74. Dollie—present day
Dollie—present day
“ C an we turn this off?” I ask Shane about the song he has on repeat.
Between the song and Bubbles acting like a lunatic, barking every second, spinning with all the energy in the world, running into the reading room, then returning with so much disappointment when I don’t follow her, I can’t take it.
Gripping her by the collar, I lead her to the back door. She jumps around, thrashing in my hold until I manage to get the door shut with her locked on the other side of the glass.
She howls, big paws on the handle, trying to get back in.
I collect her sock and toss it in the washing machine, not having it in me to part with anything I don’t need to.
Shane’s finger prods the button on the side of his phone, and the music gets louder, blocking her out.
“Really?”
“I’m leaving in like two minutes.” He sits at the breakfast table, dressed like a typical garage worker. Cereal he didn’t buy dripping down his chin. Those colorful things remind me of Ambrose.
Ambrose hates this song.
“He’s obviously not here, Shane,” I say, a forceful finger heading to his phone on the table. “We don’t have to have this on repeat.”
He pulls the device back before I can touch it, and that song about the days going faster continues.
“You don’t get to touch my phone without my permission, remember.” He shoves another spoonful of cereal into his mouth, then talks with it full. “He could be around here somewhere.”
I glance at the secret entry point through which I came last night. The joining is so seamless, I can barely make it out, yet I know exactly where it is, hidden in the wall directly behind Shane.
He restarts the song, knowing full well how much Ambrose hates it—knowing why he hates it.
The bags under Shane’s eyes hold as much information as Mom’s diary because he’d stayed up practically all night reading it, claiming he couldn’t sleep.
Mom guessed why this song always raised the hairs on Ambrose’s neck. Why his breathing changed and his spine straightened every time he heard the first beat…
It was playing while he was assaulted.
“Can you just stop this song?” I ask, taking a quick glance at the clock.
If Shane doesn’t leave soon, he’ll be late for work.
“Why are you watching the time?”
“I don’t want you to be late.” Again, I’m pacifying.
“Yeah, I should get going.” With a huff, he turns off his song and stands. “You can take care of this, right?” He points to his bowl and the mess of splattered milk he’s made around it.
I nod.
“Okay, give me a kiss.” He directs me to him with a single finger wiggling.
Reluctant steps take me to him. I stretch on my toes to place a kiss on his cheek, but he turns his head, and I get his mouth and forceful tongue instead.
I let his tongue invade my mouth, giving little effort back, before I lightly push at his chest.
“Are you going to be good while I’m gone?” he asks, his lips still wet from the kiss I didn’t want.
I didn’t want the ones an hour ago, either. I didn’t want his hands on my body. But after tiring of the diary, he finally turned to me. All he said was. “Moans travel through the walls.”
I gave nothing back, a heavy swallow taking my words deep inside me.
There’s no way Shane could prove I was in Ambrose’s room, but he started jabbering on about me being a disrespectful little slut.
I sat there and took it when all I wanted to do was yell for help.
I took the slap that followed. Then, as if he realized I couldn’t teleport from one room to another, he started rapidly firing apologies my way.
Telling me how I was the best thing to ever happen to him, the most beautiful part of his life, how he could make it all up to me.
That’s when he started groping me through my clothes, touching me through my shorts. I’m not sure if he felt the moist patch on my underwear from where Ambrose touched me, or maybe he thought it was there because of him, but he never said anything.
He never replied with words when I said I wasn’t in the mood, but his hand closed around my throat, and when he told me to moan for him, I was too scared to disagree.
His fingers were already moving inside me, quick jabs that felt like a stabbing between my legs. It lasted seconds before he rolled on a condom to remind me who I belonged to…
And in that moment, he did exactly that.
My feelings for either man can’t be put into words.
One makes me hate him with every pointed finger, every sarcastic sneer that sounds so much like his mother, every stain of purple that sits on my skin today, but most of all, each cruel jab he shoots at the other man in my life.
The one I fall deeper in love with through every stolen smile, all those silent conversations and naughty text messages…
all those whispered touches we shouldn’t have had because we grew up as siblings.
The man across the hall.
My brother, my person—isn’t an adequate term for the one who is my everything.
A smile comes easily to my face as I walk Shane out, because I’m not thinking of him.
Another kiss is stolen at the door, and it takes everything in me to hold the tears back when he pulls me in, his hands gripping my ass like he did this morning.
I don’t want him touching me there or anywhere else ever again.
“I’ll see you later.” He doesn’t ask me if it’s okay if he comes back over, but he dares me with a cruel glare to disagree.
And I don’t.
As soon as he’s outside, I rush for the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Ambrose! Are you home?”
The doorbell booms through the house, and I freeze in the middle of the staircase, thinking it’s Shane who left his key somewhere.
Oh, God. What if he heard me?
“It’s probably just Nyx,” I mumble to myself, hoping and praying it really is just Nyx here to finish fixing up the house and start on the yard.
Dropping down the last of the steps, wearing an ancient pair of pajamas I’d found in my closet this morning, I hope I won’t be judged for my outfit because it smells of mildew.
The baggy shirt, covered in My Little Ponies, the pink shorts, too—though I’m almost sure they’re not the matching pair—added with my dragged through a hedge looking hair and puffy eyes, makes me look terrible, I’m sure.
Lingering sadness causes an ache in my eyes, and I rub it away. The reason—last night and all that’s happened since—stays heavy in my mind as I move over the wooden floor.
Ding, dong.
“I’m coming!”
Lingering pains latch onto my body. My ass cheeks hurt almost as much as my breasts, where eager fingers prodded. The right one hurts more than the left, and I can’t help but worry if Shane’s done something to my lump.
There are less than two weeks until my appointment.
Two weeks more of worry and stress.
The ache between my legs and the one in my heart is still with me when I reach the door. It reminds me to take a glance in the mirror near the coat rack before revealing myself to the person outside— hopefully Nyx.
“Shit.” The red half-moons where Shane’s dirty nails pierced my skin are no less visible than I thought they’d be, standing proudly on both cheeks.
Hopefully, it’s not Nyx.
“Just a second!” I call out.
A few fast steps take me to the reading room—my dumping ground. There’ll be makeup in here... somewhere.
The bell rings two more times, and I stress, wondering how I can avoid this level of impatience.
I can’t, so against my better judgment, I head back to the door and pull it open without fixing my face.
I hide one cheek behind the heavy wood and the other behind a hand that fake scratches my cheekbone.
“Hi,” I say, recognizing the brunette from The Funhouse, and wondering what exactly she’s doing here.
“You? Well, I guess that explains why he isn’t at work. I almost hoped for a better excuse.” The brunette storms past me, entering the house without permission. “Where is he?”
Closing the door, I don’t ask her to leave as she snoops into the reading room.
“Ambrose?”
“Yes. Your boyfriend, where is he?”
The last time Valaria saw me was at the bar… with a certain barman who she pulled away from my lips.
“Why do you want to know so early in the morning?” I can’t help but ask.
“Because I asked him last night if he could cover for me to let in an order this morning, and, surprise, he missed work, again.” She spins to face me, her demeanor softening. “Have you been in some kind of accident?”
My fingers are soft against my cheek.
“I—”
“Never mind. It isn’t my business. Ambrose!”
“I don’t think he’s here. Unless he’s still asleep.”
“Yeah, well, not for long.” The woman storms straight for the stairs, kicking off her giant heels at the bottom.
“Wait, you can’t just run through my house.”
She stops halfway up the only staircase that everyone seems to use, and turns to me, in the perfect pinstripe suit she wears, staring me down in my poor choice of clothing.
“Well, you wanna tell him he’s fired? That no job means he isn’t keeping up with his probation terms, right before it comes to an end, or do you not keep your tongue out of his mouth long enough to actually talk? ”
“I don’t know what he’s told you, but it’s not as bad as you make it sound. We’re not blood siblings.”
A look of disgust pulls down her pretty features as her mouth drops. “You’re Dollancie? His sister? But I saw—you know what, what goes on between you is really none of my business.”
Continuing up the stairs, she reaches the top and points left, then right. “Which way is his room?”
“Right, then right again at the end.”
I follow her, playing with the hem of my shirt as she storms across the hallway.
“I’m sure he has a good reason for being late.”
I stop instantly, mouth gaping open as Valaria spins to me at my open door, revealing the bright pink, childlike room.
“Maybe, if it wasn’t an hour and a half.”
Ambrose’s door is open, too. I hadn’t dared to glance over earlier with Shane, but when Valaria barges straight in, I follow.
“Right. Why the fuck are you still in bed!”