Reese whipped his head toward the front door, and a moment later, she heard Alex’s muffled, deep voice as he talked to Reese. She saw Alex step closer, his hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans. He didn’t know Reese, but she couldn’t imagine he was just asking Reese who the hell he was and what he wanted.
And then as Reese started talking with animation, his hands moving between him and where she was upstairs, Keira saw the anger start to morph Alex’s face. He now knew Reese was the cause of why she’d been upset.
Shit.
Before she could tear herself away from the window and go down there to stop what was about to inevitably happen, Alex reared his arm back and slammed his fist into the side of Reese’s face. Reese stumbled back, clearly blindsided by the punch, but was up on his feet seconds later. Even from where she stood two stories up, she saw the blood start to trickle out his nose.
Reese wiped it away with the back of his hand and turned his head to spit out a mouthful of blood. He held up his hands, a clear act of surrender, but the anger on Alex’s face was like lightning across the sky, getting stronger by the second.
He charged forward and punched Reese again and again, sending him to the ground. Alex was on top of him seconds later and kept hitting him like a madman. Everything was happening so fast, yet it felt like it transpired in slow motion. What shocked her most was that Reese refused to defend himself.
Keira rushed down the stairs and out the front door. As soon as she was outside, she could hear the rage-filled words Alex spoke. They were vile and harsh and like nothing she’d ever heard her brother say.
“I don’t know what the fuck you did, asshole,” Alex seethed out, “but my little sister has never looked so brokenhearted.” He punched Reese again.
“Alex. Stop, please. You’re going to kill him!” she screamed over and over again, but her brother was like a machine. And Reese refused to fight back and defend himself. He just took blow after blow from her brother.
She ran up to Alex and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back. But he was built just as solidly as Reese, and it was like moving a mountain.
In the next second, she found herself sprawled on her ass several feet away. The air left her, and her hands burned from where they’d scraped against the pavement. For a moment, she didn’t know what happened, but then she realized her mistake. She shouldn’t have gone to Alex when he was clearly that upset, when he was in a blind rage. He must have pushed her back on instinct without thinking.
The sound of Alex grunting in pain had her looking over at the guys and watching Reese slam his fist into her brother’s gut.
“You can hit me all you want, but when you put your hands on my girl, then me and you have some real fucking problems.”
Alex picked himself up off the ground and rubbed his jaw, and then the two men stared at each other for long moments, the intensity thick enough she felt it.
And then Alex was by her side a second later, helping her off the ground and checking for any injuries. His expression was remorseful. “Keira, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push you back like that. I was just so angry and didn’t even realize what I’d done until after the fact.” He stared into my eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Alex.” She looked over his shoulder and saw Reese watching her with his emotions so raw and tangible she couldn’t stop the flow of tears. His nose and mouth were bloody, he held his side as if in pain, and a bruise was starting to form on his cheek.
God, Alex had beaten the shit out of him.
“Keira.” Reese’s voice was strained, and he cleared it before talking again. “If you’ll just talk to me, let me explain.”
“There isn’t anything to talk about, asshole. I may not know what you did, but you hurt my sister, and that makes you my problem,” Alex growled.
Reese closed his eyes and grimaced. “Please, Keira. Just give me five minutes. I can clear the air about what you think happened.”
She knew this needed to be resolved now. Pulling away from Alex, she looked up at her brother. “I’ll be okay. I need to do this, and I’d like some privacy.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you alone with him.” He cut a nasty glare at Reese before looking at her again.
“Alex, I’ll be fine. Just give me a few minutes alone, okay?”
It took her brother several moments to agree, and when he went back in the house, she felt the weight of the awkwardness hanging in the air.
And this was where the moment of truth spilled forth. And she feared it would break her all over again.
31
Reese’s expression grew more torn the longer he stood there and stared at her. “Keira….” He didn’t say anything else, maybe trying to decide what he was going to say. She stood there and let him take his time.
She wanted this resolved so she could start to move on if need be.
“I know what you think you saw me doing in those pictures, but I swear it isn’t what they seem.” He took another step, and she shook her head, causing him to stop advancing.
His nostrils flared, and he ground his teeth before continuing. “I know it looked like I fucked up, holding that girl, maybe even kissing her…” He shook his head, the sound of his teeth gnashing together seeming loud around them. “But I swear on everything, Keira, I did not do any of that shit.” He exhaled roughly. “She was drunk, lost her footing. I reached out before she crashed into me. Someone snapped the pictures, and how it looks sure as shit isn’t what went down.”
Keira dropped her gaze to the ground and closed her eyes. He sounded so sincere, and she couldn’t help but believe him. How could she not when he’d made her feel so good every time she was with him, when he’d said things she never envisioned someone would say to her?
“Baby, you have to believe me.” He sounded closer, and she lifted her head and looked at him. His emotions were out in the open, cut like glass, severe and raw.
She thought about what was going on, what the plans were… for the future. Maybe this was the wakeup call she needed, a clean break before she started college, before she got too deep with Reese nothing else made sense.
“Reese, what are we doing?” she whispered, seeing the way confusion filtered across his face, how his eyebrows pulled down to intensify the look.
“What are you talking about? I know what we’re doing, and I thought you did too. I felt it from you, Keira.” He moved closer, and she didn’t retreat. “You believe me. I can see in your eyes that you know I’d never do anything to hurt you. I’d never fucking risk it.”
“Reese, have you thought about what will happen when we graduate and I go to college?”
A hard look crossed his face.
She looked in his face, saw the sincerity, heard it in his voice. She believed him about the pictures, how they weren’t what she thought. That was easy. What wasn’t so easy was the reality that this would have never worked. There would have been someone or something that got in their way, shoved them apart. They were so different, and it wasn’t even about money or social status. It was about her plans for the future, what Reese wanted to do with his life.
It was so much more than what they were doing now.