a stream of smoke drifts to the ceiling from the cigarette between his fingers.
He stares at us.
“Good morning,” she says.
I shoot a glance at her, seeing her approach him, and I try to stop her. “No, don’t.”
But she ignores me, and I wince like I’m bracing myself for a car wreck about to happen.
“I’m…uh,” Clay stammers, breathing hard as she stares at my oldest brother. “Um… About the…”
He blows out smoke, his eyebrows narrowed, and I’m caught between being amused at seeing Clay nervous, and being scared because no conversation between these two will end well. Macon is an ass.
Her mouth opens and closes, Macon eating her for breakfast without moving a muscle, and then she exhales and turns to me.
“Yeah, fuck this,” she says, kissing my lips once. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
I smile tightly and nod. Yeah, I tried to tell you. “Bye.”
Clay leaves, and I lock the door behind her, turning and meeting my brother’s gaze. “She was just trying to apologize for being in your room during Night Tide.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I give up. There’s no talking to him. I head for the stairs.
“Olivia?” he calls.
I stop, not in the mood.
I enter the living room again. “We’re not supposed to smoke in the house.”
His rule.
He drops the butt into a leftover beer bottle, the little sizzle of the embers extinguishing filling the silence.
He turns his eyes on me. “Finish with her.”
My muscles tighten. “It’s none of your business.”
“She’s using you.”
My eyes immediately sting, and I shake my head.
“She will always think she can use you,” he explains.
No. I can understand why he would think that, because I thought it too, but he doesn’t see what goes on when it’s just us. It’s not like that.
“Because you’re less to her,” he says, rising from his chair. “And she’s more.”
He moves toward me, all the feelings and doubts and insecurities I had when I started this with her flooding back. I’m not attached. I like her. It feels good.
I’m not attached.
“She thinks she’s more, because she’ll never want what you have,” he continues. “Because she thinks you want what she has. Because she thinks everyone wants to be her.”
No.
He advances on me slowly. “She has the power, Liv. This is how they think.”
I swallow.
“You are giving her your power.”
“What do you know?” I bite out.
“I know.”
I shake my head absently, dropping my eyes to the floor. I’m in control. She’s not running the show. Is that what he thinks? “I’m not in love with her,” I tell him.
“Liv…”
I dart my eyes up, glaring at him. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know it will be over when she says, not you.”
My lungs empty, because I don’t want to believe that’s true, but I know it is. Everything relies on her. Where we show our faces. How we have to hide at school. The future. We get along in and out of the bedroom, and neither of us wants to be away from the other, but…
I’m out.
She’s not.
Everything comes down to what she’s going to do and how long it will take for her to own up.
But I don’t care. I’m not taking this relationship to college. I don’t know what Macon’s worried about. Yeah, I like her.
I don’t love her.
But my head swims the moment the words drift through my brain. I don’t love her.
Macon leaves, his words hanging in the air as he heads up the stairs, and after a moment, I follow. He disappears into his room, and I grab my doorknob, ready to escape into mine, but Iron’s bedroom door opens.
A redhead in ripped jeans and a pink cut-off T-shirt walks out, Dallas pulling on his jeans behind her, and Iron still passed out in the bed in the corner.
Amy pulls the door closed, but not before Dallas winks at me, a shit-eating grin on his face.
Ew, really? What the fuck? How did that happen? Goddammit. I guess things got more interesting after we left last night.
Amy adjusts her bra straps inside her shirt and looks up, freezing as she spots me.
Out-standing. This day started two minutes ago and sucks so badly already. Clay and I shouldn’t have left the bed.
Amy sighs, a blush crossing her cheeks as she makes her way over to me. I’m pissed, but I’m not exactly sure why.
Maybe because my brothers are sleeping their way through my teammates all of a sudden? Because Amy got off in this house? Because the Saints might be treating this house like a brothel?