“Don’t mistake my tolerance for weakness,” Sammy said quietly. “I put up with you because we’re family, but if you say another nasty word toward me or anyone else I care about—if you so much aslookat us the wrong way—I will rearrange your face until you’re unrecognizable to your own mother. And guess what? Other than your parents, no one will care.”
Everyone liked Sammy better, and they both knew it.
“Are we clear?”
Edison didn’t answer, his features a mask of angry defiance.
Sammy’s grip tightened. “I said, are we clear?”
“Yes,” Edison finally choked out.
Sammy released him, and the other man sagged, clutching his throat.
“You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” Edison gasped. “I’ll fucking sue you for assault.”
No, he wouldn’t. Edison was too vain and image-conscious to let other people know that Sammy—whom he’d always considered his “weaker” cousin because Sammy had a conscience—got one up on him.
Sammy didn’t bother responding. He splashed out of the tub and walked into the house, ignoring Olivia and Kevin’s calls.
Thank God he had his own room in the annex so he could stew by himself. There was an uneven number of guests, and they’d drawn straws to see who would get the single. Sammy had lucked out.
He stopped for a quick shower in the annex’s shared bathroom and wrapped a towel around his waist before heading to his room. He felt numb, and the events of the past hour floated through his head like scenes from a movie instead of his messed-up life.
What Edison and Olivia did or didn’t do that summer shouldn’t bother him, but dammit, it did. Because Edison was his cousin and Olivia had been the love of his life. Because their hookup stabbed at all of Sammy’s hidden insecurities about not being good enough or measuring up. Because it was a fucking betrayal, even if Sammy and Olivia had already broken up.
Sammy’s shoulders stiffened when he saw Olivia waiting for him outside his room. She must’ve come straight here after he’d left.
“I’m not in the mood to talk,” he said curtly.
She stepped aside so he could open the door, but she followed him inside before he could close it in her face.
“Wehaveto talk.” Her skin was blotchy and her eyes pleaded for forgiveness, which told him all he needed to know, didn’t it?
“No, we don’t.”
“Nothing happened between Edison and me.”
Now she waslyingto him? Sammy had seen them kissing with his own eyes! She didn’t know that, though, and he wondered if she was really going to take the denial route.
“Nothing, huh?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “So you didn’t call him after we broke up? You guys didn’t hook up, didn’t kiss?”
Last night had been the best night he’d had in years, and their kiss had knocked his fucking socks off, but it might as well have happened a lifetime ago. There were zero similarities between last night’s easy companionship and tonight’s hostile tension.
“We did kiss. Once,” Olivia said, her voice so low Sammy almost couldn’t hear her. “He made the first move, and I should’ve pushed him away, but it happened so fast that I—” She exhaled a shaky breath. “It was a mistake, okay? But we didn’t do anything more than that, and I called him because ofyou,not because I wantedhim.I knew you guys weren’t close, but I’d hoped he could help me—” She stopped.
“Finish that sentence,” Sammy said, his voice hard. “Help you what, Olivia?”
“Help me make you see reason.” Her cheeks flushed with guilt. “About the bakery. Or help me make things right with you. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Olivia Tang, doing something without a clear plan?” Sammy mocked. “Excuse me if I don’t believe you.”
She threw her hands up. “How many times do I have to apologize? I fucked up. I admit it. Can we please move on? I thought we had a truce.”
They did—but all truces eventually ended.
“No, we can’t. Not yet. You know why?” Anger heated Sammy’s stomach, slow and insidious. He stalked toward her, causing her to inch back until she hit the wall and had nowhere left to go. He rested his forearm on the wall above her and a hand to the side of her head, caging her in. “Because Isawyou kissing him.” He chuckled at her horrified expression, but the sound was devoid of humor. “Yeah. You didn’t know that, did you? I saw you making out with my fucking cousin, the one you knew I despised, less than an hour after we broke up. You know the worst part? I came back to apologize. I thought I’d been too harsh and that maybe we could work things out. Turns out, the joke was on me. It didn’t take you long at all to get over me, did it?”
The scabs on his old wounds had been ripped wide open, and he was bleeding all over the place, his emotions a groundswell that threatened to drown him.