in my brother’s hand, I slipped away from Journey.
“Yes.” Cork glanced back and forth between me and Journey. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on,” I said, but my expression and everything else about this scene made a liar of me.
My legs trembled as I moved toward Cork. Licking my dry lips, I frowned at the phone my brother offered me like it was a serpent about to strike.
“Go ahead,” Journey growled. His flip-flops slapped the ground as he stomped past me. “Take the fucking call.”
Storm
I DIDN’T STICK around to hear what Lotus said.
It was a douche move for me to make an already contemptible moment worse by saying what I did, but I was mad, frustrated as hell at being interrupted by Saber again, when I’d almost had her. Yet fucking again.
The return trip to OB was pure torture.
Cork was all frowns now instead of smiles, and Lotus was no longer speaking to me. In a white pair of short overalls and a lime-green tube top, she was pressed against the door on the far side of the vehicle, her gaze anywhere but on me. Her brother glowered with a healthy amount of side-eye, a disapproving buffer between us.
“Can you drop us at Outside when we get to OB?” Lotus asked, cutting through the tense silence.
“Sure,” I gritted out. The wind at freeway speed tossed my voice around. Snidely, I asked, “Was that Saber’s request?”
“Yes.” She kept her gaze straight ahead as tendrils of her hair whipped around her face. “He wants to talk to you.”
I’ll just bet he does.
Rather than respond, I took the exit I needed. There would be no exiting the current situation. I knew I’d created it, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to escape it. In fact, I was spoiling for a fight.
I maintained our speed through the traffic lights that took us by the water that separated Mission Beach from Ocean Beach. When we reached the fork, I went left at the welcome to ocean beach sign and put on the brakes as we got stuck in a line of traffic. It freed up a little, but then we hit more when I turned onto Newport Avenue.
Eventually, we arrived at our destination. Finding a spot in the parking lot by the pier, I cut the engine. Lotus released her seat belt and popped open her door. Apparently, she couldn’t get out of the Scout fast enough. As she hightailed it to the tailgate to grab her stuff, Cork unlatched his seat belt and turned to glare at me. Without preamble, he came right to the point, reminding me of her.
“What’s going on with you and my sister?” His jaw was set, his youthful features tight.
“Cork,” Lotus said from behind us. Obviously, she’d heard him. “Don’t do this.”
“He had you backed into a wall, Lotus.”
“You mistook what you saw,” I said, regaining his attention. “I asked before I put her in that position. I’ve never taken from any woman what she didn’t want to give me, and I’m not about to change that with your sister. Does that reassure you?”
His scar creasing as he considered my words, he nodded once. “But you didn’t really answer my question.”
I raised a brow. “It answers it as much as I’m going to.”
Cork huffed out a breath. “I thought you were an up-front guy. Obviously, I misread you.”
He started to get out, but I couldn’t let it be. His disapproval sliced me about as deeply as hers did.
“Hold up,” I said, and he swiveled to look at me. “I like your sister, Cork, and I like you. We had a lot of fun today until the end. Can we just leave the other stuff out of it? Go back to being friends?”
He gave me a narrow-eyed look. “That’s up to you.”
“How so?”
“Will you respect Lotus, and any boundaries she sets for you?”
“Absolutely,” I said firmly. “I have, and I’ll continue to respect her wishes.”
“Can you be honest with her and me, and table all the evasive bullshit?” he asked, his expression as firm as my reply. “We don’t need a friend who lies to us.”
That hit me hard, considering there was a secret I’d been hiding from them. I couldn’t do anything about what had already been done—or maybe it was just that I didn’t want to, not yet at least—but I could give Cork something.
“I promise to answer truthfully any question you ask me.”
He studied me a long moment, then nodded. “Okay, I accept that.”
I let out a breath.