Johnson was glad the date went so well. He wasn't happy about who they ran into on the way into the apartment building, though.
"Is this the elusive soulmate of my little brother I see?" The tall woman in front of the couple seemed to tower over them even more with the help of the extra tall black stilettos she wore. She still wore dress clothes since she was at a dinner party for her work. The long blue skin-tight dress clung her in all the right places and her baby blue shawl hung off her shoulders. It was an understatement to say she was beautiful.
Greer looked at the woman and had the rare feeling of feeling a bit small. With those heels, this woman had to be at least 6’ 5”. She wasn’t certain though. Greer cleared her throat a bit, shifting her backpack. “Hi, I’m Greer. I didn’t know Johnson had already told you about me. It’s very nice to meet you.” She silently wondered if by making sure Johnson wouldn’t run into the boys, if she was being dragged into something else. Instead of voicing any of these concerns, she simply extended her hand, rough from years of work in her father’s shop.
“Oh, he didn’t need to, I could tell the second I saw you who you were.” She grinned and an amused glint appeared in her eye as she shook Geer’s hand. “You guys are obviously very intimate. The relationship meter I’m reading between you is off the charts.”
Johnson immediately caught onto what his sister was trying to say and blushed. “Anna! I’m so sorry for how crude my sister can be, Greer.”
Greer looked back and forth between the two. Not quite sure what was going on.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help what I see. And I see some very interesting readings.” She kept smirking.
Then Greer caught on and cleared her throat. “Ah no, no… see… it’s just… the way he was when he processed me for the assault charge and how he handled the roofie guy… He was very knowledgeable and competent… I could have listened to him go on for ages about the paperwork. It’s a thing… not paperwork! But passionate people and um...” she cleared her throat. “Maybe… came prepared but… we haven’t… and weren’t... Going to do anything today…”
Johnson tried not to process and dwell on the information he just heard come out of his girlfriend’s mouth. Nevertheless, one part of him did hear and register the last part. Before he could say anything and back up Greer’s words his sister spoke up again.
“Wow, maybe you’re telling the truth. Your love-love meter went up again.” Anna chuckled, extremely amused by her little brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law.
Greer gave her a look, annoyed now. “I don’t lie about stuff like this. Not on purpose normally and not about big stuff. This was our first date. He’s been a perfect gentleman.”
Anna could tell Greer was getting a bit peeved at her, so she calmed down, not wanting her future sister to hate her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to infer such a thing. It’s just fun to tease my little brother.” She pulled Johnson under her arm and gave him a half-hearted noogie on his head. “I know he will treat you well. If he doesn’t just let me know and I’ll beat him up.”
Greer mumbled. “If the guys don’t get him first.” She cleared her throat. “Well ah, we were just finishing up the date and heading inside. Maybe if you feel comfortable, we can discuss your power sometime, it sounds interesting.” Greer motioned to Johnson to see if they could head in, as her eyes started flashing a bit.
Johnson quickly noticed. “Um, sis, I have to get Greer back before her brothers start to worry. Is it ok if you girls chat later?”
“Doesn’t she live right above you? If they get worried, they can just come over to your place. I want to get to know her better.” She thought for a moment. “In fact, why don’t you go grab us some food and I will bring Greer to your place for a little girl on girl time.” Anna quickly took the opportunity to kidnap Greer and dragged her to Johnson’s apartment. When he tried to follow, she locked the door, having also kidnapped his keys without him noticing earlier.
Greer was suddenly in Johnson’s apartment and looked around. It was as tidy as she expected given how he was at work. She was fairly certain she didn’t see any dust either. She cleared her throat. “So, ah he mentioned you all have a family business. That’s pretty nice, my Dad and Ma each have their own businesses as well.”
“Oh? What do they do?” Anna plopped down on the only couch her brother owned, gesturing for Greer to sit next to her.
Greer did so and cleared her throat. “Well… Dad is a mechanic. For a while we thought I’d be taking over the shop. Ma runs a beauty salon, she does pretty much anything a girl might want there and no one but her thought I’d ever take over.”
Anna perked up. “Oh? Do you think I might be able to get a discount? Being your future sister and all.”
Greer looked at her a bit oddly. She had been told about the family business, but surely, she didn’t already think? “You um… you do know we haven’t known each other that long right? I mean, he is really, really great, but we should get to know each other better before we talk about marriage or anything. Plus, I’m in the middle of some crazy things right now. And Ma’s shop is like, 4 hours away.”
Anna shifted a bit in her seat. “I’m sorry, it’s just our family will immediately consider you part of the family. It is just how we do things since soulmates are so important in our family. If it makes you uncomfortable, I can try to stop referring to the future and I will pass it on to the rest of our family. It’s just once we find our other half, we never love another, it’s how we are raised. Meaning you are Johnson’s first girlfriend ever. Not that I’m trying to guilt trip you to stay with him, don’t get me wrong! Only stay with him if you truly love him. I just want you to know a bit more about how our family works.” Anna smiles a semi bittersweet smile. “Truthfully I’m just happy Johnson found you and you have already formed a relationship to this level. I thought I had found my soulmate, but it turned out he was already in love with someone else so there was no room for me.”
Greer was a bit overwhelmed by all of this. She was his SOULMATE? Was he expecting them to get married already? How accurate were those abilities? Anna could tell by the look on Greer’s face that she hadn’t been given the full information yet. Greer, meanwhile, took a deep breath. Nope, she was slipping, she can’t slip. Greer quickly took the ‘tea’ out of her backpack. No time for the pill. Just sip the bottle and calm down. Focus on a simple thing going wrong in the meantime. The lights going out. One bulb suddenly grew very bright and blew out, along with most of the others. Once that bit of luck was out, she quickly drank some more, the glow in her eyes slowly fading. Greer gave it a moment and let out a breath. “Ok… so… you guys… really find like… real soulmates? And You think I’m his? He um… did he tell you how we met? Both times? And I have a … a lot going on. God two more weeks until the first support meeting and… he… he and I need to get to know each other first yeah? There’s someone for everyone but like… you have to gah…” Greer’s mind still felt like it was going in too many directions at once but was starting to slow down.
One her mind finally slowed down, Greer looked around the room and stood up. “Where does he keep his light bulbs? I should fix these… my fault. Do better doing something anyway…”
Anna watched, worried about Greer’s reaction now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you haven’t had that conversation yet. He hadn’t told us anything about you since he is very considerate about privacy.” Anna felt bad and quickly got up to go grab the light bulbs, still blabbering on. “I just knew who you were immediately since you are exactly how our mother described you. Plus, your relationship meter is like those I see between real soulmates. I’m sorry I upset you, please don’t let Johnson know. How about I bring you to talk with my parents? They know more about the whole soulmate powers that run in our family. Or would that be too soon?” Anna started to tear up. How could she have messed this up so bad?
Greer started taking out the bad blubs and setting them aside, she was feeling calmer and it helped to be doing something. “I really need more time. For us to get to know each other. He needs to know what I’m like. I spent most of my life fighting the idea I was a powered, and that I was luck based. It’s only been since I moved in with the guys that I found out I really was and that was after being registered and fighting that because no one ever explained it to me.”
She looked at Anna and came over. “This… is just a lot. I’m on my meds and I’m calmer now for a little bit at least. You can just relax ok? It is nice to hear he’s not just putting on a show. I never had luck with guys. And I kinda gave up on a lot of relationships when I was 16; small town and everyone blamed me for any bad or lack of luck.”
Anna started to look calmer and looking Greer in the eyes. “I can tell that he truly loves you, and not just because you are his soulmate. Just please, don’t let him know I told you already. Let him tell you himself, he takes soulmates very seriously and I know he probably is trying to figure out how to phrase it right.”
Greer shook her head a bit. “If he asks, I’ll probably tell him. But I won't just rat ya out. Did you really think we’d been dating long? I mean…. This was an all day first date but, I sorta met him two weeks ago after I assaulted an asshole that wanted to roofie me.”
Anna shrugged. “A soulmate bond grows quickly. It’s always hard to tell exactly how long the relationship has lasted, especially for me, since I mainly see what is hidden deep within. My power works by calculating the amount of love for each other hidden deep within and showing me the rating on a meter. There is a lot of love deep within each of you to give me a rating so close to my parents. That’s why I assumed you guys already...” she trailed off, not wanting to be rude.
Greer blushed as she started replacing the bulbs. “I… came prepared… I’ll admit. But I don’t like just… ya know. My parents just taught me if you think there’s a chance… be ready.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t have a powered family. It’s just me so I don’t get how all of this works. He spent some time explaining that to me today. And we went over stuff like the basics of your family powers and stuff.” She hated how the drink could make her loose lipped, but she was sure the more personal questions were coming anyway.
Anna nodded, understanding where she was coming from even if she herself didn’t have the same experience. “Even though there is a theme to our family powers, they each are unique. We each had to learn by ourselves how they work. Did my brother mention earlier that for the longest time everyone thought he was powerless?”
“He mentioned that his powers are pretty passive. Seeing relationships and stuff, kinda the opposite of my problem where my family were the only ones who didn’t think I had powers. No one saw the eye glow, and my luck works weird. It’s part of why we didn’t go on a date sooner.”
“Since his eyes glow brown it was even harder to notice the slight change. Child him just thought it was normal for people to occasionally be tied together and didn’t tell us anything about it. It took him seeing a Japanese anime about it to even realize that not everyone saw it. Another thing with my brother and my powers is that until we master it, only we see it so if we have any questions we have to rely on our own intuition about what things mean.”
Greer nodded a bit. “...it took a car exploding due to a not telling me experiment by Sato followed by Luce telling me in a sit down what was going on for me to know. There’s no real evidence otherwise… weird thing one happens then weird thing two. Speaking of which…. Bulbs went out…” She checked her phone. “Oh good, boss finally approved the expenses for the meeting and printing the flyers.” She showed the time stamp, it looked like it happened about the same time as the blubs. It talked about a “powered support group”.
“You mentioned something briefly about a support group. Are you putting one together yourself?!” Anna got really excited; this was a potential chance to bond with Greer. “When is it?”
Greer looked at the phone again, replying back to the boss. “It’s in about 2 weeks, I want to help everyone like me. Powers when no one else has them or powers that don’t match their families or even just powers that cause unwanted trouble or stress for the holder.” She squeezed her phone a bit. “My parents signed off on paperwork thinking I’d get help and I got nothing. I need to see someone because… I… “she closed her eyes tight for a moment. Greer didn’t finish the drink, so it wasn’t lasting that long. “I just got stuff… and there’s no help you know? Well, there needs to be some freakin’ help. So, since I can’t punch the directors, I’ll just make them see how ‘needed’ this is. Idiots trying to tell me it’s not needed…”
“That’s awesome!” Anna smiled and grabbed out her phone to see if she might be busy. Her face just as quickly fell. “Darn it, I forgot I’m going to be overseas for almost a month starting in a week… Let me know how it goes through. Also, if you want help with anything, let me know. I know some important people due to work if that helps.”
Greer looked to Anna. She wasn’t sure she wanted to ask her to be a mentor yet, but Greer nodded politely. “I’ll keep that in mind…” Greer looked at the time. “I really should be going upstairs. Um, tell him I said it’s cool to go over what happened before the date got set up if he’s cool with it?”
“Fine, I’ll let you go for now.” Anna smiled, the slight glint in her eyes yet again. “I’ll ask your lover for more info when he gets home, but he probably won’t tell me much, so I’ll just quiz you some more next time.”
“Uh, sure thing.” Greer waved and headed out, taking the jacket with her, still pulling it close around her a bit. Once halfway up the stairs she started to feel the juice starting to not work. “That…was intense…” Greer struggled to keep the already in marriage territory thought out of her head as she went upstairs. Maybe the boys would all be in bed already. She noted the time. Nope. More likely, someone was waiting for her anyway.
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