“Keeping tabs on me?”
“No.”
“Then what would you call that?”
“Being mindful of my surroundings,” I quipped, although it really didn’t come out funny at all. It was more sarcastic than anything.
“Sure, let’s call it that.”
I wanted to scream.
My chest turned heavy from the weight of this push and pull with him. This was exactly why I didn’t want to talk. Why I thought silence would be better. He had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. If we really wanted to label someone with the title of adulterer, he should have been looking at his brother. Not me.
“Watch what you’re saying, Weston,” I warned.
“Or what, Olivia?”
My nostrils flared, and my hands balled in my lap. I wasup on my feet in the next second, walking over to the fridge so I could get myself another small water. I wasn’t sure if I was going to drink it or throw it at Weston’s head. Both would be effective uses of it.
I bypassed him on the way, trying my best to ignore his ignorant ass and the way my head felt airy all the sudden. My vision tunneled a tiny bit. I yanked the fridge door open, the suction of it sounding in the quiet space around us. It was dark inside the appliance. Another reminder that the power had yet to return.
“I’m speaking to you,” Weston said behind me. Like I needed the reminder of his accusations. They were fresh in my mind. Front and center the way he probably liked them.
“And I’mdonespeaking to you.”
I twisted the cap off and sipped water out of the bottle. Then, I turned on my heel, my attention dead set on the chair I claimed a while ago as I blinked through what felt like an aura that creeped into the sides of my vision. It took shape in the form of a zigzag and tunneled my peripheral in a way that made my body tense.
My plan was to wait this out. Maybe I’d close my eyes and try to sleep. Pretend Weston wasn’t in the room so he’d take the hint and not speak to me.
But as I was crossing the room, fingers that weren’t my own curled around my elbow. My body was gently jerked back. When I turned to find the source, I found Weston’s steely gaze on me. Those eyebrows of his were furrowed the slightest bit, and my stomach lurched—from him but also from whatever the hell was going on with my body.
My feet may have been on the ground, but it was almost like I was walking on a wall instead. The room took on this spinning nature, dizziness swirling through my head with this intensity that was hard to push away.
The tension that soaked the room found a mind of its own, collecting in a figurative bucket that tipped over above my head, like some trick or sneaky way to humiliate me. My heartbeat picked up about three notches, and I swallowed hard. The sensation of being on edge all evening magnified, making me feel like I was dangling from a cliff. A cliff that acted as a bordering line between Lennon and Weston—between brotherhood and this weird energy that ebbed and flowed when I was around Weston.
Because as much as I wished everything was perfect between Lennon and me, the truth was that it wasn’t. But even while knowing all of that, I couldn’t stand there and say that my bodydidn’trespond to the broody, grumpy individual tugging at my arm.
I almost hated it when my stomach dipped super low then transcended into the clouds when he pulled me an inch toward him. Realistically, we could’ve been closer, but this…this was far too close as it was. The kind of closeness that would have put me in a predicament with Lennon if he saw it, especially since the other person was his damn brother.
I tried to calm the way my breathing turned faster. Tried to keep it as inconspicuous as possible so Weston wouldn’t notice. Logic told me he probably already did. He wasn’t dumb. If anything, he was the smartest person who worked in this building, and he was perceptive. I had no doubt that he could read a person well enough to know how they were feeling at the most basic level, even if he did put his foot in his mouth half the time.
His jaw clenched, those muscles in his cheeks rippling from what I could make out. He rolled his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip then spoke in an almost demanding way. “Don’t ignore me. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I spit back, ripping my arm free. “Which means I’ll do whatever I damn well want.”
“No,” he said quickly, stepping in front of me when I tried to walk back to my seat. It almost felt like I was moving in slow motion. Everything around me slowed down as Weston said, “You’re not going to run away when you’re called out.”
“Ihaven’ttaken advantage of Lennon,” I managed to get out. “Stop insinuating that I have. It’s insulting, and quite frankly”—my vision went all weird again, and I tried to blink through it—“not something I deserve to be accused of when I’ve only ever been faithful to him—under your watchful eye and otherwise.” My brain seemed to slow down. Like it couldn’t properly think of what to say. It was difficult, almost like trying to lift up your arm when you laid on it for half the night. “Now…get out of my way.”
“Fine,” Weston relented. “Let’s say you haven’t done anything wrong. It doesn’t change you leaving that room or the fact that you had those eyes on someone that wasn’t him.”
“I’m not discussing this with you anymore.” I went to walk around him, but he crowded my space again. My hand tightened around my water bottle, and this growing sense of anguish filled my chest, my entire damn body.
I was angry with him. Beyond fuming over the words that were coming out of his mouth and what he was implying. But my heart also hiccuped under the very real truth regarding his brother—of which he didn’t know.
He was labelingmewith a title that was meant for someone whoheshared DNA with.
I had kept it mostly a secret because I didn’t want to put Lennon in a bad light. At the end of the day, I still cared about him regardless. I wasn’t the kind of person who wasspiteful and wanted others to hurt because I was. I didn’t want people looking at him like he was a sleazeball.
