AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No.” I’m cheesing, watching the corners of his eyes crinkle with amusement.
He steps into my space and brushes his lips across mine in a gentle kiss, pulling away before it can really go anywhere. “C’mon, let’s get your food.”
I feel the sappy smile on my face, and I let the happiness coat me like a blanket. Dante opens the door for me and I walk into a little slice of heaven. In some ways, it reminds me of my favorite coffee shop down the block from my dorm room: cozy chairs, eclectic table and chairs, plants decorating the window sills, smiling baristas behind the counter.
“Ah, she’s back,” Ashley, the barista who usually takes the morning shift greets us. “Usual today?”
“Yep, I’ll take five muffins though, please.”
“And a coffee, black,” Dante says.
“Ooh, girl, you know we make ‘em fresh every day, right? Five-days-old muffins might not hold up so well in this kind of weather.”
“They’re not all for me, even though they’re so good I could definitely eat them all. I’m bringing them back to our apartment.”
“Okay, okay, I got you. That’ll be twenty-three fifty-nine, please.”
Dante steps to the counter to pay when I hear, “Maddie?”
I spin on my heel and come face to face with my sister. “Mary? What are you doing here?”
My sister folds her arms across her chest tightly, the pale pink cardigan going taut around her. “What does it look like? I’m getting coffee. Nice to see you’re alive though, ya know?”
Guilt floods me instantly, and I take a step toward her. “I’m sorry. I . . . I should be back at the dorm with you. To help, I don’t know, process everything.”
She bristles and her eyes narrow. I brace myself for whatever venom she’s going to spit at me. “No, don’t bother yourself. Obviously, you’re too busy fucking this guy to spend time with your sister, who just found out she has a secret family she’s never met before.”
My mouth parts, but no words come out. I’m a little shell-shocked by her outburst. But it isn’t all that out of character. I pack my feelings about it into a little ball and shove it in a box and bury it somewhere inside. “Look, I know you’re hurting, but so am I and—”
“You have no idea how I’m feeling. You’re just like Lainey, running after the first dick to be fucking nice to you.”
My mouth parts as I stare at the girl who used to look just like me, but now, now I don’t even recognize her.
A masculine hand with a big silver ring slings over my sister’s shoulder to rest on her arm. “You causing trouble again, sugar?”
I follow the arm and see it’s connected to a very large, very scary looking guy in a baseball hat and a leather cut. He looks like he walked out of that TV show about an MC.
Mary shrugs his arm off. “Fuck off, Griz.”
I stare with my mouth still hanging open as my sister turns around and storms out of the coffee shop without a backward glance at me. The guy, Griz, I guess, winks at me and follows her out.
“Should I be worried about that?”
“I recognized his cut as Blue Knights, so I’ll put in a few calls to check it out,” Dante says from behind me. “Here’s your iced tea.”
“Thank you,” I murmur as I grab my to-go cup. The bag and his coffee in one hand, he laces our fingers together in the other, and we walk back to our apartment. My mind stays on my sister the whole way.
