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She’s not my little sister. That was pretty fucking obvious given that since she’d got back from college, all he’d done was lose sleep and walk around with a hard on when he thought about her. She never was like a sister. His parents never made any secret about the fact that they would have been overjoyed if he ever decided he wanted to date Alix. Obviously, they didn’t see her like his kid sister either. No one did.
Fuck, he hadn’t really either, growing up. He’d just used that as a convenient excuse. The truth was, Alix was just there. She was annoying when she was younger, then she turned thirteen and guys started noticing her and she was even more annoying because he and Chance had to work overtime to keep them the hell away from her. He’d kicked more than one kid’s ass because they wouldn’t heed their warnings.
He’d never thought of her as anything other than a kid. A younger kid. A girl, but still way younger. A kid he’d grown up with. A kid who wasn’t quite a friend because she was so much younger than him. She wasn’t his sister, but she was Chance’s sister and there was always a line there, drawn in the sand between them that he’d never cross.
Then she went away.
She went away and he didn’t let himself think about the fact that he missed her. That he missed her being annoying. Bratty. He missed having to watch out for her. He missed swatting guys off of her. He missed her sunny smile and her easy laugh and her tender heart. He missed the way she and Chance used to spar with each other. Chance was the only person on earth who could coach or aggravate Alix into saying dirty things once in a while and that was funny too. She was a piece of his puzzle and he threw himself into work and stocks and making money. He’d thrown himself into other things too- mostly the arms of anyone who was available and willing- but he didn’t want to think about that any more than he wanted to admit to himself that he’d missed Alix when she was gone.
Then she came back.
And everything went straight to shit.
He felt like he was living in a shit castle in the middle of a shit storm in a world composed of shit. That’s what his life felt like at the moment. He didn’t need any more shit, but apparently Alix wasn’t done with him.
She peeled herself away from the water tower and tucked her legs in underneath her, even on the hard metal. Her face was twisted into a mask of fury and he knew she was going to unleash a class five fucking storm his way.
“You! You don’t give a fuck? That’s nice. How nice for you. Tell me something I don’t know! Wait. Maybe I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what it’s like to be on the receiving end of this shit my whole life.” She thumped a hand over her chest, right above her beating heart. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to love someone for years? Years! Years and they never notice you? Not once. I finally broke down and begged you. Yeah. That night. Prom. I begged you to notice me. I said something that I hoped would get your attention. It didn’t. You looked at me like an annoying fly that wouldn’t leave you alone. That you wished would just drop off the face of the earth. You saved all the good parts of yourself for everyone else. You gave them to everyone else. Everyone. But. Me. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
Oh. That was rich. It was all about her. It was news to him that she had a crush on him or whatever. He hadn’t known. She’d hid it well. Or maybe he was just that dense. Either way, she wasn’t getting away with making him out to be the bad guy in their story.
“Yeah?” he snarled, practically baring his teeth at her. “You think you’re so hard up? You had everything. You had Chance and me to protect you your whole life. Here’s a news fucking flash for you. I would have taken you to prom. I would have, but I would never have taken you somewhere like here, in the backseat of my car, and ruined you. Maybe now I get why you asked, because you claim you felt something for me, but think about it from my end. I’d spent my whole life watching out for you. You were just a kid in my eyes. A beautiful girl who was growing up, but I wanted to keep you safe. Safe from the guys who wanted to get in your pants. Safe from guys who just wanted to use you and spit you out. It’s a miracle you graduated a virgin, based on how much ass Chance and I had to kick.”
