Adria stood frozen, seeming to reconcile things.
“But instead of focusing on your own shit, you want to focus on my father, push me, when I’ve already said one hundred times that I don’t give a shit.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Well, I don’t fucking care,” he said slowly. “Get used to it.”
She tensed, saying, “Seth, Kaydon, get out.”
Bryson seethed, his hands flexing at his sides.
“Adria, I don’t—” Seth said.
Her eyes didn’t leave Bryson. “Seth, I’m a big girl. I want you out now. Take Kaydon with you.”
Bryson watched as the two of them left, shutting the door behind them.
“What the fuck, Adria? You can’t possibly be this naïve. You have to know your mother is up to something,” Bryson said, trying to sound calmer.
“What happened with Regan?”
He opened his mouth to say something and froze.
Shaking his head, he said, “Nothing.”
“Nothing,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said, firmer yet.
“So, nothing happened and you feel nothing about sentencing your father to death. That’s a lot ofnothings, Bryson.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Is it?”
She stepped closer to him, and he stepped back.
“Why aren’t you Dom-ing Seth or Kaydon?” she asked.
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“Adria, just don’t right now. Okay,” he said. “Just back off.”
But it seemed that was the exact opposite of what she was going to do. Getting right in his face, Adria pushed him. He stepped back, and she stepped into him again, pushing him again. Over and over she pushed him until her hands came up firm on his chest and his back pressed into the wall behind them.
His heart pounded, and heat radiated into his face.
“In my experience, men, rather than show emotion, just decide it’s better to bury it, pretend it doesn’t exist.” She hit his chest again, snapping his attention to her face. “But it does exist, and it’s going to eat away at you until there is nothing left.”
She went to push him again, but he grabbed her wrists, and held them. “You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” he said, voice low.
“Your father burned you,” she said, wrists still in his hands.
“So, what, lots of kids have shitty childhoods?”
“Belted you.”
