“The best thing for her when she gets a headache is to lie quietly in a dark room. There’s no need for Erik to take me home. She’ll be better off resting.”
Intense green eyes study me for several beats. “She says she needs you, so, of course, you’ll go. As family does.”
Frustration boils up inside me. She’s so good at manipulating people. I’m immune, but she manages to wrangle me in using unsuspecting acquaintances.
“I’ll check on her.”
“That’s a good girl,” he says, sounding satisfied.
Mr. Sullivan makes me coffee while asking some fairly pointed questions. I evade anything I don’t feel like discussing. I’m pretty sure he notices what I’m doing, but that doesn’t stop me. He’s not entitled to my secrets.
“I’m ready,” Erik says from behind me.
“Well, well. Certainly not lukewarm anymore, are we?” Mr. Sullivan says.
My head turns sharply, expecting to find that Erik’s dressed up or something ridiculous.
Actually, it’s much worse.
29
ERIK
“Why the hell would you do that?” Arya says angrily, the second we step outside the front door.
“I thought when I’m clean-shaven, I’m prettier than you.”
She falters for a moment, freezing mid-stride. “Is that why you did it? Because of what I said?”
“No.”
Her surprised expression returns to one of fury. “Why then?”
“Thought it would go over better than the beard.”
“Go over better with who?”
“Your parents.”
“I figured.” Arya stares daggers at me, which tells me plenty about the relationship she’s got with her family. She slides into the passenger seat, focusing her gaze on the windshield. “Well, I hope they like it enough to sleep with you because I’m not going to anymore.”
“Girl,” I say in a warning tone.
She ignores me, folding her arms across her chest.
I close her door with a shake of my head. By the time I walk around the vehicle, she’s hunched over her phone.
As I climb into the driver’s seat, she says, “I’m not going home. Just take me back to the high rise where you picked me up. If you need to tell your uncle something, say I told you my friends would take me to my parents’ house.”
“Why not go home?”
“Going there… is difficult.”
My muscles tighten, awareness heightening. Wild, erratic behavior. Mood swings. Maybe the things she’s been through go farther back than Luis Sosa. “Did something happen to you as a kid?” I say slowly. “Sexual abuse?”
“Gross.No.”
“So what’s the issue?”
