Page 11 of Flipping the Script

“Maybe, but you’re also the one who came back.” He tossed me a smug smile that made my blood boil. “Which is worse, not leaving and being okay with that? Or leaving and having to come back and admit defeat?”

I drew in a shaky breath. I refused to punch him in his stupid face in the middle of my little sister’s party. “You think me coming back is the same as me admitting defeat?”

“Isn’t it?” He turned his face like he was looking at something off in the distance. “Unless your plan was always to come back, then it seems like a pretty epic defeat to me.” He waved at someone, a bright smile splitting his lips. “Excuse me. I need to say hi to my dads.”

He slipped away, striding across the yard toward where his parents and Adam were huddled together.

The rage that had filled me at his remarks melted away in a rush, leaving a sense of quiet resentment.

Jesse and I were always going to be like oil and water—or gasoline and a flamethrower. Time to go back to avoiding him so neither one of us ended up in jail.

3

JESSE

“Please, please, please, please,”Hannah pleaded.

“No.” I didn’t bother looking up from my phone.

“Pretty please with a Camaro on top,” she tried.

“What year?” I looked up to find her making begging hands at me.

“1969,” she blurted.

“Which model?”

“The… A class?”

“A class?”

“Yeah, A for asshole.” She tossed a wad of balled-up paper at me. It bounced off my shoulder and fell to the floor.

“Never heard of it.” I pointed to the paper ball. “You dropped something.”

She heaved a big, theatrical sigh and looked up at the ceiling. “Lord, give me strength with these boys.”

Adam came up next to her. “Why do you look like you want to strangle him?”

“Because he’s being difficult.”

“What else is new?” Adam grinned. “What did he do now?”

“I asked him one teeny tiny little favor, and he said no.” She pouted, but it was in that fake way she did when she was playing around.

“Why’d you say no?” Adam slung his arm around Hannah’s waist. “It’s not like you have a life or anything.”

“You’re pretty mouthy for someone who’s asking for a favor.”

My brother grinned. “Am I wrong?”

Reaching down, I scooped up the ball of paper and tossed it at my brother. “Go away. It’s my day off.”

I’d made the mistake of coming over to my dads’ house to hang out with their dog while they were at work. Adam and Hannah had shown up twenty minutes ago to get something out of the attic and had been disturbing my peace ever since.

“So what I’m hearing is that you have all the time in the world to bring some boxes to the cabin.” Hannah grinned mischievously.

“You might want to get your hearing checked because I said nothing of the sort.” I couldn’t stop my smile at their antics. They were ruthless when they teamed up.

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