Demetri tilted his head, “Yeah but Linc’s got heart. After all, it is his sister.”
I scowled and waited for someone to at least try to break them apart. When nobody moved, I finally rushed between both of the guys, getting my hands on one muscled chest and shoving back only to stumble into another muscled chest and encounter a fist on my nose.
“Shit!” I collapsed against the floor holding my nose and nearly passing out over the crimson blood that gushed all over my hands.
“Ang!” Lincoln reached for me, but Will shoved him back. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you. It was an accident—”
“Just get her some ice.” Will snapped.
I groaned and tilted my head back against the couch cushion, Will’s face came into view, his cheek was swelling, his lip was cut, and he still managed to look gorgeous. I didn’t even want to know what my nose looked like. It felt larger than my head, and when Lincoln finally returned with ice and a towel, I wanted to cry.
There was a time in my life that I would have gladly taken a punch in order to become the center of attention — and now? Now I just wanted to crawl back to my room and hide under the covers, or maybe just slam my nonexistent door and pray for tomorrow to come.
“Let me see.” Will pried my hand away and wiped the blood beneath my nose then placed a bag of ice across it. “Does it feel broken?”
“How the hell would she know?” Demetri asked, “It’s not like she can sense broken bones in her body.”
“Party’s over.” Will’s eyes locked with mine. “I’ll deal with, Ang.”
Deal with me.
Not take care of me.
But deal with me.
Like I was the problem.
The party crasher, when I was just trying to keep him and my brother from killing each other.
Tears welled in my eyes.
And they weren’t a result of any sort of physical pain — but embarrassment, and a hell of a lot of shame, that I was his problem.
And that he wouldn’t ever view me as anything more than a situation he had to fix in order to make himself look better.
I imagined that in Will’s book, I was like a sickness he was trying to get over and cover up, the sooner he was healed the sooner he was free.
“It’s fine.” I stood on wobbly legs and swayed against the couch, Zane grabbed my arm. I shrugged free. “You guys keep having fun, I’ll go take care of it myself.”
I left out the part that that’s what I’d been doing my whole life, why change things up now?
I didn’t realize that there were tears on my cheeks until I glanced at my reflection in the bathroom.
Dark straight hair with honey highlights were emphasized only by my light eyes and stark cheekbones.
I used to love my cat’s eyes.
Now I just felt angry when I looked in the mirror, like the face I had didn’t match what was inside — and never did.
I jerked on the faucet and grabbed a washcloth to get the rest of the blood off of my chin and lips.
A knock sounded on the door and then it was shoved open nearly knocking me on my ass.
Before I could protest, Will had inched himself into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. “I sent everyone home.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I saluted him with my middle finger. “You know you could have prevented all of this by not hitting my brother, right?”
“He hit me first.” Will crossed his arms and leaned back against the door.
I froze in mid-air, the washcloth dripping water on the basin. “Are you serious right now? You’re blaming him?”
“He was acting irrational.” Will didn’t even crack a smile, show any sort of emotion other than disappointment that my brother would be so immature as to hit him in the face over my lack of a door.
“Wow.” I dabbed at the blood wincing as the tender flesh continued to grow before my eyes. Fantastic. “You really have changed.”
He frowned, uncrossed his arms. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I tossed the cloth into the sink making a splashing sound as I turned to face him, the man who used to hold all of my kisses, who used to hold my heart and swear his allegiance to every part of my body as he kissed every square inch of space and claimed it. “You’re like this—” I threw my hands up in confusion. “Adult!”
His eyebrows shot up, “Easy there with your comebacks, Ang.” He leaned forward, “Is that the best you can do? Because I sure as hell have heard a lot worse.”
I gulped, he was too close again, so close I could smell his aftershave, he’d changed it, just like he’d somehow changed his brain and turned into this crazy responsible man I didn’t even recognize anymore. This guy, this was the guy that used to order every item on the dessert menu for room service and ask for a tub of cherries so he could take a bubble bath with them.
He pranked his tour bus driver on a daily basis.
And when I asked him what he was going to do after singing, his only serious response was that he wanted to go on an African Safari or become a lion tamer.
Always kidding.
Never serious.
Did he not do in between? Was it always black and white?
“You know what?” I backed up. “It’s been a long night. And I don’t want to waste what precious hours I have left to sleep, trying to come up with a better insult when all you have to do is look in a mirror to realize who you’ve turned into.”
His eyes darkened. “Oh yeah, and who’s that?”
I sidestepped him, then stood up on my tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “Your father.”
It was his weakness.
It was his greatest fear.
It was his reality.
He sucked in a breath. “Bullshit, I’m nothing like him.”
“Hey, Will, maybe you should get some penny loafers tomorrow, might be more comfortable if your hip’s giving you trouble.”
I closed the door behind me amidst his cursing and ran to my room.
He didn’t follow.
Not right away.
I exhaled in relief and quickly changed into my pajamas then turned off my light and crawled into bed.
It took seconds for my eyelids to get heavy.
And when my body finally followed suit, the bed dipped under the weight of whoever was brave enough to interrupt my sleep.
“Are you saying that to piss me off or is it true?” Will’s gruff voice was so not what I needed right before my brain dreamed.
“Will!” I groaned and punched my pillow with my right hand, “You know I don’t do well with no sleep, and I’m already sucking bad enough as it is.”
“You don’t suck. You’ve never sucked a day in your life.”
I grinned up at him.
His stone-cold face sobered and then he cracked a smile. “I see someone still has a dirty mind.”
“I was talking about sucking oyster shooters.”
His eyes narrowed. “Bullshit.”
“Do dads still cuss? Shouldn’t you be saying something like, dag nabit or—”
He covered my mouth with his hand. “I’m not my father. My father’s…” He flinched, “He’s… in his seventies, he golfs on the weekends and eats the early bird special because it’s cheap even though he has enough money to do whatever the hell he wants. He goes to church every Sunday, never has a hair out of place, and told me I was going to hell for stripping on stage.”