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But then he reaches up, carding his fingers through his hair as a shallow sigh leaves him, and I’m hit with a pang of emotion as I recognize the move. He used to always do that when he was exhausted; I remember teasing him about it being one of his tells that his body needed rest. Sometimes we’d stay up late just talking for hours about nothing and everything, and when he started combing his fingers through his hair like that, I’d insist it was time to go to sleep.
He’s bigger now; bulked up with hard-earned muscle and covered in ink. He wears his hair a little longer on top than he used to, but it suits him. His voice is deeper, and his stare is harder. He may look different, but I know my Madd’s still in there; the boy who said he’d never stop loving me.
He always was a good liar.
5
Before leaving the council meeting last night, Tristan gave me a heads-up that his dad had already made the call for Sloane to come back. As if enough bad news hadn’t already been dropped on me.
Huntersandthe return of Sloane Masters? It’s like hitting the bad news jackpot, all in one night.Lucky me.
While I’m glad Tris warned me so I wasn’t blindsided when she showed up today, the knowledge of her return prevented me from getting any sleep whatsoever. I crawled back into bed when I got home and just lay there for hours, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the hell I did to deserve this windfall of bad fucking karma.
The lack of sleep has me in an even worse mood than usual, only amplified when I’m about to push the door open to exit the squad complex and I seeherthrough the window.
I’d recognize that mess of curly dark hair and her petite stature anywhere. Sloane has always been fuckingtiny, the top of her head barely reaching my shoulder. And even though eight years have passed, she pretty much looks the same, except her tits are a little bigger and her ass is rounder. Not that her small tits ever bothered me. They were the first pair I ever touched, and to me, they were perfect.
I stand frozen with my hands against the push bar of the door, heart thumping, breath stalling. She looks sexy as fuck in a pair of yoga pants and a little white crop top, and the fact that she has the nerve to show up here looking so damn good makes me hate her even more. She’s standing out there like she owns the damn place, onmypractice field withmyfriends. Chatting and laughing with them and acting like she never left; like she’s not a ghost from my past here to fucking haunt me.
I take one last, hard look at her, drag in a deep breath, and push open the door.
Once I step outside, I don’t look at her again. Not when I walk across the field, and not even when I march right up to where she’s standing with the other squad leaders- my sister and my closest friends- who have welcomed her back with open arms. I look past her, through her, anywhere butather.
It takes everything in me not to. Something about Sloane has always pulled me in, drawing me to her like a moth to a flame. And despite my best efforts to ignore her, I still feel it, even though I don’t want to.
By the time we finish making our announcements to the squad, I’m practically shaking with the effort it takes to restrain myself from looking her way. That, paired with the fact that I’m exhausted from not getting any sleep, has my already short temper on a hair trigger. When Avery grabs my arm to pull me aside, I damn near take her head off.
“What?” I demand, whipping around to face my sister as she flinches back.
“Jesus, Madd, get it together,” she admonishes with a scowl.
I bury my fingers in my hair, squeezing my eyes shut and dragging in a deep breath. Then I blow it out slowly, steadying myself and opening my eyes. “Sorry, I’m just…”
“I know.” She stares into my eyes, and without me having to explain, I know she does.
Avery always jokes that we have twin telepathy- and while we don’t actually have any mystical powers bridging our minds, we did share a womb, forging a deeper connection than most siblings have. We can communicate with a single look, which is why I don’t have to tell her how twisted up my mind is right now. She knows how hard this is for me.
I know it’s hard for her, too. I’m her brother, but Sloane was her best friend. It was easy for her to play both sides while Sloane was hours away in Denver, but now that she’s back, Avery is caught between the two of us, likely feeling the strain of her loyalty being yanked in opposite directions.
Her eyes drift past me, and I see the alarm in them before I hear Sloane’s voice.
“Hey Madd.”
Every muscle in my body tenses at hearing my name roll off her tongue. Avery’s eyes flicker back to mine, rounded in concern and begging me to play nice. For anyone else, I’d refuse, but Avery’s pleading stare has me sighing in resignation.
Guess I’ll have to get this over with at some point, right?
Slowly, I turn around, and right when my eyes land on Sloane, I wish I hadn’t.
Seeing her up close is like a gut punch. She’s just as beautiful as she used to be, with those long, dark lashes framing her green eyes and those full, pouty lips that I’ve kissed more times than I can count. Her skin is a creamy caramel tan, almost golden, and her glossy dark hair is longer now, but still wild with loose curls.
A breeze picks up, carrying her familiar scent to me- notes of vanilla, jasmine, and peach. She must still use that fancy peach body wash she used to steal from her mom’s shower when we were teenagers. The breeze ruffles her hair, and that’s when I see it- the jagged scar running from the side of her forehead to her temple.
At the sight of it, my blood runs cold- suddenly I’m seventeen again, kneeling in the snow as I cradle Sloane in my arms, screaming for her to wake up.
She quickly darts a hand up to sweep her hair over the scar, but now that I’ve seen it there’s a lump in my throat that I can hardly breathe past.
“Oh, come on,” she chuckles uncomfortably. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not even that bad anymore.”
