Starr stopped rocking. “What about Roxy and Dom?”
“We’re okay here for a while,” Dom said. “I promise. You go enjoy that ice cream.”
Her head tilted in his general direction. She smiled. “Okay. Only strawberry. The chocolate can’t touch it.”
“Only strawberry,” Mom said.
Once the pair left, Mom unsubtly closing the door three-quarters of the way, Roxy pulled back. Anger and pain chased each other around in her dark eyes. She scooted so he could sit next to her, back against the headboard, one arm across her shoulders. She leaned into him and threw an arm around his waist.
After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“I keep debating on giving you his name so you can go beat him up for me.”
Dom smiled. “I’m not opposed to that.”
“Except he’d probably press charges, or something, and I don’t want you to get into trouble for me. You’ve been through enough.”
A cold tremor tripped down his spine. “You’re my sister. Anyone messes with you, they mess with me. Tell me who to punch, sis.”
“Can I tell you about it, instead?”
The quiet, whispered way she asked that made Dom’s shoulders tighten. “Mom and Dad don’t know?”
“They know the overview. I didn’t let them stay when I talked to the police officers. I’m eighteen, I didn’t have to.”
“Tell me, Rox.”
She exhaled long and hard, leaning into him a little harder. Dom stared at the Taylor Swift posters on the far wall, while Roxy kept her head down, angled toward the bedspread. “Dahlia invited me over to this guy’s house to hang with her and Lynn.” Roxy’s two best girlfriends. “He had two friends of his there, and I guess it was kind of like a triple date because Lynn was interested in one of the guys, only it wasn’t. Not really. But we all kind of paired off anyway, and I went into the den with Ja—um, my guy.
“We talked, and he was cute, so we ended up making out. It was fun for a while, and he was a good kisser. Then he pushed me down onto my back, and I said I didn’t want to have sex, and I thought he heard me because he just kissed me for a while like that. Felt so good I even let him touch my boobs over my shirt.”
Dom winced at the idea of some guy touching his sister’s breasts, permission from her or not. He didn’t need that mental image, and part of him didn’t want all of the gory details she hadn’t wanted their parents to know—but Roxy needed to tell someone, and she knew Dom would understand.
She made a sound that was both a cough and a sob. He tucked her head under his chin and held tight. “When he started unbuttoning my shorts, I struggled. I hit him on the back and said I didn’t want to, but he said I’d love it and kept at it, and he touched me Dom. I told him no and he still did it.”
Fury blazed through Dom’s chest, flaming in his face and stinging both of his eyes. His stomach rolled. He swallowed hard against the sudden nausea.
“He wouldn’t stop, so I pressed my thumbs into his eyes like Percell showed me. Asshole grabbed my wrists and squeezed really hard, so I head-butted him. Hurt like a motherfucker, but it got him off me. I tried to get past him, but he grabbed my ankle and tripped me. He was cussing at me, calling me a tease and a whore and all kinds of nasty things, and he was pulling at my clothes again when I yelled ‘Fire!’ at the top of my lungs.”
It sucked donkey’s balls that girls couldn’t yell “Rape” and get someone’s attention. No one cared about that, but anyone would rubberneck for a fire or a car accident, and Dom hated that Roxy had gone through it. No, he more than hated it. He wanted to find the nameless asshole and break his spine.
“Dahlia found us first. I was still struggling. She wrapped her arms around his neck and yanked him off me.”
Dom tried to imagine five-foot-one, ninety-pound Dahlia taking on a guy who was probably twice her weight. He could see it. Roxy’s friends were the same kind of spirited firecracker that she was.
“His friends came into the den in time to see him knock Dahlia down and then backhand me. They actually kept him down until the police showed up.”
“Is Dahlia okay?” Dom asked, speaking for the first time since her story began. Not interrupting during a painful topic made it easier for the victim to get it out.
“Mostly scared, but she’s fine. She stayed with me until Mom and Dad showed up.”
“How about you?”
She shrugged. “Mostly I’m sore and tired. But I’m so sick and tired of guys like that getting away with hurting girls, doing whatever the hell they want with no consequences. It’s why I reported it to the police, even though I knew he’d deny it and try to rake me through the mud.”
“Thank Christ you’re okay, sis. We’ve got your back through everything that happens next.” And he meant it, too.
“Shit, Dom, I’m sorry.” She pressed her face into his neck. “I’m so sorry, this has to really suck for you to hear.”
