The Day He Kissed Her (Bad Boys of Crystal Lake 3)

“Oh,” Becca said. “That’s okay.”

“I don’t have any sugar either.”

She played with the edge of his laptop and shrugged. “That’s fine.”

He could play this game all day but so could Becca. Mac knew when he was done for, so he walked over to his bedroom and closed the door. When he turned back around, his sister was staring at him with big eyes.

“Shit, Mackenzie. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had someone here.”

“There’s no one—”

Becca’s eyebrow shot up. “Then why did you just close the door?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, walking over to the cupboard. He pulled out two mugs and set them aside. “It’s not like it would have stopped you if you had.”

Mackenzie tossed the old grains and got the machine set up before he leaned against the counter. Becca was quiet, fiddling with the cup he’d set out for her, and he knew by the way she was avoiding his eyes that he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. The bruise on her cheek was now a lovely shade of yellow, but the swelling had gone down and sometime between yesterday and today she’d tossed the sling her left arm had been in.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, Becs?”

“Promise me you won’t get mad.”

Okay. This wasn’t good.

Mackenzie clenched his teeth together and tried to relax, but his hands fisted at his side as his thoughts turned to his asshole brother-in-law. He knew where this was going. He’d seen it all before.

“I…David called last night, and I need to go and see him.”

“No,” Mac shot back, pushing away from the counter as his anger began to boil. It began to boil hard, and he put some distance between himself and Becca. “Are you kidding me? Jesus Christ, Becs. I thought you had more sense than that.”

“Mac. He’s…it’s just to talk things out.”

Mackenzie rounded the corner of the countertop and glared at his sister. “Let me guess. He loves you and he’s sorry that he beat your face in. He didn’t mean to hurt you and he sure as hell didn’t mean to almost break your arm.”

Becca winced but shoved her chin up at him. “Goddammit, Mac. Keep your voice down. I don’t need your bimbo of the day hearing my business.”

Ma

c had a moment where he saw red. It was a bright-crimson sheet of anger that washed over him, and he had to physically move away from his sister because he didn’t trust himself.

“What is it that you think you’re going to accomplish by going back to him?”

“Mac, you don’t understand. He’s my husband and he’s—”

“He’s a fucking prick who used you as a punching bag. That’s not a husband. That’s not a father. That’s a coward and a bully, and you deserve a hell of a lot more than someone like that.”

“Mac—”

“Don’t Mac me. He beat you and put you in a goddamn hospital. What the hell do you want me to say? Didn’t you see enough of that when we were kids? How many times did Dad slap the shit out of Mom, and when he got tired of that, he turned to us? How many times did he say he was sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again?”

Her eyes got shiny, as if they were full of tears, but Mackenzie didn’t give a rat’s ass.

“How many times did we go to school when it was a hundred goddamn degrees outside, wearing long-sleeve shirts because we were too embarrassed for our friends to see the bruises on our arms? Or the belt marks on our backs? Ten times? Fifty? One hundred?”

Jesus, Mac was so angry. He clenched and unclenched his fists, eyeing the punching bag he’d installed in the family room.

Becca stood. “David is not our father. He’s not! And I need to see him, Mackenzie. I need to talk to him.”

Mac threw his hands into the air. Gone were all the warm, fuzzy feelings he’d woken with—but he should have known. This here, this brutality was his reality, and he would never get away from it.