Page 104 of Holding On To Good

Verity watched in grim satisfaction as the blonde faced Miles, chin lifted, shoulders back. Somehow, the blonde evenly met his gaze, held it despite the heated anger rolling off him in rushing waves. Like she was ready to fight yet another battle in this stupid, senseless, wrong-headed war she’d started.

Blondie was bold, Verity would give her that.

Bold and awful and terrible and not even remotely good enough for Miles.

The blonde opened her mouth—probably to toss out more baseless, horrendous accusations with which to smear his character—but Miles gave a sharp nod in Verity’s direction before she could.

“My sister,” he said, voice clipped and cold.

She whipped her head around to look at Verity. Then whipped it back to look at Miles. Then back to Verity. And yet once more to Miles.

“Your… sister?” she asked weakly.

Miles gave another nod. “Verity.”

“Oh.” The one word came out strangled, as if the blush that’d turned her pale skin red and blotchy had also seeped into her throat and wrapped around her vocal cords. “I—I thought…”

“We all know what you thought,” Miles said, expression hard, tone dismissive.

“It was a mistake,” she said stiffly. “I misread the situation.”

Verity rolled her eyes. “I think the words you’re looking for are I’m and sorry.”

The blonde blinked as if she’d never heard of two such outlandish words in all her years of speaking the English language and Verity knew no apology would be forthcoming from this chick.

Ever.

She took a small step back. “I should go.”

“Yes,” Verity said. “You really should.”

The blonde turned.

“Wait,” Miles said, pulling something from his pocket. “You forgot this.”

And he held out his hand, a slinky black thong dangling from his forefinger.

Blondie, red and blotchy again—blushes were not a good look on her—swiped the thong from his finger, then stormed off. Verity and Miles stood side-by-side and watched as she crossed the street to a small white car, got in and drove off.

“No more one-night stands or casual hookups for you,” Verity said. “You can’t be trusted to make safe, rational decisions when meaningless sex is involved. Congratulations. You’ve just jumped to the top of my list.”

He slid her a narrow glance. “Top of your list for what?”

The man was. Ticked. Off. His lips barely moved when he spoke and when she patted his arm, his muscles were like a rock.

“To find you your forever person,” she said. “I thought Urban was the one who needed the whole wife and white picket fence thing, but you’ve proved me wrong. Not an easy thing to do, by the way. I mean, I hate to let Urban fumble his way to a happy ending with Willow on his own, but you obviously need me more than he does.”

And she was certain Urban was fumbling. Not that he’d admit it. Every time Verity asked for a progress report on his wooing of Willow, he had the nerve to tell her it was none of her business.

“I’m going to shower,” Miles grumbled, and then he, too, stormed off.

Leaving Verity standing in the middle of the sidewalk with her bike, a pastry box, and all of her good intentions for coming over here in the first place.

Why did she even bother?

But she was doing her best to cut her brothers some slack, if only because she’d be gone in a few short months and was slowly, but ever increasingly, starting to realize how much she was going to miss them.

Even the more annoying ones.

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