“She’s probably over there right now.”
“We can’t just roll over there,” Faulkner says uncertainly.
“That’s exactly what we need to do. We need to go get her and destroy him.” I slam my fist on the table. “She doesn’t get to love anyone except me.”
My brothers seem worried.
Crawford is still. He’s got a knife in his hand. “Just trade Knox to a different team,” my brother says carefully. “That’s what I’d do.”
“Oh, so did you know about this?” I round on McCarthy.
“What the fuck? You’re crazy. He’s crazy!” McCarthy complains.
My brothers are acting like they did when our father would fly into one of his paranoid delusions.
“I’m not crazy!” I howl.
The window cracks as I slam McCarthy against it. Hawthorne yanks him back, and they hold their breath, waiting for the window to shatter.
“Get him out of here!” Salinger yells. “He’s going to kill someone.”
“You need to lock him up,” Whitman demands.
“He needs a twenty-four-hour cool-off period.”
I struggle against Salinger. “I’m going to make her love me.”
“Whoa.”
“You don’t understand!” I scream as Crawford and Salinger hold me down on the ground. “She belongs to me!”
Faulkner, for once in his life, looks scared of me.
I should feel bad, but I can’t. I’ve completely lost the leash on my temper.
I fight them off, getting Salinger in the stomach. Crawford grunts when I headbutt him. I throw him into the table. Plates fall, breaking on the floor.
I pick up a shard, have it in my hand.
“She’s my stuff. She doesn’t get to just leave me.” I walk backward away from them. “She’s mine. I decide when I’m done with her. And if I can’t have her, no one else can.”
47
WINNIE
“Winnie, your boyfriend is the goat—a big-balled goat! You need to see this house!” Gran crows when my parents pile back into the living room.
I’m sitting on the couch, drunk and crying, alone. Fidget’s head is in my lap.
“He’s perfect, isn’t he, Winnie? I mean, he’s definitely husband material. He’d be an excellent father.” Kathy’s excited.
“We need to invite him for dinner,” Mom tells me, taking the bottle from me. “Winnie, what’s his favorite food?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
“Winn, what happened?” My dad clutches me and starts sobbing with me.
“Mark!” Gran swats him. “Now look, you have a billionaire boyfriend—there’s nothing to cry about. Let’sget it together. I Amazon Primed you a sexy outfit. It’s going to be here in two hours. You need to thank him properly.”
