The room filled with something nasty and everyone went wired.

“Don’t touch her.”

This was snarled by Abel and my eyes flew to him.

Wei let me go.

“Brother,” he murmured.

“You touch her only if I tell you to,” Abel growled.

Holy fuck.

“You know you got nothin’—” Wei started.

“Wei.” Abel cut him off. “No reply necessary. Yeah?”

“Right, yeah. Calm, man,” Wei said.

Abel scowled at him, then I watched him take in a deep breath.

His eyes came to me. “No one touches you, Lilah. You got that?”

“I…uh…” I stared at him, noting his seriousness was serious, completely forgot about his vow never to harm me, then finished, “Yeah.”

“Right,” he muttered irately, looked through his brothers and ordered, “Go.”

Apparently unperturbed by Abel’s insanely protective behavior, Chen said, “Ma wants a family lunch in the private room upstairs.”

“She’ll get it, but seein’ as it’s near-on eleven o’clock, I don’t get my ass out to pick up the shit, it might turn into dinner,” Abel replied.

It was nearly eleven o’clock?

Well, I guessed after the last night’s late night, I’d slept in.

“Hi-ho, off we go,” Chen muttered, grinning at me and making me feel slightly better after the latest weirdness that had occurred.

I had never really considered what I wanted in a man. It was strange for a chick not to do this, but I didn’t.

And I didn’t for a number of reasons.

One being that my mom and dad had not had a good relationship, not when they were together in the time I remembered them together, and definitely not after. They fought. They hated each other. And they both let me know that in a way, in and of itself, it was enough to make a girl cautious about deciding to let a man in her life.

Two being that I had other concerns. Getting a job. Setting up an apartment. Buying shit for it. Having fun with my friends. And trying to forget there was something I was missing in my life that I feared I’d never find, and, further, that maybe my mom was right and I was whacked in the head.