Page 37 of Synced to Us

“What? No.” But I retreat a step. “I don’t want you to chop your head off.”

“I don’t see what’s so difficult. You swing. You hit. Just be careful not to miss.”

“Oh, yeah? You think that’s all there is to it?”

“Honey, I speak the language of men. I know that’s all there is to it.”

A smirk crosses my face before I can frown. “All right. Let’s see it, warrior princess.”

I hand over the wooden handle of the axe. Dee hobbles as she grabs it, surprised by the weight, but recovers with a don’t-you-dare look.

“Swing your heart out,” I make sure to mildly state instead.

She raises the damned thing over her head, and before she can chop off any important part of herself, I slip behind her, correct her stance, and then have her test a swing while I stay close.

In doing so, my groin hits between her ass cheeks so perfectly, I’m about to do my own aim and fire.

The axe swings down in her grip, and I step away from her before she can register my piqued interest.

Shockingly, not only does the axe hit its mark, she also makes a pretty good dent in the wood.

“Impressive,” I say, sidling up beside her.

“I’ll only get better. Now that I have a deadly weapon, tell me what’s going on. Is it your family? The house? Or more specifically, what happened with Brad last night? You can talk to me, Wyn.”

I open my mouth to growl a response, but the time it took to settle Dee into a less-dangerous version of a Lumber-Jill lifted a lot of my anger. “This place is in a shit state.”

“Okay. So is being pissy with me this morning helping?” She swings again, marking another spot a few inches to the left of her first spot. Not bad.

Sweat blooms against the fabric between her shoulder-blades. If only she could take her shirt off, too.

“Wyn.” She breathes heavy as she stops and turns to me. Her clavicle glitters of her exertion against the sun. “I said: Is being pissed off at me for no reason helping you work through your issues?”

I rub my scruffy jaw in an attempt to erase the stunning glimmer of her in the sun. “No, because I’m pissed at how I can’t read you. You’re one thing on the train, another at dinner, and then something else entirely when you were lying in bed listening to my music versus now. Do you know you started humming along with the music after I played it? I turned in my chair, and there you were, twirling your hair with your head tipped up to the ceiling, repeating my music back to me like it—” was written for you. And maybe it was. “Like it was something that belonged to you.”

Dee sucks in a breath, making me second guess the last thing I said. Did I insult her?

She says, “Wait a minute. Are you saying that my actions have somehow contributed to the state of your childhood home? I’m confused.”

“No.” Goddammit, I want to slam my forehead into a tree. “That has to do with Brad’s management of the place. I’m sending money, yet none of it seems to be going into the house.”

“Is that the transfer you labeled ‘miscellaneous’ in your financial records? Money you’re sending to Brad?”

I sigh, giving her answer enough.

She says softly, “Let me take a look at the home’s finances. Maybe I could—”

“No.”

“Wyn, I might be able to solve this and tell you where the money’s going in a single glance. I’m good with numbers.”

“I said no, Dee. A million times.”

“But you won’t tell me why.”

“Because it’s none of your fucking business!”

Dee reels back at the same time my jaw hangs. The rage drains from my face as fast as it infected it. She doesn’t run, but the expression on her face explains enough.

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