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Her head shakes as she drags her tongue across her pouty lip. “Nothing. I want nothing from you. Go home with your drunk stepsister, who you hate, and have a nice fucking life.”
“Finally,” I grumble, watching her walk back toward the wide-open French doors.
I spin back around to Elodie, who’s leaning onto the deck railing with her hands hanging over it. “Come on, Freckles.” I take her by the waist again, trying to steady her on her feet, but when her body goes slack, I realize she’s not even awake. “Elodie,” I say, shaking her a little to try and wake her up.
It’s no use, so I lift her up and throw her over my shoulder, hoping like hell she doesn’t vomit down my back. “You get sick on me or my car, you’re cleaning up the damn mess.” She can’t hear me, but I mean every word I say. I’m not dealing with that shit. I don’t even wanna deal with her drunk ass right now.
I’m carrying Elodie down the stairs to the backyard when I hear someone holler my name. “Rome!”
I glance over my shoulder and see Brogan hurrying toward us. “Is she okay?” She messes with Elodie’s hair, flipping it out of her face. “Oh, El. You poor thing.”
“She’s fine. Just drunk off her ass.”
I keep going down, stopping when Brogan asks, “How the hell did this happen off one drink?”
I stop walking. “One drink?”
“Yeah. Her friend Julia said she only had one, that she knows of, and the next thing she knew, Elodie was dancing on the kitchen countertop. I know my sister is a lightweight, but she’s not a child. She should be able to handle a drink.”
Elodie is getting heavy as hell on my shoulder, so I keep going down, and when we make it to the bottom, I reposition her. “I’ll find out what the hell happened. Right now, I just need to get her home and in bed.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Fine,” I tell her. “Where’s her car keys? I’ll leave mine here.”
“She left them in the car inside her glove box.” Brogan steps to my side to follow me and I look around.
“Gage,” I holler when I spot him by the fire. “Get your ass over here.”
With an ice pack still pressed to his eye, he walks briskly toward me. “Look, Rome. I didn’t mean no harm?—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap at him, not giving a damn what he has to say.
“I’m just saying. It was the heat of the moment and she looked so hot…” His words trail off when he realizes he’s only digging himself deeper by talking.
“Just quit talking and go find Brady. Tell him I’m leaving my car here tonight and I’ll pick it up in the morning.”
He nods. “Yeah. Sure. Anything I can do to help.”
I snarl at him, remembering the way his fingers slid up her dress like they were moving with intent, and it’s taking everything in me not to hand Elodie off to her sister and kick his fucking ass.
Brogan leads the way to Elodie’s car and pulls open the back door for me so I can lay Elodie down. She hops in the passenger seat while I get Elodie somewhat buckled up. I round the car to the driver’s side, stopping in my tracks when I notice the front tire is completely flat. “What the fuck?” I walk back around the car, checking all the tires, noticing they’re all flat.
“What’s wrong?” I hear Brogan ask as she opens her door back up.
“The tires are fucking flat.”
Brogan gets out and starts walking around with me, observing the rims practically sitting on the ground. “Oh my God. They weren’t like this when we drove here.”
“No shit,” I tell her. “You wouldn’t have made it here if they were. This happened here. And it was definitely on purpose.”
“Who would do this to Elodie? She’s so sweet to everyone.”
I keep my lips sealed, not willing to cut Elodie down to her sister by telling her why she isn’t this sweet girl everyone thinks she is. Even if her intentions were pure with all the dumb shit she’s pulled, she still doesn't stop to think about her actions and how they’re going to affect the people around her. However, this shit is uncalled for.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “But I sure as hell plan to find out.”
I walk around the car a couple more times to see if there was anything left behind that might give me an idea who did this. After crouching down to eye level, I notice the tires have all been slashed.
