Page 26 of Clap Back (Carter Brothers)

All of them went up, paid, and took up a large table right in the middle.

My eyes automatically went to the women who also had their eyes on the Carters.

“They sure do know how to draw the gaze, don’t they?” Athena murmured.

My gaze was settled on one Carter in particular.

And I knew he could tell he had eyes on him, because he kept his face downcast, and his eyes only on his brothers and not the room around him.

Though, I knew that he was very much aware of the people inside the shop.

He was just trying his level best not to attract any more attention than he was getting.

“You should go say something,” Athena whispered.

I was already shaking my head.

My bravado from yesterday was long gone. In its place was the girl who had trouble talking to any boy, even one who showed that he was interested.

“Did you give him your number?” Athena asked.

I was about to answer when there was a loud bang across the room.

I looked up and found that Scott and Sheldon were standing up, both of them with their eyes on me.

“Fuck,” I grumbled darkly.

The romance novel on the table between Athena and me started to feel like a chain wrapped around my wrist.

I hastily picked it up and shoved it underneath my thigh.

“Well look who the cat dragged in,” Scott drawled as he made his way across the coffee shop.

I gritted my teeth and crossed my arms over my chest, hoping to appear calm when inside I was a trembling wreck.

See, here was the thing about Scott.

He might be my stepbrother, but he acted like he was my father, and not a good one at that.

Between him and my actual father, I felt suffocated.

The day I moved out of their house was the day I could finally breathe again.

Not once in the eighteen years I’d lived at home did I feel like I could actually breathe.

I couldn’t walk out of my room without wondering what they were going to do to me.

Hell, Dorsey and I had made a pact to always be there for each other. It got to the point that we always went to our rooms at the same time. We left our rooms at the same time. We made sure to always carpool to school together.

At school, we made sure to always have the same classes if we could—because being together meant that he couldn’t single us out while we were at school.

Scott was not a nice kid.

If he wanted something we had, he’d take it. If he couldn’t take it—like the one time he felt like he needed the brand new bedspread I’d gotten from my paternal grandmother for my birthday—he would somehow manipulate my dad into giving it to him, or ‘borrowing’ it.

Then I’d just never get it back.

Like when he wanted to borrow my car for a long-haul drive for spring break his first year in college because mine would get him better gas mileage.

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