CHAPTER NINE
“Canyou pass me the juice, please?” Teagan asked her sister Mae, who hadn’t said a word to her since leaving the Pink Flower last night. Their brother Ryan scratched the coarse hears of his beard as he watched Mae ignore her.
“What’s going on with you two?” he asked as he leaned over the kitchen table and passed Teagan the juice.
“Nothing.” Mae said and stood from her seat. She put her plate into the sink and turned on the faucet.
“Did something happen last night?” Ryan leaned back in his seat, scrutinizing them like only her big brother could. He’d been always good at reading her.
“No,” Teagan lied. What was she to say? That they ended up at a biker strip club where she took the stage and worked the pole, showing the entire place her naked butt cheeks while hanging upside down? Oh, and let’s not forget the strip club manager—a biker who put a finger up that same butt and made her come like she’d never even did with the help from a vibrator?
“Y’all hear Rudy last night? I checked the fences and heard a motorcycle speeding down the road. Anyone you girls might know?” Ryan asked, eyeing his sisters suspiciously.
Teagan shook her head, glancing down at her untouched pancakes.
“You’re such a terrible liar,” Ryan said.
“You’d be surprised,” Mae mumbled under her breath before walking out of the kitchen.
Mae giving her the cold shoulder stung. Mae was the ying to Teagan’s yang. She had always been the sensible, more grounded sister. And Teagan did things on impulse—last night being a perfect example.
As different as the two sisters were, they were best friends. Growing up, they were the two youngest sisters standing up against their two older sisters, Tara and Kiera, who were bossy and also liked to pick on them. Ryan and Emmy, as the oldest siblings, acted as the peace bearer, demanding for them to knock it off.
“Go talk to her, sis,” Ryan said before opening the screen door to the porch.
“I will…” she said before Ryan stepped outside with an approving nod.
Teagan understood Mae being upset for ending up in a strip club last night. It went against everything Mae believed in. But it wasn’t like it was Teagan’s idea to go there.
This rift reminded Teagan of how she’d felt when her family found out about her and Joseph that summer seven years ago.
What ever happened to sisters having each other’s back? Mae could have at least asked her about Devlin bringing her home. Show a little interest. It’s what Teagan would have done.
With Mae ignoring her, she couldn’t share with her best friend what happened with Devlin in one of the outer fields. And she desperately needed to get things off her chest. She needed Mae to tell her how much of a bad idea it would be to work for that strip club as some kind of dance coach.
Teagan needed for Mae to tell her in her matter-of-fact tone that bad boys never changed their ways—especially not the ones who already warned girls off of them.
She needed for her sister to be outraged by Devlin saying that he just wanted a taste of her to get her out of his system, no less.
The reminder of his words made her angry all over again. He was just scared. The way he put distance between them and later on apologized for his stupid words… He obviously struggled with their undeniable attraction.
The stubborn man just got it into his head that he would hurt her and she didn’t know him well enough to know if she could make him change his ways for her.
Teagan brought her plate to the floor and patted Rudy as he wagged his tail, happy with his pancakes. She stepped outside and walked the dirt path to the fence she’d slammed shut in between Devlin and her last night.
“Hey, T. Wait up!”
Teagan turned around, holding the fence open for Gwenn. She smiled at Gwenn as her legs ate up the dirt path. She wore her long, shiny brown hair in a high ponytail and her skinny jeans and black T-shirt were also all on point.
Teagan glanced down at her favorite three-year-old jeans with holes in it. Not the fancy holes that were designed in some factory, either. No. She got the nonfashionable ‘ripped jeans’ while jumping the fence after Fianna’s horse escaped.
“What’s up, T? Were you going for a walk? Mind if I’d join you?”
“Hey. Sure. I was just about to check on the horses.”
She closed the fence behind Gwenn and started the ten-minute walk to the field where Ryan already had let the horses run in the early morning while Teagan was still asleep.
“Okay. So, about last night…” Gwenn started, eyeing Teagan for her reaction as they kept walking side-by-side.