"It's not like you want me kissingher,” I say, jabbing a finger in Holly’s direction, but doing every damn thing to not actuallylook at her. “You're under the damn thing too. You want a piece of this?"
Nick, about done with my shit, leans in with a dose of pissed-off of his own. "If it keeps your lips off my sister, pucker up buttercup," he says, tossing the challenge out and calling my bluff with all the confidence he'll win.
Well, if my day is fucked, so is his.
"Fine."
Before reason can save me from myself, insanity grabs the wheel with an enthusiastic—I've got you, bro!
Grabbing the front of his jacket the same way Holly had me by the dog tags yesterday—I ignore the shock launching his eyebrows to his hairline and plant one on him, quick and hard.
When I pull back, his expression lands somewhere between horror and hysterical laughter. He wipes his mouth with the back of his glove.
"Well," Eve drawls into the stunned silence. "I've gotta say, seems like a waste. Guy-on-guy action should be way hotter than whatever that was."
Charlie makes a gagging sound. "Now I can't kiss my man without kissing my brother. Fucking great."
"Stupidityandself-destruction. Good plan," Holly's voice cuts through the chaos. "Throwing tantrums now? Maybe you should be following daddy’s commands if you can’t be a goddamned adult."
Bulls—fucking—eye.
Just when I thought I’d maxed out on shame. Apparently not.
"Stupidityandself-destruction. Good plan," Holly's voice cuts through the chaos. "Throwing tantrums now? Maybe you should be following daddy's commands if you can't be a goddamned adult."
Bulls—fucking—eye.
Just when I thought I'd maxed out on shame. Apparently not.
She’s never enlisted, but she sure as hell has the precision aim as though she did—her ammunition? Military grade.
Her words tear through me, through defenses I didn't even know I had left. Because she's right. The first night, I lay there, feeling her tentative touches, listening to her whispered subtle confessions—and I was too much of a coward to even let her know I was awake.
Too afraid of what it meant that her fingertips on my skin felt like coming home.
The same coward who got married so he could prove he was some big swinging dick of a son who deserved his father’s respect.
But this?
Holly seeing that weakness? It guts me in a way Noelle's betrayals never could because Noelle was hollow—something that looked solid but crumbled at the first touch.
Holly is steel and fire and unflinching truth. She sees right through every carefully constructed wall to the fear underneath.
And now I know she finds me lacking.
The lift operator waves us forward. Thank fuck. Because I can't breathe under the weight of her contempt. Can't stand here knowing that while I memorized every brush of her fingers in the dark, without her knowing.
And she pities the man who can’t even be honest about being awake.
More lies. So many lies.
"Dad's comment mind fucked you hard," Charlie's voice has lost its edge, replaced by something too close to sympathy.
Drip.
"I'm fine." The words come out strangled.
"Yeah, that's why you just rage-kissed my boyfriend." She crosses her arms. "Totally screams 'fine' to me."
