Page 77 of Burn With Me

She rolls her eyes again. “When isn’t it complicated regarding men?”

That’s a rhetorical question if I’ve ever heard one, but I choose to answer it, anyway. “When they’re too dumb to play mind games.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this conversation with jokes, Rori.”

I groan. “It was worth a try—you’re like a pitbull when you latch onto a topic.”

“More like a chihuahua,” she replies. “Pitbulls are big babies. It’s the ankle biters you gotta look out for.”

“Is that what you are?” I smile. “An ankle biter?”

“I don’t know,” she says, eyeing me. “Depends on if you piss me off. Now, enough fucking around—spill.”

Shit. I go to cross my arms over my chest in a protective measure, only to pause and wince when I accidentally rub my sore nipples. She picks up on the small flinch immediately and her eyes slide down to my chest. “Rori?”

Oh fuck it, she’s going to find out anyway. I groan and then slip my arms out of my sweatshirt. The second I pull it over my head and drop it onto the kitchen counter, her eyes go round. I don’t need to completely strip for her to see exactly what I’m about to tell her.

“Holy fucking shit!” she snaps. “Did you pierce your nipples?”

“Not exactly,” I reply. “He did.”

She blinks at me. Honestly, the slack expression on her face would make me laugh if it weren’t for such a serious reason. Her gaze goes from my breasts back to my face. “He did?” she repeats as if she can’t believe what she just heard. “Isaacpiercedyour nipples?”

“If it’s any consolation, I pierced his tongue.” Except he’d wanted me to pierce his tongue and him piercing my nipples hadn’t exactly been my choice.

“What the fuck?” Hel gapes at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted a second head with a dozen eyeballs. “You—he—you let him—” She stops and shakes her head, and I have to admit that if I were in her position, I would be just as flabbergasted.

I turn back to my food and pick it back up. I watch her push away from the counter as I shovel more pasta into my mouth. Hel paces back and forth, muttering to herself as she goes. She doesn’t turn back to me, though, until I’m more than halfway through my meal. By then, I’m feeling stuffed. I dump the last of the pasta into the trash and toss the now-empty container into the sink.

“What does this mean?” Hel demands. “Are you two together?”

“It’s…” I roll my tongue against the inside of my cheek, trying to come up with an answer that doesn’t make me sound crazy. There isn’t one, though. “I don’t know,” I finally say with a sigh.

She stares at me. “You let a man pierce your nipples and you don’t know if you’re even together?” she repeats. “Who are you and where’s the Aurora Summers I know?”

I give a halfhearted shrug. “Listen, she’s—I’m—just as confused as you are.”

“Oh, are you?” She flips away from me and more muttering ensues. She’s talking so fast and quietly, but every once in a while, I catch a curse or two. Yeah, I get it. She’s always been the mom of our friend group and now she’s watched me dive off the deep end. Hell,I’mthe one in the water and even I’m concerned.

Hel finally stops her pacing. “This is ridiculous. You need to stop seeing him.”

I blink at her—not unlike the way she’d done to me earlier. “Are you suggesting or telling me?”

She crosses her arms back over her chest and glares back at me. “Telling.”

“And you think that’s going to work?” I scowl. “That you just tell me what to do with my life and I’ll just agree and do what you say?”

“He’s dangerous, Rori!” Hel snaps. “You have to see that—plus he’s yourstepbrother—”

“I know what he is!” I yell back. Fuck that word. I hate it. Fucking stepbrother. His father’s marriage to my mother won’t even last, but Isaac … Isaac will … I stop myself. Isaac will what? He’ll last? He’ll stick around after they divorce? Will he? Can I count on that?

“See!” Hel points at my face. “You’re not even sure about him yourself. Otherwise, you’d know what the two of you are. There’s not even a label there. Are you going to date him? After everything he’s done to you? What about that video? Does he even know about why they treated you like that? Has he asked you anything about yourself that didn’t somehow lead to him getting in your pants?”

I scrub a hand down my face. “Stop,” I say. “Please, I just—I need to think.” I turn away from her.

“Thinking is what got you into this mess,” she continues. “You need to end things. Whatever is going on between the two of you, you need to walk away. It’s only going to get more complicated from here.”

“I asked you to fucking stop!” I snap, whirling back on her. “Can’t you just listen for fucking once instead of judging me!”

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