“And?” Rafe asked.
“And you should stop being an asshole.” Jude’s voice was so calm, I could almost picture him sitting there with a cup of coffee, looking at his phone while he talked to Rafe, who clearly didn’t want me in their house.
“I’ve always been an asshole,” Rafe said. “Why stop now?”
“Someone was after her,” Nolan said. I heard running water, the slam of a cupboard or drawer in the kitchen. “We’re not monsters.”
“Speak for yourself,” Rafe grumbled.
My breath was coming too fast and shallow and I forced myself to slow it down, something I’d learned to do over the years when my heart condition flared.
“Maybe you should think about why you don’t want her here,” Jude said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rafe asked.
“Why do you care so much?” Again the calm voice from Jude. “It’s temporary. What does it matter?”
“Fuck you.”
I flinched at the heat in Rafe’s words and I had a flash of memory: Rafe, Nolan, and Jude, peeling off my clothes, touching their lips to my heated skin while I writhed under them, my head fuzzy from the massive amounts of alcohol — and whatever else had been in my red plastic cup — I’d consumed at the one and only party I’d ever been invited to in high school.
I didn’t even remember them taking the pictures.
“Are you mad at me or mad at yourself?” Nolan asked.
“And fuck you too,” Rafe said.
I’d had enough. My heart was beating too fast, my pulse pounding in my ears. I didn’t want to hear any more. Didn’t want to be reminded of the night that had changed my life — that had changed me — forever.
I didn’t try to be quiet as I crossed the loft area to the stairs. I wanted them to hear me coming, wanted them to shut the fuck up — about me, about that night, about everything.
They were silent when I walked into the kitchen, the air heavy like it was when a group of people had gotten caught talking about you. On one wall, a TV on mute broadcast political news, some guy running for Senator in the next election.
I slid onto one of the chairs at the island and looked at Rafe, leaning against the counter with his arms folded over his chest, the universal symbol forstay the fuck away from me.
His gray eyes made me think of stormy seas and summer rain.
For a long moment, no one said anything, the air charged with electricity the way it was right before lightning cracked the sky.
“Jude’s right,” I finally said to Rafe. “You’re being an asshole. It’s not like I want to be here.”
7
NOLAN
There wasa beat of silence when I half expected Rafe to haul Lilah to the front door and throw her out into the snow. But he just glared at her, then made a sound I recognized as an attempt to hold back his rage and stalked to the coffee maker.
I studied Lilah’s face, glad to see the color had returned to her skin. I regretted not dealing with the gash on her cheek the night before but there had been a lot going on. I’d have to do that this morning.
She’d always been striking, even in high school, but now she was even more beautiful. Her dark blonde hair highlighted her piercing green eyes while her lush mouth almost made a mockery of her high cheekbones and delicate bone structure. In a world full of smiles made homogeneous by orthodontics, the tiny gap between her front teeth only added to her appeal.
She was more than pretty — she was interesting. I could have stared at her face for hours, trying to figure out what made me want to commit it to memory.
As for her body, well, I tried — not very successfully — not to look too closely. It felt off-limits, both because she was vulnerable and because of what we’d done to her in high school.
The black sweats hung on her frame but that didn’t mean I couldn’t see that she was banging.
I shifted in my chair at the island, glad I was sitting down so she couldn’t see my hard-on.