Footfalls from behind me have me stilling, smirking to myself, excited to play a silly game of pool in the hopes of lightening his mood.
He stills in the entry.
My skin pricks to turn around, but I wait to see what he’ll do. Will he hug me from behind and kiss my neck? Or will he pick out a cue, sizing it up, wanting to get right to the game? He’s understandably mercurial today. It’s hard to know which way he’ll go.
The click of the doors closing amps the anticipation.
Unable to resist, I turn.
“Well, if it isn’t Kitten.” My pet name on his lips feels tawdry instead of adoring. “He finally let you off your leash, hmm?”
“What? No.”
Drake continues as if I hadn’t spoken, “You know…” He saunters closer. I step back, two steps for his one. “My brother and I have been known to share women.” He takes a drink of the light liquor in his tumbler. He points his hand holding his drink at me. “One woman in particular comes to mind. Audra.” His words are slurred as he spits out her name with distaste.
He steps into me. That same finger used to point lightly touches my hair. “She was quite beautiful.”
The buzz that started the second I saw him instead of Rowdy in front of the closed doors ratchets up a notch. Shivering my disgust, I step around him, only to be caught by the arm.
“Now, Kitten, don’t be like that.” His hold tightens.
“No,” I whimper as my vision narrows and darkness descends.
He nuzzles my hair. “Sometimes no really means yes.”
“No.” I push against his chest. “No always means no,” I tremble with my last full breath. My knees quake, threatening to give out.
Panic claws at my throat.
This is not happening.
“Oh, but it is.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES PASS AND REESE STILL hasn’t returned. I scour the halls around the reception. No luck.
Remembering I have a brain, I pull out my phone to text her, only to find she’s already texted me.
Kitten: No joy on the bathroom situation.
No joy. My girl’s funny.
Kitten: Heading to our room.
Love that she calls it our room. Setting down my beer, I head that way, continuing to read her texts.
Kitten: Fancy a game of pool?
Kitten: Meet me in the billiards room with the wrench, Professor Plum.
Damn, I might just love this woman for her texting sense of humor alone.
Love. Well, shit. I lose my mom and fall in love all in the same week.
When one door closes, another one opens, I hear my mom’s voice in my head.
Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have minded both doors staying open for a while, allowing for a cross breeze and for my girls to meet.
Crushed with a wave of loss, I take a minute in the library to get my bearings. Sitting in Mom’s favorite chair that still smells like her, my breath catches and tears break free.
I’m so angry at her for not letting me know she was gravely sick. She stole my choice to tell her goodbye.
If I had known how sick she was, I would have dropped everything to be here. I would’ve stayed till the end.
You didn’t need to see that, her voice echoes in my skull.
“It wasn’t your choice,” I cry into the empty room.
I died the way I wanted. In my husband’s arms, knowing the light of my life was making a life for himself with a girl who could pin his Shadow.
Jesus. I’m losing my mind.
“She’s not fucking Tinkerbell.”
Wendy. She’s your Wendy.
In perfect timing, my phone vibrates with a text.
Kitten: Miss Scarlett is going to start without you.
Fuck.
“Sorry, Mom. I gotta go see my Wendy.”
Hurry, dear.
I’ve lost my damn mind. There’s no way I’m having an actual conversation with Mom, right?
Nonetheless, I dash out of the room, nearly plowing over my dad, who stops my progress with hand on my chest. He’s strong for a little guy at barely 5’10”.
“What’s the hurry, Son?”
“I’m looking for Reese.” Not a lie. Not the whole truth.
“Hmm. I was looking for your brother—”
“Fuck. How long?”
“I don’t know, thirty minutes or so. Your sister has had about all of this she can take. I was hoping he’d keep her company, run interference. Better than her being by herself in her misery.”
I hurry down the hall, speaking over my shoulder, “I’ll send him your way if I find him.” Or kill him if he’s where I fear he is.
I promised I wouldn’t leave her alone with him. I’ve been too wrapped up in my pain to look out for my girl.
Fuck, I’m an idiot.
Rounding the last corner, my heart skips at the sight of the closed door to the billiards room.
He’s dead. Venom courses through my veins.
Seconds before I barrel through the door, I hear my girl’s panicked murmur, “No, don’t touch me. No!”
Spike through my fucking heart.
I rip the door open, entering without pause for what I’ll find on the other side.
Drake has a vise grip on Reese’s arms as she beats at his chest, tears streaming down her face, and her desolate cries of “No!” will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” I roar, ripping her from his grasp.
“Now, now, Brother. You never minded sharing before.”
“No, please!” my girl screams and resumes her attacking blows, but to my chest instead.
“Reese.” I wrap around her like a straitjacket, locking her arms down with my hold, and cup her head to my chest. “Kitten, it’s Rowdy,” I speak into her ear. “You’re safe. I won’t let him or anyone harm you.” I kiss her head, praying she can hear me. “It’s me, baby. You’re safe now.”
It only takes seconds for her fight to dissipate, her cries to wane into whimpers, and her body to fall slack in my embrace. The entire time I glare over her head to my brother, who hasn’t stopped rambling.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I berate him.
“You just couldn’t let me have one thing to myself, could you?” he slurs, red-faced and ridiculously angry. “She was mine!”
“Who?!” I swear, if I didn’t need to hold my girl, he’d be laid out unconscious by now.
“Audra! You fucking moron. She was mine!”
I flinch as if he struck me. “The maid?”
“She was mine, and you fucked her!” he bellows. He staggers but manages to catch himself on the pool table.
Jesus. “That was eight years ago. I didn’t know you were banging her. She climbed in my bed one night. She fucked me. I was fifteen, for Christ’s sake. I barely knew how my dick worked, much less had the wherewithal or desire to steal a woman from you.”
He balks as he pours himself another drink. Yeah, poison yourself with alcohol, see if I stop you.
“Is that why you hate me? All this time you’ve been carrying this anger about a woman I barely remember—who I didn’t even know you had feelings for?”