She blinked.
“You should let him fight his own battles,” I continued. “You’re doing more harm than good. You’re enabling him.”
She looked stricken.
I waited.
She wet her lips. “All right,” she said, defeated. “Did you talk to my dad or something?”
“What?”
“Just be careful. He had…issues when he was a kid. Don’t be too rough, all right?”
She looked as exhausted as I felt. I wanted to pull her on the bed and lie down with her. Just to sleep, I realized. Just so she could rest.
That was something new. I’d never brought a girl to bed just to sleep before.
I wanted to take care of her.
I scowled. Where the hell did that come from?
“Did you hear what I said?” she demanded.
“What?”
“Never mind. Where should I stay?”
“Kitchen. Off the living room, to your left.”
“Fine.”
She marched past me. I followed her to the living room.
“Kar! Where are you going?” Dylan asked.
“I’m going over there.” She pointed to the den, walking briskly in the wrong
direction for the kitchen, where I told her to wait. “And you’re staying over there.”
“But…”
His words cut off as I stood in front of him. He was young, probably in high school. But old enough to have a sense of responsibility. And she wanted me to put on the kid gloves just because he had issues?
How many times had he used that one to skid over his own responsibilities and pass them on to her? No matter how strong and aggressive she was, she had a soft heart for people she cared about. I bet she felt guilty for the past, and he knew how to wield that against her. It was a kind of power he had over her.
I knew because I was, in some way, like him when I was a kid. I attacked and swung with my fists. He, on the other hand, used them to cover up blows thrown his way and huddled in the corner like a scared mouse.
Different issues, different ways of dealing with our problems, but the core was the same.
Selfish. Needy. Entitled. Like I was. Even now I knew there was still a lot of those things left in me.
“I’m Dylan. Hi.”
I just looked at him, saying nothing.
He didn’t look like his sister. His hair was blond, his face round and had the chubby look of a well-fed pet.
“Right. I said that before. We’re fixing your motorcycle, so we’re cool, right? We’ll make it better than it was before. You’re going to love it!”