Page 68 of Frisco

“About me being here? That Mom asked me to come bring you back?”

She huffed. “Mom does not want me to come back. I guarantee that.”

“She was in tears—”

Claudia laughed, coming to stand in front of me and crossing her arms over her chest again. “She was not. Mom hustled you. We both saw how Ghost reacted to you at the bar that night, and trust me, we already knew. Ghost sent someone to ask questions about you all over town—like that would happen and neither of us would hear about it? You’re supposed to be the smart one. Mom didn’t send you after me. She sent you after Ghost. I was just the excuse.”

I opened my mouth.

Claudia fixed me with a look. “I can’t figure out why you came. Because of Ghost or because you didn’t want to stay in Friendly any longer? My guess? The latter, but now I’m hearing how you came here on the back of Ghost’s motorcycle and whose bed you were in last night, so maybe I’m the foolish one. You and Ghost, huh? He’s not a rebound type of guy. Not for you, not from Foley.”

Aw, snap.

Right there, with that last statement, I realized a few things.

One, Shane had pushed away some of the pain I’d been ignoring from Foley.

Two, my sister didn’t care one iota about why I was here.

And three, Claudia was still a bitch.

My walls had been lowered. Shane had done that, but they slammed back up now, and my sister saw the change come over me. She took a step back, her eyes speculative. Or maybe they were calculating.

“What crawled up your ass and got you twisted?” I asked. “You brought Foley up last time I saw you too, and you actually seemed to regret it. This time you brought him up on purpose. To hurt me?”

“Oh.” She laughed, mocking me, and started to walk in a circle.

I moved with her. I couldn’t help myself.

“You’re lying to yourself, Kali, if you think you actually came for me.”

“Who cares? I would’ve found you and tried to talk you into going back to Mom. She did ask me to come and get you.”

She shook her head. “You’re just running, like you always have. Tell me something, sister. Why the fuck did you stay with Foley? You knew before you married him that he was a cheater, and you stayed with him.”

“Like I was supposed to believe everything you told me?” I laughed right back at her, mirroring her mocking tone perfectly. “All you’ve done is take my stuff. My things. My cars. My friends.” We hadn’t gotten to that yet. “My boyfriends. My jobs—”

“You’re lying on that one. I only took one of your—”

“Two. You took two of my jobs.”

She frowned. “Which ones? I remember the school concession stand job, but—”

“Mrs. Bierreto’s ice cream shop.”

She stopped frowning. “Oh. Yeah. I told her you were lazy and had an eating disorder and would binge on all the ice cream.”

I ground to a halt, my mouth on the floor. “You told her that?”

She laughed. “She offered me the job instead, right on the spot. She had no clue I was telling her about myself. I binged on all the ice cream.”

“You’re confessing now that you have an eating disorder?”

“God, no. That’s a lie. I just really like dick, cigarettes, and booze. Right?” She shot me a dark look, starting our circling again. “Isn’t that all you think about me? You don’t think I actually care about you.”

“Because you don’t.”

“As if. I only care about you.”

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