs of old rom-com TV