“She asked if she could have it, I said no, and then she took it anyway,” I say. “Remind you of anyone?”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asks, his voice dangerously quiet.
“It means how many times did you get dragged down to the Sherriff’s station for stealing lighters and malt liquor from the Gas ’N’ Go?” I hiss. “The only reason you don’t have a juvie record is that every deputy in the county knew who your daddy was—”
“The shit I did has nothing to do with this,” he finally says, stepping closer.
I fold my arms, glaring upward.
“Only that the apple apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“How the fuck is this about me?” he shout-whispers. “You can’t keep track of the knife because I swear to God you’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on and somehow—”
The sliding glass door to the porch slides open, and Levi steps through, then stops. He nods once, a plate full of foil-wrapped potatoes in his hands, then proceeds across the kitchen to put it down on the counter in complete silence, Daniel and I still standing about two feet apart.
“Eli said to tell you five more minutes,” he says, not making eye contact, then heads back out.
“Thanks,” I say to his retreating form.
“She sliced herself open with it!” he says. “An inch lower and she’d have gotten herself across the wrist, for fuck’s sake, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d stolen it or not!”
The sliding glass door opens again, and now it’s Seth, who looks from Daniel to me and back again, one eyebrow raised.
“Sorry to interrupt, but can I steal you for a minute?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Daniel says, giving me a hard look. “It’s fine, we’re done here.”
He shoots me a look, then stomps off to join his brother.
I wait until his back is turned, then flip him off with both hands.Chapter Twenty-NineCharlieI stay for dinner. I don’t even know why. If I were smart I’d invent some excuse about needing to water my cactus and just leave, but I don’t really want Daniel’s whole family to know we got into a fight, so I stay.
As if the ensuing weird awkwardness doesn’t make it crystal fucking clear that we got into a fight. His brothers are all way, way nicer to me than usual. After dinner I’m clearing some glasses off the back porch, and Seth sticks his head out, then follows me and takes the stack of glasses from my hand.
“He’ll calm down,” he says. “You know how he is.”
“I’m not going to calm down,” I huff. “I’m never calming down.”
Seth gives me his slightly off-kilter grin. When he was a kid he got hit in the face by a large stick — all three of his older brothers deny being the culprit, but everyone knows it was one of them — so there’s a tiny scar on his upper left lip that’s just enough to make his smile the smallest bit crooked.
It’s very, very charming. Everything about Seth is very charming.
“See if you feel that way tomorrow,” he says, then shifts his stance, looks at me, a stack of glasses in both hands. “He’s just being overprotective,” Seth goes on. “You know how people are, they get up to all sorts of shit, then they have a kid and realize that the kid might get up to the same shit they did.”
“That doesn’t make it my fault,” I grumble.
“He’s never been good at staying pissed,” Seth says. “I predict he’ll start seeing reason by about eleven tomorrow morning, so by the time Rusty has her ballet lesson he’ll conveniently be full-on sorry.”
“Goddammit,” I mutter. Does everyone in this town know what Daniel does during Rusty’s ballet lessons?
“Sorry,” Seth says, laughing, and turns to take the glasses back into the house.
“You’re not,” I call after him.
He opens the back door and gives me that stupid charming grin again.
“Nope,” he says and disappears.At five forty-five the next day, there’s a knock on my door, the way there’s been a knock on my door every Monday for the past couple weeks.
Briefly, I consider not answering it, because I’m still slightly annoyed that Daniel apparently thinks I’m irresponsible and untrustworthy.
But then he knocks again so I shut the fridge and go answer it. Because of course, Seth was right, and I didn’t stay full-on mad forever.
“Hey,” Daniel says when I open the door.
The man really is irritatingly hot, even now, when I’m still slightly mad at him. I take a moment and give him a once over, because I think I deserve a little eye candy right now.
“We can’t have make-up sex until we make up,” I say, leaning against the doorjamb.
His eyes light up in a teasing smile.
“I thought the sex was the making up,” he says.
“Well, that’s why you were single until you made me pretend to marry you,” I say, but I’m laughing.