Page 87 of Beg Me

“Hey,” Miles says. “What’s going on over there?”

His voice holds steady, and I can’t glean anything out of his tone.

“Not much,” I say, getting to my feet. “Just put some laundry away. Gus is hanging out with friends.” I could leave it there, but what the hell. “Waiting on Markie to get home from Audrey’s.”

Miles hums, and I’m not sure what to make of that. He could just be distracted like usual, or just not give a shit. That would be totally Miles coded. Or he may be wondering if I said her name for a reason—perhaps to give him an opening to say what’s on his mind.

There’s a long pause, rippling with anticipation. I stay silent and wait him out because, at the end of the day, his excuse, if he has one, is inconsequential to me. He upset her, and that’s all I need to know. I just hope he’s smart enough to know that.

“Have you been spending much time with her?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“I figured,” he says, sighing. “Listen, Jory, about that … I tried to warn you.”

I bite my tongue, trying to be fair and at least hear him out. Even if my mind is made up and he’s an arrogant asshole—I knew this prior to his conversation with Markie—and there’s zero doubt in my mind that he’s responsible for whatever hostility transpired between them, he is my friend … at least for now. The right thing to do is to let him say his piece and then react.

That way, he’ll know that I’m reacting to him and not to anything she said. I’ll be damned if he blames her. He can get pissed at me.

“Markie’s a pistol,” he says. “I tried to tell you that before she had a chance to wrap you up in her nonsense.”

“In her nonsense? I’m not following you, Miles.”

“The pickleball bullshit. She told me you were her partner, and I can only imagine what stunts she pulled to get you to do that.”

I flinch, not just at his words, but at his tone, too. Miles is abrasive and pretty cold as a human being. But, for some reason, I expected his relationship with his family to be different. More … warm. Even though Markie seemed to share a lot of my sentiments about her brother, I still imagined that he had a soft spot for her and Mira.

“Actually,” I say, pacing around the room. “I volunteered, and she turned me down a few times.”

“Right.”

“Really,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “She’s a lot of fun and one hell of a competitor.”

He scoffs, and the sound pisses me off. “She said you were fucking, so cut the shit, Plath.”

“Excuse me?” My feet stop moving. “You wanna rephrase that?”

“No.”

My blood heats, scalding my veins as it races its way around my body. Who the fuck does Miles think he is? And what makes him think that I’m the guy who’s going to put up with it?

“That would be a mistake,” I say, narrowing my eyes.

I have to walk a fine line. If he were anyone else, I’d tell him to screw off. But he’s Markie’s brother and will be her brother whether she and I are fucking or not.

My hand balls into a fist at the idea of oversimplifying what this is between us to just fucking. That doesn’t come close to describing our relationship. Hearing it reduced to that—to something cheap and disposable—is an insult. Especially coming from her brother who, at the very least, should have her back. It ignites something ugly inside me.

“You do know that she does this, right?” he asks. “She’s a little attention whore who⁠—”

“Stop.” The room becomes eerily quiet as my hand curls into a fist so tight that my nails bite into my skin. “I’d stop talking if I were you.”

He chuckles. “She doesn’t need you to defend her.”

“Do you realize that you’re talking about your sister?” I ask. “Forget the way that I feel about her. She’s your family, Miles. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me aside from the fact that I have two sisters who can’t just move on with their damn lives and stop trying to pretend like we’re some big happy family. I mean, I probably wouldn’t even recognize them if I saw them on the street.”

What the actual fuck?