Forced to come here to pay off a debt for my brother?
Was she okay with this?
I leaned toward her, and my words left me on a cautious whisper. “Does your husband always boss you around?”
Maybe she’d confide in me what was really going on here.
Confusion bunched up her brow. “My husband?”
Okay, not married.
“Silas. Your boyfriend or husband or…whatever you call him.”
That confusion took a quick turn when she cackled with amusement, snorting and laughing and spluttering all over the place. “Oh, God. Eww. Gross.”
She wretched like she was going to vomit before more giggles followed. It made Kai giggle, too.
What the hell?
“You think I’m with Silas?”
I held onto the edge of the counter, trying to keep my footing.
I peeked over at the small window in the door, and I could barely see where Silas was bent over a car, facing away.
Only I would be so reprehensible as to notice how his coveralls fit snug on that dangerous body.
I looked back at her, my tongue stroking nervously over my dried lips. “You aren’t?”
More giggles. “No. God, no. Silas is my brother.”
“Mybrover.” Kai smacked himself in the chest with his toy motorcycle.
And I was just then realizing that her eyes were pretty much the exact same shade as Silas’s. Hazel. Predominantly sage green and rimmed in brown.
Humiliation rushed in.
God, that’s what assumptions got you, didn’t they?
“Oh,” I wheezed. Flustered and totally embarrassed.
Then I was thinking what a bastard Silas really was, not having the decency to correct me when I’d pressed him on it earlier.
I bet the sadist loved feeding on people’s discomfort.
Elena let go of a laugh, though she was watching me with a sly look in her eye. “Why do you look so relieved?”
“Um, because that man is far too old for you.”
And a raging asshole, but I bet she already knew that.
Conspiratorially, she leaned forward. “And as far as the word on the street goes, and by that, I mean in the clubhouse, crazy hot and really good in the sack.”
There was a full razzing to her words.
It was my turn to curl up my nose and say, “Eww and gross and never in my life.”
Old wounds suddenly groaned from within.
