30. Rafe
30
RAFE
I paced the living room, my mind spinning. It was bad enough that Lilah was living in the house, that I was face-to-face with my own fucking character flaws every fucking day. Now her little brother was here and somehow I felt even more ashamed.
“Will you sit down?” Jude scowled from the sofa. “Fuck.”
I paced a few more lengths, just to get on his nerves, then dropped into the chair by the fireplace. Jude had been on my nerves a lot lately and even I wasn’t deluded enough to call it anything but what it was: pure unrelenting jealousy.
Ever since I’d seen him fucking Lilah on the couch I’d wanted to punch his stupid thoughtful face. I knew Lilah liked that he was thoughtful, that he was gentle, and that just pissed me the fuck off because those were things I would never — could never — be. Lilah had forgiven Nolan and Jude because they’d been able to say they were sorry, but for the life of me, I just couldn’t bring myself to say it.
Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was just good old-fashioned denial. Probably it was both, but it didn’t really matter. I wanted Lilah more than I’d ever wanted a woman in my entire life and I couldn’t utter the two words that would let me have her.
And they would let me have her. I knew from the way she looked at me that she wanted me too, that her hunger burned as hot as her anger. I knew because my hunger burned as hot as my determination not to give in, not to say I was sorry even though I’d been sorry every fucking day of my life since that night in high school when we’d taken those fucking pictures.
It was sick. I was sick.
And I was sick because of her. Because I wanted her worse than I’d ever wanted anything and I knew I didn’t deserve her, something I proved with every day that passed when I didn’t say I was sorry.
I picked up the fireplace poker and pointed it like a weapon at various things in the room. It reminded me of the military, of all the hours I’d spent staring at targets through the scope of my rifle.
Then I thought of Sandoval. The sadistic fucker was running for senator.
Because of course he was.
I’d lost count of the number of men who abused their power and then sought more of it once they got a taste. Men like that — like Sandoval — weren’t satisfied with a little or even a lot.
They wanted it all.
I could already see it: first senator, then president. He wouldn’t stop.
“Did Matt say what happened?” Nolan asked Jude. “Was it something with their mom?”
I put the poker down. It was making me angrier, making me want to do something with it.
To Sandoval. To any fuck like me who’d hurt someone like Lilah.
Jude shook his head. “He didn’t say a word. I think Lilah might have told him they’d talk when they got back here to the house.”
I’d been surprised by how young the kid looked when they’d come home. I knew he was in high school, but I’d felt so grown in high school.
Like a man, which I obviously hadn’t been because no man would do what I’d done to Lilah.
But Matt was tall and scrawny, like a colt who hadn’t quite figured out how to use its spindly legs. He had hair a shade darker than Lilah’s that fell over his forehead, and in the one moment he’d looked at me I’d seen that he had Lilah’s green eyes.
She’d hustled him up the stairs and a couple minutes later her door had shut with a click.
“Must be about their mom,” Nolan said. “Sounds like she’s a pretty tough customer.”
“Or a whack job,” I said.
“I mean, she’s Lilah’s mom,” Jude said, like that meant we couldn’t call a spade a spade.
“Right, and Lilah’s mom sounds like a whack job,” I said.
Nolan sighed. “Let’s just focus on being here for Lilah. For her and her brother.”
He made it sound so easy, and I guess for him, it was. Nolan always knew the right thing to say, to do. He knew how to make people comfortable, how to look out for them.
It was like listening to someone speak a language I didn’t speak, like watching some kid play Bach or draw like Renoir or Monet or some shit. On my better days, I admired it, but who was I kidding? I didn’t have a lot of those, and on the other days, all the days in between, I was jealous as fuck and also confused because Nolan hadn’t had a dad around at all and somehow he’d become what some would call a “good man” while I was a fucking monster.
“Exactly,” Jude echoed. He looked pointedly at me. “This is something we can do for Lilah, and we all know you want to do things for Lilah, so don’t even try to sell us your pissed-off, annoyed bullshit.”
Denying it would only make me look guilty as charged and it was already annoying as fuck to live with two guys who knew you better than you knew yourself.
I stalked to the kitchen instead, trying not to think about the way Lilah had looked when she’d come in with her brother, the protective arm she’d had around him, the worry in her eyes.
Trying not to think about the fact that her whole fucking life, she’d been protecting him and herself too.
Resolve hardened in my gut. Protecting was something I could do. Something I was good at. And protecting Lilah was something I liked , something I could do for her, like Jude said.
But that didn’t mean I had to announce it to the world.