“Yeah. Headed to work. Listen?—”
I had no patience to listen to his apologies.
“You told me you talked to him!”
“I did. He was going to be out of town, gave me the codes to his house so I could hang out if I wanted to head to the city on my days off and make sure things were cool there.”
“But you didn’t ask him if I could stay!”
I was shrieking again.
I hated shrieking.
Despised more that it was always Cameron who made me lose my cool. Hell, in the three years Kip and I were together, we never had a heated argument. It was Cameron who turned me into a shrieking lunatic.
“He wasn’t going to be there, Ava. I didn’t see what it mattered.”
God. My freaking adorable and sweet and bone-headed brother. I swear there were marbles in his skull instead of brains, and even then, he was missing a few.
He sighed, and I was still seething. Glaring out the windows at the stupid, gorgeous view I loved so much. My new apartment didn’t have a view. The only way I could get an apartment in the River North Art District, where I was close to work and downtown, was to get an apartment view facing train tracks.
“Listen,” Isaiah said. “I’m sorry. But to be honest, I’m also not. He’s like my brother. And you are my sister. I don’t know what happened to make you hate him so much, but I think this is good. You two will be able to figure your shit out.”
I gagged and quickly covered it. There was nothing brotherly about Cameron. Never had been in my eyes, at least not since I turned twelve and started seeing boys as cute instead of smelly and gross.
“I don’t hate Cameron.”
“That why you called him an asshole on Easter, of all days? Swear to you, Mom dropped to the ground right there and did three Hail Marys for your soul.”
He was chuckling.
I was fighting throwing my phone.
“Well, he is an asshole. Mom shouldn’t be praying for my soul for stating facts.”
“He’s not an asshole, Ava, and you know it.”
It wasn’t that my brother was taking Cameron’s side over mine. It was the fact that there wasn’t a single asshole bone in the Kelley’s genetic line. He hadn’t even been an asshole to me, necessarily.
He’d forgotten the most important and best night of my life.
That didn’t make him a dick, it made me a fool for going into his room that night. It made me a fool for thinking we’d spend a night together and he’d want to keep having them, even if I was young and dumb and told him different.
“You going to stay?” Isaiah asked. He’d gone into big brother mode. If I said no, he’d figure out a solution for me. He’d haul himself to the city, pack up my stuff, and he’d take care of me like he always did.
Except I was now twenty-four years old, and I could take care of myself.
Even if it meant staying in this gorgeous hell.
Fourteen days.
I could do this. I’d have to make sure I only used sharp knives when Cameron wasn’t home, but I could do this.
What could go wrong in only fourteen days?
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’m staying.”
“Good. And fix whatever issue you have with Cam. It’s gone on far too long.”