I slid him a sidelong glance as I pulled on my coat. “Not today.”
* * *
* * *
It took two hours, five devoured pizzas, three episodes of Hell on Wheels, and four pitchers of Lila’s insanely strong margaritas for the topic to come up.
I was almost relieved when it did.
It had only been a matter of time and I was eager to get it out of the way.
“So Priest and Wrath tried to kill you,” Tay said conversationally as she rubbed her bloated belly and continued to eat from the depleted bowl of popcorn perched on Maja’s lap. “You know, with those two, I’m surprised you survived.”
Cressida winced. “Hey, we all know they did not try to kill, Bea. Those two might be scary, but they’ve earned our respect a million times over.”
“No shit,” Harleigh Rose added, leaning forward on the couch where she’d been snuggling with Lila to scowl properly at Tayline. “They love us. They wouldn’t knowingly harm a fuckin’ hair on our heads.”
I looked at Loulou, but she was chewing her bottom lip, conspicuously silent when she was usually the first to stand up for any of the club’s brothers.
“Foxy?” Hannah asked, pausing in her task of braiding my hair. “You got a problem with those two because of this?”
The pause was so slight, just a half second beat, but it resonated through the room like a struck gong.
“No,” she said slowly, staring at my feet in her lap as she painted my toes a pale pink. “No, I don’t have a problem with them. Wrath didn’t know what he was doing. He’s new and eager to prove himself after working with a club who tried to take us down. But Priest… he should have known better. He’s never made a mistake like this before.”
“So, you’re going to hate him for it?” I demanded, tensing so hard my muscles ached, and Cleo shifted up from her half-sprawl on my left side. “He’s human, Loulou. Everyone makes mistakes.”
Her mouth set in that stubborn line that had irritated me my entire life because it meant nothing I said would reach her.
Tayline sighed dramatically. “Okay, I admit I said what I said to get a little reaction, but I wasn’t serious, Lou. Priest is Priest, and he pretty much admits he doesn’t have a heart, but that’s not true, and you know it. I bet you he’s haunted by what happened.”
“And I bet you didn’t make it any better when you yelled at him,” I added, just to twist the knife.
“Or when you kept him from seeing Bea,” Harleigh Rose added.
Lou leaned over to slap her ripped jean-clad thigh, but the damage was done.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked, almost woodenly, because I couldn’t believe my sister would be so cruel.
She was not a mean-spirited person. It would have been so easy, almost cliché, for the many trials and tribulations of her life to hone her edges into sharp, lethal corners, but instead, they had worn her smooth like the velvet edge of rock weathered by a battering seas.
She was kind and good, beautiful in all the ways I knew a person could be.
“Why would you do such a thing?” Cleo asked softly, always soft because she was a girl of careful consideration and thoughtful silences.
Benny had frozen with a spoonful of ice cream half-way to his mouth. “Lou, that isn’t like you, at all.”
“She was protecting you,” Lila said, sympathy in her voice but a frown between her almond-shaped eyes. “At least, she thought she was.”
“And who was protecting Priest?” I countered, suddenly too hot and feeling too crowded. I surged to my feet, dislodging the nail polish all over the towel beside Lou’s lap, jarring Cleo, and ripping my hair painfully from Hannah’s grip.
Suddenly, I hated this scene and the intimacy of it. Because it seemed glaringly fake now after my sister’s cruelty. Were we all just playacting being a community, a family?
Because I knew after my parents, and I knew now with The Fallen exactly what was and wasn’t family.
“I’ve never known you to be cruel,” I whispered to my sister because something like brutal disappointment was choking my throat. “But you left Priest out of that hospital room where our family and the club gathered like they always do when someone’s hurt. You took that from him, and he didn’t deserve it.”
Finally, the impact of her actions seemed to hit Lou like a metric ton of bricks. Her features cracked down the middle, sorrow seeping through the fissures.
“You don’t get to choose what kind of bad a man can be or what ways rebellion is acceptable to you. You fell in love with a man most people would consider a monster,” I reminded her.
Instantly, anger fired her face with resolve. “Zeus is the best man I know. He does everything for our family.”