“Don’t make excuses, you asshole!” He stabbed a finger at me, and I sucked in a breath. “I stood right here and watched you stick your tongue down my girlfriend’s throat!” he accused, enraged, before turning his attention to Alyssa, who ducked her head in shame. “And what about you? You’re pathetic!” He gave her a glacial look. I moved toward him again, though I knew how impossible it was to get through to him when he was this angry. I needed to tell him what had actually happened.
“Logan, I had nothing to do with this. You have to believe me; your girlfriend owes me an explanation too!” I gestured furiously at her, and my brother arched a skeptical eyebrow at me before chuckling mirthlessly as he rubbed his face.
No, he didn’t believe me.
He thought I was lying to him, but even worse…
How could he believe I’d do something like that to him?
“Don’t start with that shit!” he said, rounding on me. “You want Alyssa now too? You already hurt Matt by fucking his daughter. Are you going to do the same to me?” he lashed out at me, a betrayed look on his face. I tried to chalk these dark thoughts up to his anger in the moment. He probably wasn’t thinking clearly; maybe his wounded pride was doing the talking. Anything to avoid believing that he had so little faith in me.
“What are you talking about?” I murmured incredulously.
“How would you feel if you caught me making out with Selene, huh? How?” he insisted venomously, and I gave him a tortured look.
“I wasn’t the one who kissed her. It was her! Fuck’s sake!” I shouted back. It wasn’t like me to put the blame on other people. I always took full responsibility when I fucked up, but in this case, I wasn’t about to lose my brother over some fucking girl’s raging hormones. “I would lay down my life for you or Chloe,” I continued as he stared at me, his face screwed up in a grimace. “I would do anything to keep you from feeling any kind of pain, and you know that better than anyone. Youknowwhat I went through to keep you safe. Do you seriously think I’d betray your trust in such a disgusting way?” I asked him, without yelling this time. I didn’t need to; he understood me well enough.
All at once, the feeling of guilt melted away, giving way to the understanding that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I pulled myself together and returned to my usual unbothered demeanor.
I turned to Alyssa and leveled a glare at her.
“You need to get shit straight with your girlfriend. Because apparently she’s the one who’s confused.” I turned to look at Logan. His hazel eyes stared into mine as, slowly, his anger receded. In that moment, my brother seemed to see me clearly once again, and, slowly, he moved to stand next to me.
“Alyssa,” he said to his girlfriend. “You want to explain yourself? After that, you can leave this house, and I will never see you again, but, right now, I think I deserve a fucking explanation!” he said with a raised voice, and Alyssa looked like she was really struggling. I folded my arms over my chest and leaned on the counter, scrutinizing her. I, too, wanted to know what she had to say for herself, but, at the same time, I almost felt a little pity for her.
“You’ve always been interested in Neil, haven’t you?” Logan murmured, sounding disillusioned. She said nothing in response. “That’s why you were always asking me if he was at home or how things were going with him and Selene.” He shook his head like all the clues were finally coming together for him. “That’s why I caught you staring at him all the time. That’s why you had such a hate-on for him and said you couldn’t stand him.” He smiled thinly and gave her a sneering look. “Because my brother always just ignored you. Because he was never attracted to you. And you wanted him to be.” He rubbed his face, chewing his lip as he came to that awful conclusion. Logan’s guesses troubled me as well—I didn’t want to think about how much he must have been hurting just then.
“I didn’t see it until it was too goddamn late,” he whispered, overwrought.
“Logan, I…” Alyssa tried to speak, but my brother lifted a hand immediately to silence her.
“Get out!” He pointed at the door in a way that brooked no arguments. Logan didn’t even want to listen to her try to explain. After all, he knew why she kissed me, didn’t he? She wanted me.
The girl had been concealing a little crush on me all this time.
I still couldn’t really believe it.
It made total sense that Logan no longer had any trust in her. He was a good man but definitely not a stupid one.
There was nothing for Alyssa to do but obey him. She turned and headed for the door, not having the guts to look either of us in the eye.
And then we were alone. The silence that fell over the kitchen made me feel awkward.
I was so torn up that I didn’t even know how to face my brother. I glanced at him, trying to get a bead on how he was doing. He was undoubtedlydevastated, but I wanted to say something to him to make sure that things were still going to be okay between the two of us. I started to open my mouth, but he just shook his head, still looking shell-shocked, and walked out into the backyard without giving me so much as another glance.
I felt like a piece of shit.
After all, I had briefly returned the kiss, albeit unintentionally. My body reacted automatically to contact with Alyssa because she was a woman. Though my brain had no intention of kissing her, my lips had opened to admit her, if only for a few moments.
Shit.
I wanted to go after Logan, to beg him to forgive me and to please not hate me, but I forced myself to let him have some time alone.
He needed to cool down—God only knew what I would have done in his position.
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers and squeezed my eyes shut.
I couldn’t do anything right.
