The ORION Project | ✔

an orion christmas

Grace Kingston was indifferent to Christmas; it was one of the few things she would never admit to her best friend, Tope. The two of them were quite opposites in every sense of the world, Tope was optimistic no matter what and she had gone through a lot that many would deem traumatic but she was still the type of person that looked ahead for the sky beyond the storm. Grace however had lost her biological father a year and two months ago; she was still reeling from the devastation and still suffered panic attacks remembering how the seemingly untouchable Tolu Kingston had bled to death right in her arms.

She was nothing like Tope and could not even manage to summon a flicker of enthusiasm for the holiday party tonight, courtesy of Dayo Kingston, her aunt. Her said best friend beamed brightly directly at the camera, pretending not to see the look of longing that Sanmi sent her from across the room. Grace sighed, her brother could pull off a lot of looks but simping hard did not suit him one bit. She was half tempted to tell him to get over moping and just ask Tope for another chance, although the story of the past wasn’t that simple.

The relationship her brother had once had with her best friend was complicated to say the least and there was a lot of resentment between the two of them – mostly on Tope’s side – and they probably needed to air up those dirty stuff. Grace sipped on the cold glass of apple cider and sighed again as Tope urged Nina, Firepemi’s girlfriend to take another picture with her. If there was anything that Tope could do and Grace couldn’t was adapt easily to situations, Tope made friends easily with everyone and apparently, with other people who they had once considered enemies. Nina was a perfect example of that category, she had once been Joshua Phillips’ girlfriend, who was in turn, Grace’s sworn enemy.

“You’re doing it again.” Grace turned and sent Fire a glower. He was the family she had never wanted but was now stuck with. Firepemi was not a bad person, but Grace found it hard to take a liking to anyone that had once been involved with The ORION Project. Her cousin was one of those people. It has been more than a year, get over it, she told herself.

“And what am I doing?” She asked sarcastically.

“Thinking of He who shall not be named,” Fire said with a small quirk of his lips when he caught the look of surprise she let escape from her well constructed mask. : You get this look when you think of him, your lips tighten and you glare into space.”

Grace felt a retort on the tip of her tongue. “That could just be your presence affecting me negatively, like it always does.”

Firepemi’s smile did not waver but a look of hurt flashed through his eyes. Grace tried not to let her guilt show, lest he continued to think there was a chance she would accept the friendship he had been offering since the last year.

“Look, I’m sorry, that was way out of line.” She said quickly.

Fire shrugged. He had closed off his emotions and it sometimes scared Grace how easily he could fake his feelings, he was a mask of indifference now and she couldn’t help but ask him how. He looked surprised by her question and his eyes strayed from hers to glance at Nina who pouted her lips so Tope could help her reapply her lipstick, Fire was looking at her with exasperated fondness while Grace felt a stab of jealousy. She felt the odd desire to scream at the other girl that Tope was her best friend.

“You don’t run with wolves and not learn how to behave like one. Plus, very briefly, I was made temporary head of The ORION Project.” He told her. Grace startled then she remembered the question she had asked him.

She downed the last of the drink in her hand and set it down on the bar counter, she looked across the room and saw that Tope and Nina were forcing Sanmi to help them inflate the balloons they planned the hang around the room. It had been Dayo Kingston’s idea to throw a Christmas party but the woman was hopeless and while she knew the various ways to disarm a man with a weapon – that was how their first meeting after the whole ORION debacle had gone – she didn’t know the first thing about the planning parties, she usually left things like that to her team of assistants but unfortunately, she had expressed her intentions while Tope had been in the same room, she had offered to help plan and had roped Grace into the process and in turn, Grace had dragged Sanmi too. Firepemi had returned only recently from his service and he had offered to help too which explained Nina’s own presence. But now, they had barely done any decorating, there were issues with the catering company and it was already past three in the afternoon and less than four hours to the party.