Rule Breakers (Off Limits #2) - Nicky James Page 0,3
under my ribs, aching in the place where my cold dead heart resided.
“You fucking little bitch.” I balled my fists and punched the mattress, lips curling with the cold rage swamping my system.
There was no way Edison knew what had happened twenty years ago between Denver and me. He couldn’t know unless Denver had told him. This wasn’t Edison being vindictive and trying to provoke a reaction from me like everything else he did that annoyed and enraged me. This was a fine example of bad fucking luck—and possibly damaged genetics.
I grabbed my phone and redialed Denver’s number. No answer.
“Motherfucker.”
I rolled out of bed, cursing the early hour, the shitty heating system in the house that wasn’t pumping out enough warmth to take the winter chill out of the air, and my idiot son who just had to go stir up the past—unknowingly or not.
I scooped a dirty pair of jeans off the floor and tugged them on, taking pains to be careful not to zip my junk like I’d done last week. I roughed a hand over my jaw and sniffed my pits. I smelled like a bar and something candy-like. There were sparkles on my chest from one of the girls’ glittery body sprays. That shit got everywhere.
I needed a shower, a shave, and about three more hours of sleep, but that wasn’t happening. Not with Denver’s words still pinging around my head.
“Both. I want you both.”
I had known it was only a matter of time before that man lost his mind completely. Too much rigidity in his life. Too much outside pressure. My people-pleasing brother was so focused on walking the straight and narrow, he didn’t know how to unwind. And now he’d cracked.
In college, I’d taken him under my wing and ensured he’d had an escape, a means of letting go so he wouldn’t drown in his self-made rules.
I’d abandoned him.
“No. He abandoned you.” I jerked the coffee pot out from the machine and upended the stale remains into the sink. “You think you’ve grown balls, Den? You haven’t. You’ve lost your fucking mind. Jesus Christ.”
I slammed around in the kitchen, finding the coffee grounds and making a fresh pot. My head throbbed with the beginnings of a headache. My job had been a thousand times easier when I was younger. Lately, I was perpetually exhausted. The late nights, loud music, and after-hour drinks were catching up with me. Burning the candle at both ends was becoming more and more challenging.
It was depressing.
With a fresh cup of coffee, I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes while I savored a few hot sips. What did it say about me that I hadn’t even noticed the kid was gone? I remembered us fighting last night when I’d gotten home from work.
What time was that at? Three or four in the morning?
I took my coffee and headed up the stairs to the second level. Edison’s domain. Knowing he was gone, I kicked his door open and scanned the disaster within, a deep frown drawing my brows together. His dresser drawers were open. Clothing was scattered across his unmade bed and floor. His laptop was gone, but he’d left his textbooks behind.
There were a stack of dirty plates on the bedside table and a half-empty bottle of Jägermeister on his desk among other piles of crap.
“Fucking slob.”
I closed the door. He hadn’t left. Not for real. Not for good. He’d stormed off to have his temper tantrum elsewhere. If I knew the correct procedure for evicting a twenty-year-old, free-loading kid from my house, I’d have done it ages ago. My sole weapons of defense with Edison were anger and harsh words, but they didn’t work for shit. He always came back.
I could shout until I was blue in the face. All it got me was a hoarse voice. Edison had learned to shout louder and with more venom. I didn’t have the stamina to keep up with him anymore.
“I fucked your son.”
Betrayal was the next emotion to hit me after jealousy. Shianne and I had split five years ago. Five fucking years and Denver hadn’t once shown signs he missed what we’d had.
Now this.
I stormed to my bedroom and tugged a clean shirt from a drawer—an old band shirt that had seen better days. It fit snug around my toned arms and chest, no longer loose and airy like it had been when I’d bought it at a concert a decade ago.