AllFreeNovel
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The way he puts the glass on the nearby table is too deliberate. Firelight catches in the facets of the glass. Minuscule fires burn in the center of the diamonds. A cut of sunlight bisects the glass, throwing diamond rainbows onto the opposite wall. The light continues from the table to the rug to the bookshelves. Accents on the spines of the books gleam in that light. Metallic. Ordered. It would take another kind of brushstroke to replicate those bold bands.
“Emerson.”
Sin’s got his hands folded in front of him. I don’t know how long I’ve been paying attention to the room. All I know is that it kept my heart from racing out of control.
“Tell me what you’re doing here.” He doesn’t react to my tone, which is not polite, which is not kind at all. I don’t know why he’s here in my space. I’m finished playing games. He just watches me. It’s worse than what Will does, which is to harass me until I want to kill him. Sin lets all his worry show on his face. “I can see what you’re doing, prick. Tell me why you’re here or get the fuck out of my house.”
“I got a call from the prison.” Sin looks me directly in the eyes as he says it. He’s not in the sunlight. He is in shadow, which makes his eyes slightly more difficult to read. Eyes like mine. Like our mother’s. Other than this one feature, he looks like our father. All the light is behind him. The expression on his face, the tilt of his mouth—it’s serious.
Hope feels like catching a wave. “Is he dead?”
He blows out a breath and looks down at his clasped hands. Back up at me. “Dad’s up for parole.”
Dust motes whirl softly through the air behind Sin’s head. The wall behind him could be a still life featuring Daphne’s painting. A round candle my housekeeper put underneath it. A small silver bowl that was given out at a charity event. There are angles at play in the light. Angles in the painting. They intersect and double back. Like a lattice. Like a pattern. Like light from around a closed door. A sliced-out rectangle on a bare floor. Sin, sitting in his chair. Waiting.
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do. We all care. You don’t have to pretend it’s not a big deal.”
“I don’t know why you think I’d have a problem with it.”
He stares at me. “You do have a fucking problem with it. Why are you lying to me?”
“You could have told me this in a text.”
Sin shakes his head slowly. “No, I don’t think I could have.”
“Did you forget how to read? How to write?”
A frustrated, irritated grin spreads across his face. This grin is what makes him a minor Instagram celebrity. Women love to look at that shit. They don’t know he only grins like that when he’s pissed.
“I didn’t forget anything, Emerson.”
“This was a lovely visit.” I stand up from my chair. Sin stands up, too. “Time for you to go.”
“Not a chance in hell.”
Anger and disappointment fight with each other. Going for blood. They’re about to get loose. I thought that motherfucker might be dead. I’m a fucking fool. And I don’t need Sin to see it. “Leave.”
“No.”
“I don’t want you here.”
“I don’t care that much.”
“What are you so afraid of?” I’m taunting him. Baiting him. Trying to back him toward the door, to get him the hell out of my house, but my brother stands his ground.
“Are you going to make me say it?” Sin laughs and sweeps his hand through the air, gesturing at me with my hands in my pockets. “You? Being like this? That’s how I know everything is fucked.”
“Oh? A person standing in his own den, waiting for his asshole brother to leave? That’s how you know? It’s how I know you should leave. I’m fine, and I don’t give a fuck about Dad.”
“I can see what you’re doing, too.” Fear is beating at the inside my chest now. An old, humiliating fear. It’s cold, with long fingers that could pick a lock if it needed to. If it couldn’t find another way out. “I see what you’re doing, Emerson, I can see your face. You’re making it into art.”
I hate,hate, that Sin knows this about me. I hate that he knows how I keep the world at arm’s length. By making it into a painting in my mind. By making it art. Considering it like art. At a frozen remove.
“Bold of you, to think you’re art. You look like shit.”
“You’re not fine.”
