“You need to accept that you’re my business. You need to accept that I’m gonna ask who these men are that feel so attached to you.” He slides his fingertips over my lip, and smiles triumphantly when my tongue darts out without my permission. “And you need to accept that those fingers were inside you last night.”
“Ugh!” I snap my head away and will the burning from my eyes. Anger? Humiliation? Something else I cannot put a name to, because it’s so new and different for me? “You need to go away.”
“I’m still expecting you at my place tonight, Priss. Don’t make me come looking.”
“I will not come to you.” I turn and meet his eyes. “When I meet the man I’m supposed to be with, he’ll come to me. He’ll be romantic. He won’t be crude or demanding. And he especially won’t step up to my brothers like they’re the enemy.”
“Sounds like a fuckin’ bore. Good luck finding your bag of sand, Abigail. He won’t ever get hard for you, he’ll weigh you down, he’ll make you wish you took a chance on the crude thug. But what do I know?”
“Nothing.” I push him away a second time, and this time, he steps back.
The double doors at the end of the hall swing open to reveal Mitch with what may be apologetic eyes, but they widen as soon as he sees me with my blushing face. I turn away.
“Go back to your life, Spencer. I won’t be visiting you, so don’t stay up waiting.”
“You will eventually, Priss. I assure you, you will.”
I have nothing to say to him, nothing that might convince him that he’s delusional, so I turn away and head toward Mitch before he comes down here and we start all over again with the leg-peeing.
I hitch my handbag up onto my shoulder and meet him halfway down the hall. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s not.” He tries to blow straight past me, but I grab on and use all of my strength to… well, I can’t stop him, but I slow him down a little.
“Mitchell, no. We’re leaving.”
“I just wanna talk to your friend.”
“Absolutely not!” My eyes fly to Spencer’s in desperation. He’s not walking away. If anything, he’s squaring his chest and waiting for our arrival. “Mitchell. I said no!”
“What’s your business with my sister?”
“No business,” I grunt and try to slow him down. “Mitchell!”
“Speak, soldier!”
Oh god! This is going to explode.
Instead of uselessly trying to stop my brother, I race around him and try to reverse. And the whole time, I stare into Spencer’s eyes and plead. “Walk away. I’m begging you to please walk away.”
It’s like a switch in his eyes. They’re hard, flat, and bordering on cruel. Then they soften, and he inclines his chin just a tiny bit.
Without a single word, he turns on his heels – like a soldier – and walks away.
Gone.
Like he was never here.
But the way my heart races says he was.
“Oh cheese on a cracker. Mitchell!” I turn and smack his chest. “You don’t have to confront him. You don’t have to even speak to him.”
“Why was he in your face, Abigail? Why are you so defensive about this?”
“Why areyouso defensive?”
“Because there is a clear power imbalance between you two. It’s like a teacher and his student. A boss and his intern. A doctor and his patient. It’s not okay, and I will not stand by and let shit spiral.”
“I am not a child! Dammit, Mitchell!”