“I don’t want to say.”
“I didn’t ask what you fucking wanted,” Duke snaps, stepping forward and looming over me, his eyes stormy and dark. “Tell me where you got those clothes.”
“From the thrift store.” It makes sense. She left, and she’s never coming back. Why wouldn’t they donate her clothes, make her room into the guest room that it looks like, as if no one ever lived there at all?
“Which one?” His hands are balled into fists, and the vein in the side of his neck is popping.
I open my mouth to make some smartass comment about him deigning to set foot in a thrift shop, but then I decide I like my teeth where they are, so I shrug and answer. I give them the name of a cute little resale shop called Lexi Lands It where the clothes are a little more upscale than where I actually shop. Second-hand designer clothes are more likely to be found there than anywhere else in town.
The twins exchange a look. “Guess we have our afternoon cut out for us,” Baron says before turning back to me. “You better hope you’re not lying.”
He turns and walks off, and Royal shakes his head at me like I’m too pathetic for words.
“I’ll take her to change,” Duke says. “I’ve got class with her, anyway.”
“Fuck no,” Royal says flatly before I can even get a word of protest out.
“Aw, come on, I’ve already seen her naked,” Duke says.
“Remind me of that again and I’ll rip your eyes out of your head and strangle you with your optic nerve.”
“You’re going to throw her to us when you’re done with her, anyway.”
“And until then, you don’t touch her,” Royal grinds out. “You don’t even think about her.”
“Chill the fuck out, she’s just a piece of ass,” Duke says, raising both hands in surrender. “I’ve seen a million. I don’t even remember what she looks like.”
“She’s my piece of ass,” Royal growls out, staring down his brother.
I clear my throat. “As much as I enjoy being fought over like I’m one bone between two dogs, I should probably interrupt this little display of alphaness to let you know I don’t actually have a change of clothes.”
“I’ve got, like, ten pairs of panties in my locker,” Duke says. “And probably a couple other pieces of clothes.”
I start to tell him I’m not going to wear the clothes his hookups wore, but since I’m already doing exactly that, I don’t have much ground for argument.
“I’m not wearing her underwear,” I say, glaring at him.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “Because you wouldn’t know they were hers, right? When you were digging through the bins, hers would have been the nicest ones.”
“I didn’t get my underwear there,” I grit out. Not that I’m above such things. When you’re fourteen and no one will give you a job unless you want to whore yourself out to truckers, and your mom hasn’t gotten out of bed for two months, you eat out of dumpsters and wear secondhand underwear or go without. But I’m not going to tell these guys anything to make them think I’m more disgusting than they already do. What do they know about desperation?
Royal tells Duke to go back to class and then drags me down the hall and out a side door. Another building sits off to the side, a gym that I’ve never been inside, since I don’t have PE or play sportsball. I eye the wall, thinking it would be a fabulous canvas for one of Zephyr’s masterpieces. I wonder if he knows it’s here.
“Were you in the hospital?” I ask as Royal pulls me across a stretch of dead grass. “Is that why you were gone the past two days?”
“No,” he says. “But I missed the game on Friday, thanks to you.”
I roll my eyes. “I seem to recall you stuffing me in your car and driving me out there. I have a right to defend myself.”
“You tried to fucking kill me.”
“Then I guess we’re even.”
He pulls open the gym door and roughly pushes me inside. “I say when we’re even.”
“Well, thanks for bringing me my stuff.”
“I didn’t bring you shit,” he snaps. Which is probably true. If he was in the hospital, his brothers brought it.