“Your entire world has shrunk down to just Sutton, Rodrigo, and me. It’s not healthy.” They’d had this conversation so many times that it had its own script. “You should have gone to high school with me in town. Home schooling yourself out here was a mistake. You shouldn’t have been alone so much.”
Severin wanted him to leave for Virginia now – to get it over with – but somehow he kept up his end of the conversation. Weakness was never rewarded. “There’s nothing wrong with home schooling.”
“No, but you were alone too much, man. You’re fucking weird. You haven’t been socialized.”
Socialized? That made him want to laugh, but he didn’t trust himself not to sound crazy. “I’m not a dog. I rarely bite unless provoked.”
“Oh, you’re a dog. You’re just not a pet dog. You’re like the stray at the pound that no one is comfortable sending home with a family.”
“So they sent me to a farm to live out my days chained to the garage. Someone feeds me and makes sure I don’t freeze to death. Yeah, I get the analogy. It’s pretty much my life. Someone should have put me down by now.” It would hurt him if he had feelings, but he’d outgrown that shit a long time ago. Everyone knew he’d been thrown away. Years of other people’s obnoxious pity had thickened his skin.
“It always comes back to this. What they did to you was wrong. It was fucked up. You act like this to get back at them, but they don’t fucking care – they don’t even know. So in the end the only person you’re punishing is yourself and the people who love you here and now.” Church’s dark eyes were full of rage. “Even when I was a little kid I knew this whole situatio
n was a shitshow. Now that I’m a father, I can’t even wrap my head around it. You never deserved any of this, Sev. Don’t let them fucking win.” He got up and moved toward Severin, but one look from Sev stalled him in his tracks.
He watched Church, wary he’d come closer, but his brother knew not to touch him without permission, even now. Part of him wanted the affection, but he couldn’t handle it today.
“They always win,” Severin finally said, putting his beer bottle on its side on the workbench and spinning it. Easier to occupy himself rather than see the raw emotion in Church’s eyes. Not when he was having so much trouble keeping himself in check.
“Only because you let them.”
*
Footsteps.
He was sitting up in bed, heart pounding, before he realized he was awake.
Nightmare?
Listening hard, he closed his eyes, willing the feeling that came with the sound to go away. Yes, footsteps, but quiet ones. No one wandered the house at night, so it had to be the girl.
He rose from bed and followed the sound of her footfalls. Someone needed to inform the girl of the house rules.
Blue light spilled into the hall from the screening room, but the sound was muted.
“Why are you in here?” he asked as he stepped into the room.
Her eyes went wide. “I...” She seemed to be at a loss for words as her gaze darted shyly from his face, then dipped to his torso – naked above his jeans – the jerked away to the plasma screen.
“You...” he prompted. Despite the coolness of the house, she wore a tank top and short shorts. The press of her cold-hardened nipples against the thin fabric of her shirt made it difficult for him to stay focused on her face.
She gripped the television remote as though it was a lifeline.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d watch something for a few minutes.” She moistened her lips, and he narrowly avoided looking at them.
He needed to get rid of the light in the room before his gaze slipped down to her body. He was already trying not to consider what it would feel like to touch her.
“There’s a TV in your room.” He took the remote and glanced at the screen. Before bed he’d been watching the movie channel, so of course, at this time of night, there was porn playing. The woman on the screen was giving an enthusiastic blowjob. He raised a brow at Minnow, as though she’d turned porn on deliberately, and her cheeks turned pink. He hit last on the remote, and it switched to Discovery before he shut it off.
In the dark, Minnow whispered, “They say watching TV in your sleeping space can cause insomnia.”
“Miss Korsgaard, no one is to be out of their room when everyone else is asleep, unless there’s an emergency.”
She moved into the moonlit hallway. “Oh...I had no idea.” When she turned back to face him, she was a fragile outline of shadow.
He was trying not to think of the way the woman on the movie had been looking up adoringly at the man she was sucking off because his mind was trying to superimpose Minnow’s anxious expression into the scenario. The fact that he made her nervous turned him on.
“But why? I mean, no one leaves to go to work and there doesn’t seem to be set hours here, other than for dinner.”