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Roxy laughed. “God, Dex, you’re so blinded by your fake hatred you can’t even admit that. She’s beautiful, she’s kickass, and she doesn’t cower to your stupid little ideas. Personally, I think you should marry her immediately.”
“Fuck, all right, she’s beautiful. There. Are you happy?” I threw my arms up. “I can appreciate that, but that doesn’t mean I like her.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t. Your insistence that you hate her makes me think you do actually like her.”
I ran my hand through my hair again, this time, tugging lightly on it. “I don’t like her. I’m attracted to her, and that makes this awkward as fuck. I don’t want to be attracted to her or think of her as anything other than the biggest pain in the ass since a colonoscopy.”
“That’s one helluva way to refer to a woman, I have to admit.”
“You’re about to join her, Rox!”
My sister fought her amusement for all of five seconds. “Oh my God. I love you. You’re so angry at yourself it’s comical.”
“I’m glad my frustration is amusing to you, sis.” I made my way toward the dining room door, but she was closer and beat me to it.
She flattened herself against it and shook her head. “I think your problem is that she’s nothing like you thought. It’s been, what? Four? Five days? And you’re already eating your words, brother. Face it: you know she’s beautiful. She’s strong and independent, and you thought she’d roll over within a day, but she’s standing toe-to-toe with you. She’s proving you wrong and you hate it.”
My jaw twitched.
“And to make matters worse,” she smirked, “you want her, and you can’t do anything about it, because you know she’d introduce her knee to your little boy parts.”
“If you refer to my cock as that again, I will smash your new make-up palette with my hammer.”
Her jaw dropped. “Sometimes I think you’re thirteen,” she hissed.
“Sometimes you act like it,” I snapped back.
The door yanked open. The swift movement sent Roxy flying backward, and only her quick reflexes as she grabbed hold of the doorframe stopped her from landing on her ass.
Greta looked down at her then up at me. “Your dinner is ready. And you both act like gosh darn thirteen-year-olds. Shut your mouths and come eat.”
No matter how pissed I was, nobody disobeyed her when she spoke to you like that.
Chapter Twelve – Jamie
“It’s not that bad,” Haley said, stroking my hair. “At least you have a date?”
I turned my face to the side so I no longer had a mouthful of pillow. “Hales, in a few hours, I have to get dressed for a party and be surrounded by my sworn enemy’s family. It’s terrible. Deplorable. I want to run away.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re pretty dramatic?”
“Yes. You, all the time.” I shifted and sat up with a huff. “I couldn’t even say no. His grandpa backed me into a corner and left before I could do a thing. I swear, we didn’t say a word to each other the entire day yesterday. He even told me to take today off because it was so fucking awkward.”
“Obviously, you obliged. Which explains the homeless person look.”
She called it homeless person, I called it mechanic off-duty. In other words, all my clothes were stained with something you could find in a repair shop, and I was okay with that.
It’d been so normal for so long.
“What am I gonna do, Haley? This evening is going to be hell. The only time we’ve ever been nice to each other is when we got tacos.”
“Oh, oh! Did you take him to the place by the auto store?”
I nodded. “We needed wiper blades and I said tacos and he was all over that like a kitten with yarn ball.”
She tapped her finger against her lips. “If you dressed up like a taco…”
“Do not finish that sentence. Ugh.” I slid down my bed and crossed to my closet. “What am I even supposed to wear? It’s an eightieth birthday party. Cocktail-style attire for dinner followed by dancing.”
“Eighty year olds still dance?”
I narrowed my eyes as the memory of Dex’s grandfather came to mind. “In that family, I’m going to say they can probably bust out the Macarena better than anyone else.”
“Hm.” She joined me. “Just wear a nice dress and some heels. Do your hair—well, do it as well as you can. And hey, if he’s that annoying, use it to torture him a little.”
“Torture him? I’m pretty sure I do that every day I show up to work.”
She snorted. “Didn’t he make an asshole comment about red lipstick?”
“He was amazed I wore lipstick while I worked.”
“So, wear all red.” She nudged me out of the way and rifled through my dresses. I didn’t have many, given that I was almost always in gym gear or shorts to work in, but the dresses I did have flattered me.
