Page 129 of Ghosted

“Leave.”

“No hello?” I press a hand to my chest. “After everything we’ve been through? That’s cold, Alice. I thought we were closer than this.”

Her mouth barely moves. “Leave me alone, Johnny.”

That tone is flat and final. Like I’m already over. Like somehow, along the fucking chaos, I became the toy she broken, put down and doesn’t plan to pick back up.

I stop a few feet from her, close enough to bother her, far enough that she knows I’m choosing not to touch. For now.

“You know, this is fucking sweet in a deeply pathetic way.” I glance around the pool room, at the empty bleachers, the blue glow trembling over everything. “He brought you to his little clean place. Shit, I mean candles and flowers are over done right? Why not go for chlorine, silence, and then smother you in emotional constipation. Very Jagger. Did he stare at the water and pretend he has a personality, or did you two skip straight to the tragic bonding?”

Alice stands, tugging her sweater tighter around her.

My smile sharpens. “Cute sweater.”

“Don’t.”

“What?” I let my gaze drag over it because I’m an asshole, and because she knows I’m doing it on purpose. “I’m just saying. You can cover up all you want, pretty thing. It’s not going to protect you from me.”

Her jaw tightens. “I’m not doing this with you.”

“You keep saying that.” I glance toward the exit, then back at her. “And yet you haven’t actually left.”

“I was leaving before you crawled out of whatever shadow you were hiding in.”

“See? Mean.” I press a hand to my chest. “After all the bonding we’ve done.”

“There is no we.”

I laugh because if I don’t, I might stop smiling, and fuck that. She doesn’t get honest from me. Not after standing here in my brother’s clean little pool, looking at me like she already survived me once and thinks she can do it again.

“Let’s not forget it was you, who let me in,” I say.

Her eyes flash. Good. There’s the Alice I know. “You really want to bring that up?”

“Why not? I remember it fondly.”

“I chose a mistake.”

My smile sharpens, but something ugly shifts under it. Not hurt. Fuck hurt. I don’t care that she doesn’t want me. I care that she went back to him. I care that Jagger got to stand here and look holy because he stopped when she asked, like that makes him better than me.

“That’s cute,” I say. “You fuck up once and suddenly you’re enlightened?”

“That’s all you were, Johnny. A mistake.”

I step closer, and she holds her ground, chin lifted, eyes hard. Brave little thing. Stupid little thing.

“You sure?” My voice drops. “Because you were pretty fucking convincing when you opened that door for me. When you shoved me on your lumpy little couch, and rode my cock like you were fucking starving for it.”

Her hand moves fast.

The slap cracks across my face loud enough to bounce off the tile. My cheek burns, and for a second, all I do is breathe through it while Alice stands there with her hand still raised and rage shaking through her body.

Then I laugh.

Low. Ugly. Pleased.

“There she is.”