Chapter One #2
“What, are you holding him hostage?” Jamie Atwater asks, looking down his nose at me from his lofty position on our front porch. As he crouches, he says, in a softer voice he reserves strictly for animals, “Hey, buddy.”
Goose wriggles out of my hold to paw at Jamie’s knees and snuffle into his shirt, snorting happily.
I needed to be comforted, but sure. This is fine.
“Goose!” my brother calls as he rounds the corner to the entryway. “Gooseter! Let the man breathe.”
I scowl as Goose turns and runs to my brother. Sawyer bends, catching Goose and lifting him into his arms like a giant sixty-pound baby.
Jamie steps inside, shutting the door behind him.
I quickly stand, bringing myself up to my full five feet ten inches so we’re at eye level.
As I do, I take stock of the changes from the year he’s spent at Central Florida State University in Orlando—the very same school I’m bound for next week, whether I’ve got somewhere to live there or not.
His unruly hair, always worn a little long, has been shorn short, and he looks thinner yet somehow more muscular, like every soft part of him has been carved away. His jaw and cheekbones, always defined, are now sharp enough to draw blood.
The rest of him seems unchanged—the hooded hazel eyes and flat mouth with its fuller lower lip, which have always given him a slightly judging air.
Even when we were younger, Jamie seemed like he was assessing every room he walked into.
It pairs nicely with his patronizing tone as he says, “Hi, Blair.”
“Hello, Jamie,” I reply, aiming for equally haughty, if not more so.
Sawyer, who’s drifted closer, eyes me. “Ew, are you crying?”
My haughtiness falls away in an instant.
“No! I have allergies!” I cannot show any sign of weakness in front of my brother.
He’s a scavenger—if he senses the rot of my sadness, he’ll dive in for a meal like a vulture feasting on a flattened squirrel.
“Maybe it’s because you’re back. I could probably smell your body spray all the way from the Gas ’n’ Go. ”
Sawyer sets Goose down and gives his armpit an exaggerated sniff. “Smells like masculinity.”
“Toxic masculinity,” I reply. “And toxic BO. What a combination. No wonder your romantic prospects are beating down our door. Oh wait, that was just Jamie—unless there’s someone else out here?
” I make a big show of swinging the front door open again, and it pops Jamie in the back.
He stumbles forward with a glare in my direction as I poke my head out, pretending to look around, prompting another chime from the motion-sensitive doorbell.
“Nope, just a raccoon,” I say as I shut the door again, glancing in Jamie’s direction. “I’m assuming you were both lured in by the stench of eau de garbáge?”
Having borne witness to many, many Milligan sibling spats, Jamie wisely chooses not to wade in.
“Whatever, virgin,” Sawyer says in that dismissive older-brother voice of his.
I can’t even look at Jamie. Despite not caring what he thinks of me or my sex life—obviously!
—my cheeks still flame. But trying to argue would just be embarrassing—Actually, Sawyer, I’ve had a lot of sex!
With my real live boyfriend! Kyle!—and Kyle isn’t even my boyfriend anymore, so I settle for flipping him off.
He flips me off back, and we stand like that for a long time, each waiting for the other to give up.
As always with my brother, it is a battle of wills, not strength.
“You’re such a waste of time,” I say to Sawyer, still flipping my middle finger at him as I start up the stairs.
“Yeah, I can totally tell,” Sawyer replies.
I’m halfway up, middle finger held over the banister, when a deep voice says from above, “Sawyer.”
We all look up. Our stepdad, Victor, stands on the landing that overlooks the entryway.
Even with bedhead, in an old Gators shirt and plaid pajama pants, Victor sucks all the air out of the room.
“It’s a weeknight,” he says. “Your mother and I have work in the morning. All I’m hearing is the bell chirping over and over again. ”
“That wasn’t me,” Sawyer says. “It was Blair.”
I backtrack down the stairs, glancing at Jamie. As much as I don’t want to involve myself here, I also don’t want Jamie to witness me throwing my brother to the wolves. “He’s right. That was me. Sorry.”
Victor keeps his eyes on my brother. “I still think it’s a little late for guests.”
I close my mouth, because I don’t want to piss him off.
Victor rarely gets angry with me the way he does with Sawyer—theirs is an extremely contentious relationship—but sometimes if I venture too close to one of their spats, I can get caught in the crosshairs by accident.
I’m not willing to risk it after everything else that’s happened tonight.
“Sorry, sir,” Jamie says stiffly at the same time that Sawyer answers, “Fine. Then we’ll leave.”
Mom, who’s just come up behind Victor, says, “Sawyer,” in the semi-soothing voice she uses to smooth over these fights.
“It’s late,” Victor says, decidedly not soothing.
“I think I’m a little old for curfews,” Sawyer replies.
“Not if you’re living in our house,” says Victor.
“Then it’s a good thing I don’t anymore.”
I roll my eyes. One year in the dorms that our parents are paying for, and suddenly he’s Mr. Independent? Please.
“Goose,” I whisper, even knowing it’s fruitless. Goose is pressed protectively against my brother’s legs, and he won’t abandon Sawyer until the front door shuts behind him.
And it will shut. Sawyer has never been cowed by Victor, let alone the My house, my rules threat. He’s got a spine of steel. Something else that he sucked out of the gene pool before I even had a chance.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Victor demands as Sawyer grabs his keys from the dish by the door.
My brother ignores him, shooting me a withering look as he mutters, “Thanks for the backup, as always.”
I feel a momentary flash of guilt, but what am I supposed to do?
Sawyer’s been back from Tallahassee all of, what, five hours?
And he’s already found a way to get under Victor’s skin.
I don’t need that extra stress on my night, especially not when we have a few more days of this before Sawyer heads back to school.
He might fight our parents on everything, but when they insisted we both do summer session every year—getting our credits in faster, graduating as quickly as possible—Sawyer accepted this without argument.
A shocking twist from the guy whose favorite hobby is antagonizing others.
Case in point: As Sawyer flings the door open and steps out, the doorbell trills again like a middle finger pointed straight at Victor.
“Bye, Blair,” Jamie says to me, direct as always.
“Goodbye, Jamie.” As he turns to follow Sawyer, I lean out the front door and add, “Hey, if you see me on campus, do me a favor? Pretend you don’t know me.”
Jamie laughs, quirking a brow at me as he ambles backward down the front walk. “You first.”