“How are you?” he grouched, sinking into his chair.
“Like you care.”
“I do.”
“If you did, you’d have asked months ago.” Five months ago, to be precise.
“I wasn’t here—”
She batted aside his defence. “There are these modern inventions called instant messenger and email, not to mention old ones like telephones and letters.”
“She’s got a point, mate,” Rock Giant remarked.
Flynn’s expression wobbled, then collapsed into panic as he clocked Black Halo’s bassist standing behind her.
Alle shot her brother a nasty smile.Yeah, that’s right, dickhead. I brought me some backup, so you can dial down the shit.“There a reason you’re in my house?”
“I live here.”
“Nope.” She moved into the kitchen proper and turned to the cupboards above the worktop. “You left some shit in storage here, but this stopped being your home right after you proved yourself to be a complete prick. The only reason your things are still here is because Ewan’s a saint. I was good with turfing it all into the street. Guess now you’re back, you can clear it out.”
“Alle,” he protested. “I thought—”
“You thought what, exactly? That you could waltz back in, and it would all be fine? You’re a prick, do you know that? You’re lucky I didn’t have you charged with abduction.”
“Alle, I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You do not get to make decisions for me,” she turned, and brandished a teaspoon at him. “As it is, I’ve had more important things on my mind than what a bunch of knobheads I have as brothers.”
“Hey.” Ewan protested, raising his hands.
“That fifty per cent of my brothers are.” She wrenched open the cupboard nearest the kettle. “Drink?” she asked Rock Giant, lifting the coffee jar and waving it at him.
“Tea,” he replied. He’d folded his arms over his chest, making his biceps bulge. “Splash of milk. No sugar.”
“That ’cause you’re sweet enough?”
Alongside his bulk and his enormous height, the tats right up his arms made him look bloody terrifying. Flynn evidently thought so too, given he was shifting on his chair like he was about to shit his pants. He didn’t need to know that the big guy was a total softy.
“Absolutely,” Rock Giant agreed.
Alle brewed their drinks with her back to the room, leaving the guys to their uncomfortable posturing. She turned her head at the sound of a chair leg being scraped across the tiles. Ewan had pushed a chair out for their guest, but Rock Giant remained upright, bum against the washing machine. “Here,” she handed him his drink.
“I’m still waiting,” Alle said to Flynn, once she had her hands wrapped around her brew.
“I’m not apologising for trying to get you away from him. He was an arsehole.”
“Fuckwit,” Rock Giant sub-vocalised, making ripples on the surface of his tea.
Alle banged her cup down on the worktop. “No, Flynn. That’s what you are. It’s been a fucking nightmare, which you’d know, if you gave a damn.”
Flynn’s chair scraped back from the table. “If I don’t give a damn, then why am I here?”
“Beats me. Why are you?” The day had been long and traumatic enough. She hadn’t meant to be so bad-tempered with Xane. She just never felt he was entirely straight with her, but maybe that was more to do with their history than current events. He had slept with her boyfriend, and while she completely understood the why of it all, it still niggled. It still caused that lick of jealousy.
Flynn flipped up the lid of the pizza box and palmed an object, which he then held out to her. “It turned up at the docks. I guess you must have dropped it.”
Her phone! The one she’d lost the day Spook was attacked. She hadn’t dropped it. It had been practically ripped from her hands. Bitterness overrode her joy at getting it back. “Gee, I wonder how that could have happened? Could it possibly have been while I was being manhandled by a bunch of goons at your behest?”
