Page 25 of Landlord Daddy's Girl

“I didn’t know I had to get your approval to see somebody,” I counter. “You’re my brother. You’re not my parent.”

“Maybe if you didn’t act like such a child, I wouldn’t have to act like your parent. What do you think you’re doing, Sierra? Slater? Really?” he shouts back. “You really thought it was a good idea to fuck my best friend? A man you’ve known since you were a fucking infant?”

“Infant? Stop being so dramatic. You sound like a hysterical old lady.”

He folds his arms over his chest and glares at me. Slater warned me this would be complicated, especially when Derek found out. And yeah, there’s some small part of me that feels bad about sleeping with my brother’s best friend. I can’t even begin to imagine how awkward that makes things between them. But it’s only a small part of me since my relationship with Slater shouldn’t have any real impact on his relationship with him. We’re all adults. Or at least, we’re supposed to be adults.

“Did it really have to be my best friend, Sierra?”

“It’s not like we planned it,” I argue. “It just happened.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“This isn’t about you, Derek,” I cry. “This has absolutely nothing to do with you!”

His jaw muscles clench as he grits his teeth, the anger burning in his eyes impossible to miss. My brother is usually passive. He’s not an emotional person, preferring calm, cold logic to passionate outbursts. Seeing him standing there, his face almost purple with rage as he stares at me, is as foreign as it is disturbing to me. This just isn’t like him. It’s beyond strange to see, sort of like watching a dog driving a car. It’s just something that doesn’t happen.

“How can you say this has nothing to do with me? You’re my sister and he’s my best friend,” Derek says, a strained calm in his voice.

“We’re also our own people. We’re both adults, free to see whoever we want to see,” I hiss. “How many times have I heard you tell me to find somebody? To find love? How many times have you told me you hate seeing me alone?”

“I never meant for you to hook up with Slater!”

“Derek, we can’t control who we love?—”

I bite off my words the moment the word “love” passes my lips and clamp my hands over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to utter it. Especially not to my brother. It’s not even something I’ve said to Slater yet. I feel it. I feel it deeply. But I’m not sure where he’s at, emotionally speaking, so we haven’t discussed what this thing between us is.

Derek looks like I just dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over his head. His expression cycles through a wide range of emotions, finally seeming to settle on one that is somewhere between rage and nausea. It’s all I can do to keep from rolling my eyes.

“Love?” he asks. “You’re telling me that you love him?”

There is no putting the genie back in the bottle, so I let out a heavy sigh. “Yes. I do. I love him, Derek. He’s a good man, and he treats me like a queen. He’s good to me.”

“Wow, Sierra. Just … wow.”

His indignation over all of this is really pissing me off. “Why can’t you just be happy for us?”

“What is there to be happy about? You’re fucking a man ten years older than you,” he seethes. “A man you’ve known since you were a child—a literal child. It’s creepy as fuck, Sierra.”

“Need I remind you that Dad was eight years older than mom?”

He scoffs. “I guess I don’t need to ask where you got your daddy issues then, do I?”

I recoil like Derek had just slapped me because, truthfully, that’s what it felt like. He stares at me, a cruel little curl to his lips, as if he knows he just scored a direct hit and is relishing it.

“I can’t believe you just said that to me,” I say.

His expression softens slightly, and a glimmer of regret enters his eyes. Derek and I have always been very close. Closer than most brothers and sisters I know. The deaths of our parents meant all we had was each other, and rather than let it split us apart, it brought us closer together. We had our fights over the years, what brother and sister haven’t? But never in all our years and all our fights has he ever said something designed to hurt like that.

“Sierra—”

“How dare you?” I hiss.

“I didn’t mean?—”

“Yeah, you obviously did mean it.”

He takes a step toward me with his hand outstretched. I pull back from him, keeping as much physical distance between us as possible. My eyes are narrowed to slits, and my lips are curled back, my teeth bared, a sneer on my face.

---