like her. I didn’t care if that made me an asshole. Skye told me repeatedly that Lorna would grow out of her bratty shit and turn into a cool person I might one day call friend. Yeah, right.
“That’s not rule number two,” Jane replied in her quiet voice, steel in her words. Her tone surprised me.
“It is so,” Lorna argued. “We’re supposed to support what the other likes and have each other’s back.”
“We’re also supposed to support what the other doesn’t like. I don’t like Greta. She’s a bully. I don’t have time for bullies.” Jane didn’t raise her voice, but there was that steel again.
About to knock and interrupt, I stopped when Lorna snapped, “It’s just a party. And I’m sick of not being included in anything because you’re a baby!”
I scowled. Jesus, my little sister was a pill.
“I’m not a baby.” I heard a tremor in Jane’s voice. “I just don’t need to befriend the kind of people who bitch about each other behind their backs and wouldn’t know what the word loyalty meant, even if Gucci brought out a bag with the word printed on it. I don’t need to be popular to be happy. I’m not a sheep.”
My eyebrows rose. Who was this kid?
“Are you calling me a sheep?”
“If the shoe fits.”
I kind of wanted to high-five Jane Doe right then.
“At least I’m not an orphan loser! No one but me wants you, Jane. Think about that before you say anything else you might regret.”
Anger churned in my gut. Lorna McKenna, mistress of manipulation. And she was only fourteen.
A creak of the floorboards alerted me too late and the door flew open. Jane charged out, almost colliding with me. I reached out to steady her and felt my annoyance with my sister grow tenfold. There were tears on Jane’s flushed cheeks.
Great.
A crying teenage girl. Let me count the ways I loathed being in this kind of situation.
Jane swiped at the tear tracks and then jerked out of my hold, hurrying past and down the hall.
It occurred to me that her apartment complex was a half-hour walk from here. Skye would kill me if I let the kid walk home alone.
I could kill Lorna.
With an aggravated sigh, I stuck my head into Lorna’s room and saw her sitting on her bed, glaring at the wall, two bright red spots of anger on her cheeks.
She had the bigger of the smaller two bedrooms after throwing a fit when Skye wouldn’t let her have the master suite. Skye was paying the rent. The master bedroom was hers. Made sense to me. Try telling Lorna that. How a kid who grew up like we did could be so spoiled, I had no idea. I just gave in and took the smallest room in the house. Even though Skye was happy to fight for me to have the larger one since I was older.
“I’m going to see that Jane gets home okay.”
Her gaze flew to me. “What?”
I seethed. “I’m walking Jane home. You leave this house while I’m gone, and I’ll make your life a fucking misery until I go to college.” I reached in and slammed her door shut.
Hurrying down the stairs after Jane, I thought about grabbing my car keys and giving the kid a ride home, but I needed the walk to cool off before I returned to my little sister.
Outside, I found Jane hurrying down our sidewalk.
“Jane, wait up,” I called after her.
She whirled in surprise, her long, dark hair flaring around her shoulders. She waited for me.
As I approached her, the last of the sun caught in her hazel-green eyes, and it hit me out of nowhere—like a lightning bolt or a Mack Truck or some other cliché—Lorna’s best friend was kind of beautiful.
The thought caught me off guard as I drew to a halt in front of her.
Only a year ago, Jane Doe had been an awkward little thing. Big eyes, big ears, big mouth. She’d looked like a cartoon character.
But now, I saw she’d lost the roundness of youth in the angles of her cheeks and jaw, and she’d grown into her features.
She’d really, really grown into herself.
Jane Doe was on her way to being a knockout.
Huh.
I shook myself out of the stupor this revelation caused.
“I’m walking you home.” I touched Jane’s elbow and began to walk.
Thankfully, she fell into step beside me without argument—I didn’t want to spend half an hour convincing her she needed me to walk her home.