So why is he avoiding me?
“Where’s my baby brother?” Stormy sings as she enters the clubhouse.
I groan to see her in her short cutoff denim shorts and a tight black tank top. She has a shit fit if Calla wears anything remotely risqué but prances around barely clothed despite the fact she’s a mom now. It’s fucking disgusting.
“What do you want?” I grumble, turning my back to her so I can pour her a drink at the clubhouse bar.
“A better fucking attitude, that’s what,” she snaps back in that big sister tone that never fails to grate on my nerves.
“I meant what to drink?”
“Just a Coke. I think I might be pregnant again. Better be safe.”
Whipping my head around, I glower at her. “What? Already?”
Her grin is devilish. “Copper has his ways…”
“Sick. Say no more. Please. I fucking beg of you.”
“You’re always such a prickly pear, Cove. What the hell? I thought that once you started getting laid, you’d chill on the attitude.”
She heard through the gossip grapevine of the Royal fucking bastards that I was seeing Dragon. At first, she bitched me out, and then she was just…okay with it. Almost like she expected it. Which was annoying because I didn’t expect to fall for Chase Thomas aka Dragon. And I did. I fell hard. For what?
I fill her a glass with ice and Coke before shoving it across the bar top toward her. “Where’s my niece?”
“Bermuda has her. I swear she likes him better than she likes her own parents.” She huffs and gestures at me, frowning. “Seriously, you’re upset. I came out here to talk to you. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I swallow hard, dropping my gaze to my boots. “I don’t understand where everything went wrong.”
“With Dragon?” Her voice is soft and gentle. Motherly. It makes my heart clench.
“Maybe I was just a fuck and nothing more.”
She sighs heavily. “Oh my God. Boys are so pathetic. Did you even try talking to him about it?”
I flip her off and glower at her. My mouth opens with a retort, but she’s right. I’ve sat in the clubhouse pouting rather than tracking him down to demand he talk to me.
“Where is he?” I croak out.
She laughs. “Where is he always?”
With Katana. His best friend. I’m not jealous. I just want to talk to him and touch him and kiss him. We haven’t had sex since the night before everything went down over a week ago.
Do I disgust him now?
Because Night Giant was groping me and almost fucked me?
“Can’t you bother someone else? Like Filter?”
Poking that wound never gets old. She drains her Coke glass before slamming it down on the bar top.
“Filter and I came to an agreement,” she says icily. “If he hurts Calla, I’ll have my dogs eat him alive.”
Hansel and Gretel, though intimidating Dobermans, aren’t exactly the human-eating types. They’re more likely to lick you to death.
“Mmhmm.”
“You’re a sassy bottom.”
I gape at her in horror. “Brenda!”
She cackles at being called by her real name, knowing she got to me. “For fuck’s sake, Cove, everyone knows you’re the bottom.”
“Y’all don’t know shit,” I spit out.
“Dragon staked his claim on you. Plus, with all the trauma he went through, I don’t really think he’ll ever let someone top him.”
“For a straight woman, who happens to be my sister, you’re awfully smug about your knowledge into my relationship.”
“Power bottom,” she says, ignoring my snappy words. “I think he’d be into that. You two actually make a really adorable couple.”
Not anymore.
We’re not anything.
He’s putting distance between us and I’ll be alone.
Pain radiates in my chest. I rub between my pectorals, hoping to release the ache inside me. Stormy softens and reaches out her hand.
“Honey, come here.”
I go to my sister and take her hand. “I hate you.”
“I know you do, but you love me too. Just like I know you love Dragon, which is an incredible feat because he’s not exactly easy to like, much less love.”
I don’t love Dragon.
Liar.
Jerking my hand from her grip, I let out a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Stop being such a baby, Cove. You’re a man now. Be the sassy bottom you are and go claim your top!”
I don’t know what the fuck she’s been watching on television or reading in her kinky sex books or talking about with Hadley, but she’s getting on my last nerve.
“Bye, Brenda.”
She fishes a keyring from her cleavage, and I cringe. “Here. Take Filter’s bike. I stole it when he had his tongue down our sister’s throat.” She smirks at me. “Seriously. Get your ass down to the lake.”
Maybe I’ve been avoiding the inevitable. Maybe he and I both have. Maybe it’s like a bandage. It’ll hurt a lot worse if I peel back the edges rather than yanking it off in one tug. If he doesn’t want us to be together, that’s fine. I’ll survive.