Connor grew silent and studied her for a long moment before glancing over her head at Ben and exhaling. “Damn you. You were right.”
“I told you so,” came Ben’s mild response.
“I didn’t think he would actually jump in the deep end.”
Realization dawning, Akira slowly took a step back. “You were playing me. Trying to get me to tip my hand.”
“No.” When she lifted an eyebrow, Connor had the grace to look shamefaced. “Not entirely.”
“We don’t haze Kati’s dates because we’re chauvinist pigs and she’s the baby girl,” Ben explained. “We’re all protective of each other.”
She curled her fingers, trembling from leftover adrenaline. “Fuck you both. That’s what this was, hazing Jacob’s date? What are you trying to do, get me to prove myself?”
“Wait, Jacob’s datingthat woman?”
They all turned at the feminine yelp to find Kati standing at the bottom of the stairs, hands in her back pockets.
That woman. That Akira.Akira was pissed to begin with, and the girl’s words only exacerbated her temper. “Don’t call me that.” Her voice was low but clear.
“What?”
“Don’t refer to me asthat woman,” she clarified. “You sound like my mother. I hate it. Call me by name or not at all.”
Kati paled, but to Akira’s surprise, nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know better.”
Akira was tempted to smack her down further, but Kati lifted her chin, and there was something in the curve of her jaw, the downturn of her lips, that resembled Jacob so closely Akira didn’t have the stomach to swat the girl away.
A bit more subdued, Kati frowned at her brothers. “Did you guys know they were dating?”
“No.”
“Yes.” When everyone looked at Ben, he shrugged. “Jacob was crushed when he was an ass to you, Akira, and then a couple days later he says it’s cool and forget it? He couldn’t even look me in the eyes. I knew something was up, especially when he started to disappear at night.”
Kati’s frown became more pronounced. “No one ever tells me anything.”
Akira would have loved to throw up her hands and storm out of this awkward three-ring circus. Unfortunately, she didn’t know where she would go. “We’re not… It’s not like that,” Akira interjected.
“Then what is it like?” Kati asked, hostility slipping back into her voice.“Are you the reason he ran off?”
Akira’s lips tightened. “Maybe.”
“What the hell did you to do to him?”
“That’s between me and him,” Akira replied.
Kati snorted in obvious disbelief. “So why do you want to see him now?”
Akira could manipulate them. She could outsmart them. She could verbally reduce them to ashes.
Instinctively, she knew that would get her nowhere. “I need him,” she said softly. Humbly. Truthfully.
The Campbell siblings were silent for a moment, making Akira wonder whether they would close loyal ranks against her, keeping her out.
To her surprise, Kati was the first to speak. “Will you hurt him?”
A no might get her the answer she sought, but it wouldn’t be honest. “I won’t intentionally hurt him.” She couldn’t promise anything else.
The only person who had ever loved her the way these people loved each other was her grandmother. She was out of practice and out of her depth with Jacob, and she feared she would probably fuck up more before all of the dust settled. Generating chaos had always been something she excelled at.
