“Cool.” Maya snatches the cup from his hand and takes a sip herself, recoiling as she swallows. “There’s more whiskey than coffee in this thing! Don’t you have a job out at the falls today?”
“Finished it last week, but this isn’t about me, baby sister. This is about the scum of the fucking Earth abusing his power and playing grab ass with an employee at work.”
Maya throws up her hands and tucks into her office chair as though she’s fed up with the whole thing. I can’t blame her. There’s been no talking to Wyatt for a while now. He’s a shell of who he used to be.
“That’s enough.” I step toward him. “You need to leave.”
He laughs and takes another sip of coffee-infused whiskey. “I’m not going anywhere, buddy.You ruined my fucking life, and now I’m gonna ruin yours.”
I roll my eyes to the side and back again. “I didn’t put the money in your hands and gamble it away for you. I didn’t tell the fucking lies. I didn’t treat Alice like shit when she wanted to talk about it. That was you. If you wanted her back, you could’ve gotten your shit together. Instead, you became a drunk, wasting everyone’s patience.”
He steps toward me, balls his fist, and then throws a haphazard cross that’s easy to avoid.
“You got your free shot,” I say, stepping forward, “and I deserved it for hiding things from you, but that’s all you get.”
He laughs and readjusts his cap. “You’ve always thought yourself a righteous man, haven’t you, Holden? Always so much better than everyone else with your fucking morals and fake fucking integrity.”
I shake my head and stare at him. “We grew up the same damn way in the same damn town. You get to choose every day how you live your life, same as the rest of us.”
“See… you’re a self-righteous prick.” Wyatt shakes his head and takes a step back. “You know… I loved your sister. She was everything to me.”
I shrug. “You should’ve acted like it.”
His teeth clench, and at some point, I realize I’m kicking an angry rooster with a steel-toed boot, but if I let this guy roll in here and think he’s got the upper hand, he’s never going to stop.
“I treated her right,” he says, anger seething across his face.
“You lied to her, you made her cry, then left her there alone. How is that treating her right?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Wyatt spits and steps forward. “You think you’re so fucking perfect. I bet Maya is eating that right up, isn’t she? I bet she believes this good-boy act you put on.” He tilts his head to the side slowly as though he’s desperate to ruin my life. “What if my sister knew the real you, Holden?” His voice is low enough now that his words are only meant for me to hear. “What if she knewwhyyou’re such a good boy now?”
My stomach tightens as I stare at him like I might rip him limb from limb.
Maya must pick up on this as she screams, “Wyatt!” Maya stands from the office chair and makes her way toward us. “Go home and sleep this off. I’ll check on you later and we can work all this out.”
Wyatt laughs and glances toward me like the Joker in some dark Batman scene where everything is about to go to hell. “You should call me later,” he says, glancing back toward Maya. “I’ve got a few stories I want to share.”
My body stiffens as I stare toward the guy who I called a best friend most of my life. I’ve known him since we were kids. We built forts together, went to scouts together, and made sure we worked for the same construction company when we grewup. We were as close as brothers. Now, nothing is further from the truth.
We’d have gone to war for each other. Hell, we did on multiple occasions. He stepped into fights for me, I stepped into fights for him, and we kept secrets about things. Things that are meant to stay buried. Things that could ruin a man.
Chapter Three
Maya
“That just happened.” Holden stares toward me as though he’s carrying the weight of the world, biting back something else he wants to say.
Trouble is, I already know what he’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. In fact, I want to go right back to where we left off before everything went to hell. I want to go back to the place where we were doing things best.
His giant hand on my soaking panties. My fingertip tracing the throbbing ridge in his jeans. The little ecosystem of playing pretend that we were doing so well in.
“If you’re thinking we should end this,” I lift my hand to wipe blood off his cracked lip, “you’re wrong. That went way better than I thought it would. I mean, I hate that he hurt you, but the shock is over now. He’ll calm down and realize you and I make sense together. Or at the very least, he’ll calm down and be easier to ignore.”
Holden stares at me, nearly unmoving, like he’s desperate to be careful with his next words. “You have much more faith in him than I do.”
“He’s my brother. I have to believe.”
“I get it,” he says, glancing away then back again, “but you don’t think he’s completely lost it?”
