I can feel the irritation coming off of her from here, something is off with her.
Head down, she stomps across the parking lot, hand fumbling in her bag for her key to the café, not realizing I’m righthere. I wait to let her notice me on her own rather than give her a jump scare because I’m not that kind of asshole, but she doesn’t.
When she’s within a couple feet of me I clear my throat to warn her and she leaps back, screaming, hand to her full chest.
“You good?” I ask her.
“Jesus, what are you doing here?”
“I was wondering the same thing.” Head down, my eyes flick up at her beneath my heavy brows.
Flexing her shoulders, I watch her try to work out the discomfort trapped in her own limbs. “Needed a distraction.”
“So you came to me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She rolls her hazelnut eyes.
One corner of my mouth can’t help but lift. “I think your pussy flatters me plenty,bella.”
Her cheeks flush in the low light and she tosses her head of curls with a snort. “You think sex is the answer to everything.”
A shoulder pops as I share some truth. “Good sex is the answer to a lot of things and if no man has ever shown you that, I apologize on behalf of my gender. But I’d be happy to prove it to you whenever you’re ready.”
I watch as a chill goes through her, her teeth sinking into her lip for a quarter of a second—just long enough to hear the sizzle on a sirloin when it hits the flattop—before she shakes it off. “I don’t think it’s going to solve the fact that my sister is a bitch.”
“You two get into it?”
Lexi breathes out a heavy exhale. “You could say that.”
I whistle. “Must’ve been quite the showdown.”
“Not sure if you know this about me, but I don’t really have lines when someone pisses me off.”
“You? Sweet Alexis? You don’t say.”
She rolls her eyes at me, readjusting her stance in irritation, and her bag swings, hitting her side with a thud.
“She thinks she’s fucking perfect, and I may have pointed out how very wrong she is.”
My brows raise, imagining how that went. “It ended well, I take it.”
Lexi sweeps an arm up her body, showcasing her current state of frazzled and possibly lost. “She gets me so pissed off. But it’s Rory’s world and we’re all just living in it. So I have to play nice and just bury everything she put me through.Allof us through.” Her hands fly with angered animation as she rambles, pointing to the town around us. “I don’t know how everyone else acts like she didn’t leave us behind. Maybe Wyatt’s just a better person than me.”
“Don’t go there,” I tell her, voice low in warning. “You’re fucking great.”
My manager spins, putting her back to the alley wall and dropping her head back against it. “I’m petty, and I’m a mess.”
My head shakes once, with precision. “You’re passionate, there’s a difference.”
Lexi chokes down a noise that might’ve been a wail if she’d let it out. “Passionate? It feels more like hate for my sister.”
“So you’re human. You have feelings. It could be worse, you could have none.” Like the men who raised me. No feelings. No conscience. Nothing but greed, and a warped sense of brotherly honor. “You’re passionate about what matters to you, Lexi. She’s lucky to be on that list.”
Her eyes pop open, boring into mine. “These aren’t good feelings, Wilder. And I don’t think I can keep this down much longer. It’s burning me from the inside out.”
I shrug, eyes still on hers. “Maybe you should let it out.”
“If I do, we’ll never go back.” Lexi spins in place, hands on the brick wall of the alley as she kicks it, sneakered food scraping the rough surface as she lands one.
