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“You were my little sister,” Morgan said, still up on his high goddamn horse. “I was looking out for your best interests.”
“Wow, thanks,” Pike snapped. “Good to know my best friend thought I was no good. If I’d had a sister I would’ve been delighted, I would’ve been fucking thrilled, if she’d dated you. Because you were my best friend, the best guy that I knew. I would’ve known I could trust her with you, trust you to treat her right. And you thought I was just going to—I can’t fucking believe you, man, I cannot fucking believe you.”
Pike looked like he might actually cry, and he turned away quickly, glaring out across the street. I could only imagine what my parents thought, watching this entire exchange from the house as they must be. We were all yelling too loudly for them not to. The neighbors were probably watching, too. Fuck, the whole town would know about this by tomorrow morning.
“She was in high school! She was too young for you!”
“Yeah, and we talked about that, I was too young for him,” I snapped. “But that was still my choice. And you could’ve let us figure that out on our own. Pike never would’ve mistreated me. Would it have killed you to just fucking talk to me about it, or Pike, instead of shutting us both out? Instead of being a controlling jerk! You should’ve let me make my own decisions!”
Morgan scoffed. “Clearly I can’t let you do that, look at the decisions you make.”
I had never felt so full of fury in my life. Pike turned back around at that, his eyes blazing. “You give Billie back her letter. Right fucking now. It’s her letter, her property, and you shouldn’t have taken it. Whatever ground you had to stand on, it’s gone now. Yeah, it’s a good thing we waited until she was older for us to start our relationship, but it wasn’t our choice to wait. I thought Billie didn’t care about me, I thought she was done, God only knows what she thought!”
“I thought he didn’t care about me, that’s what I thought,” I said. “Which is worse, Morgan, huh? Which is worse? Knowing that Pike sent me a letter and whatever he said in there, and talking with you reasonably about waiting until I was older for us to start a relationship? Or hiding it from us and making us both hate you? Because I don’t know about Pike—but I hate you. I really, truly hate you. You are not my brother. And you can explain to Mom and Dad why I’m not spending Christmas with you, because I can’t even stand to look at your ugly stuck up arrogant face right now.”
Pike stared at me, mouth slightly open. “That was really hot,” he said hoarsely.
Morgan glared at him. Pike flipped him off.
“Thank you, Pike,” I said graciously.
“I’m going to be in Billie’s life if she wants me there,” Pike said. “Whether you like it or not. I don’t want to fight with you. Fucked up as it might be, I still want to be friends with you, because I never stopped caring about you. But if you don’t agree with us? Fine. We’re not letting that stop us. I love her and I’m going to be with her for as long as she’ll have me. And that’s her decision to make, not yours.”
Morgan advanced on Pike, his hands curling into fists. “Those are bold words—”
I got in the middle. “You want to lay a hand on him you can go through me first,” I announced. I sure as hell couldn’t win a fight against Morgan but I could make him miserable in the process, and if Dad saw Morgan hit me or throw me around at all, he’d tan Morgan’s hide so fast Morgan wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week straight. Our dad had never spanked us, but he’d made it clear that Morgan wasn’t to roughhouse with me and was to treat me with respect.
Morgan glared at me but backed down. I looked over at Pike. “You should go home,” I said quietly. I hated to ask him to leave, but this was something I had to sort out with Morgan. He and Pike had clearly said all that they could say to each other, and so it was probably best if for now we just let it lie.
Pike didn’t look too happy about that, but he nodded, giving me a soft kiss before backing away. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“I’ll call you,” I promised him, and I blew him a kiss for good measure as he got into his car and drove away.
Then I turned to Morgan. “Show me the letter.”
Morgan took me upstairs to his childhood room. He still slept over here every once in a while when he had come over for dinner and ended up staying late. It was pretty much the same as it had been when he’d lived here regularly. Mom was always saying there was no need to redo the room since Morgan still might use it and we never had guests over anyway.
