“And I don’t want him using my sister as his personal punching bag. I’m going to make that son of bitch pay for laying hands on you,” I roared.
I started storming towards the door. I grabbed my keys from the table and was ready to leave when Lily blocked my path.
“Gray, please. You don’t need to do that. Just let me explain.”
“There is no explaining necessary. He touched you, so he’s dead. End of story.”
I tried to move past her, but she kept blocking my path. I started to lift her, but she shoved me hard, causing me to stumble backward, having been caught off guard like that.
“We broke up!”
I stilled. “What?”
“I broke up with his good-for-nothing ass. That’s why he laid hands on me before Ollie finally pulled him off. I’m not going to see him ever again, Gray. I’m done with him.”
“I’ve heard that before, Lily. You have left this man countless times, and you expect me to believe you now?”
She huffed and opened the door. I thought she was leaving but then she grabbed something on my porch and dropped a large duffel bag on my floor.
“I took all my stuff from his house. He and I are done. We’ve been done for a while. I was just too scared to leave, but now I’m not. I’m done with him now.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I knew I deserved better and, when I looked around, I just saw a bunch of wasted and coked-up losers, and I didn’t want to end up like that. I saw what the drugs did to Mrs. Masters, and I don’t want that to be me.”
I searched her eyes for one of her tells. One thing about my sister was that she was a crappy liar. Her eyes always gave her away. Her left one would twitch if she was lying, but looking at her now, it was still.
My shoulders sagged a little in relief. I had been praying and hoping for this day from the very beginning of that nonsense they called a relationship.
“So you need a place to crash, I’m guessing.”
She nodded. “I just need to get my head on right before I go and see Mom. I also need to figure out where my life goes from here.”
“Okay.” I picked up her bag. “You can stay for a little while, but you can’t move in here permanently, Lily. You have a home with Mom.”
She nodded and got on her toes to kiss my cheek. “You are the best big brother ever.”
I rolled my eyes. “I am when I’m letting you crash at my house, but not when I was trying to tell you to let go of your psychotic boyfriend.”
I walked up the stairs to the guest room to set her stuff down.
“I was young and dumb!” she called out from the living room.
“That was last week.”
Once I had set her bag down, I went back downstairs, got two beers out and went to sit with her in the living room. She had some vampire show on.
“Thanks.” She grabbed the beer. “You know a funny thing?”
I looked at her.
“I saw Jade Masters at Pop Pop’s today. I didn’t know she was still in town.”
I felt my heart thud heavily in my chest at the mention of her name.
“She’s helping Ethan with his case. After she is done, she will be on a plane back to New York City where she belongs.”
“You sound salty.”